CHAPTER 24

FIRST STEPS

334 AR

As soon as they put some distance from the lake, Briar guided Ashia to a marsh where a thick patch of alagai’viran grew around an ancient, sagging tree. The weed had even taken root in the moss on the tree’s bark, growing right up the trunk.

“In here,” Briar said.

Ashia shook her head. “This will not do. It is too damp…”

Briar smiled. “Trust.”

The ground was soft, sucking at Rasa’s hooves, though Briar walked atop it like an insect on water, leaving only faint markings in his path.

The soil at the base of the tree, held together by an old network of roots, was firmer and drier, but it was a cramped space. Barely big enough for the horse.

Briar tied her bridle to a branch. “Follow.”

He sprang easily into the tree, climbing into the boughs and quickly out of sight. Ashia stared after him a moment, then shrugged and followed.

Briar hadn’t gone far. Just above, the great trunk split, then split again, and again. The trunks were like the four fingers of a hand, their crux the palm. Briar had used them as supports for a ring of woven branches, looking like a great bird’s nest. The space was large enough for the three of them to relax comfortably, sheltered by the branches, hidden by the leaves, and protected by the demon root, safe as any warded camp.

Briar smiled, setting down his pack. “An’ we got bread!”

The smile was infectious, and Ashia laughed, setting Kaji down and freeing the poor child from his pack. The water sickness had abated once they were back on land, but Kaji was weak, hungry, and dehydrated.

Briar watched silently as Ashia changed Kaji’s soiled bido. She covered herself with a scarf as she opened her armored robe to set the child at her breast. Briar started, realizing what was happening, and quickly turned his back. Ashia closed her eyes, and began to sing.

The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

Teeth like knives, claws like spears

The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

But Briar didn’t fear

The thorns were long

Bramble and burr

They tore its flesh

And caught its fur

The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

Teeth like knives, claws like spears

The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

But Briar didn’t fear

The wolf twisted,

Flesh caught and stuck,

Briar took stone,

Drew back and struck

The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

Teeth like knives, claws like spears

The nightwolf came to the briarpatch

But Briar didn’t fear

Briar tried to swallow a sob and choked, clutching his knees and shaking. Not knowing what to make if it, Ashia stopped singing.

Kaji had fallen asleep on the teat, exhausted from their ordeal. She gently pried him away and set him in her shield. By the time she turned to Briar, he was gone.

Briar ran, but not far. He had not expected the song to affect him so strongly, but while she was singing, he remembered. His father used to sing that song to him. How could he forget such a thing? It was like forgetting the sun.

“Mudboy.” He punched himself in the chest. “Can’t even ’member their faces.”

He circled the area, cursing himself as he tended the briarpatch. When he had cooled down, he orbited closer to the tree. Rasa was still saddled, grazing on hogroot.

Part of him was alarmed at the sight of their protection being stripped away, but the horse needed to eat, and the briarpatch was large. The danger was minimal, and there were advantages to traveling with an animal smelling of hogroot. Demons would shy away from her unless provoked.

The horse snorted as he drew close. Pack animals tended not to like Briar as a rule, and in truth he cared little for them in return. Mounts were unpredictable when cories were about. He trusted his own two feet more than an animal’s four.

“There, girl.” He stroked Rasa’s neck before removing the saddle and brushing her down.

“I am sorry.” Ashia’s voice came from above.

Briar kept working. “Nothin’ to be sorry over. Just…got homesick, is all.”

“I understand.” Ashia’s quiet words drifted down from the sheltering boughs. “I once felt as you. But then I realized I was longing for a home that never truly existed.”

“Mine existed,” Briar said. “Till I burned it down.”

“The reports said your family died in a fire,” Ashia said. “But that is not your fault.”

“Is,” Briar said. “Laid the fire myself. Stoked it myself. Forgot to open the flue, all by myself.”

“An accident,” Ashia said.

“Ever kill your whole family by accident?” Briar asked bitterly.

There was a long pause above. “Not your whole family.”

Briar climbed back up into the nest. Ashia met his eyes and held them. She did not offer physical comfort, no touching or embraces like Dehlia and Elissa, no kisses and groping hands like Stela. She simply looked into his eyes, present for him.

“Safe here,” he said when the silence had gone on too long. “Might want to rest.” He knew Ashia was eager to get on with her mission. In truth, so was he. But there was more than the two of them to think of.

Ashia nodded. “Kaji is weak from the water sickness. He will need a day or two to rest, and some of the crusty bread, if you can spare it.”

“Course,” Briar said. “Can scout while we wait. Then what?”

“Then we travel north,” Ashia said. “Have you other…briarpatches in the area?”

“Ay, lots.” For months the Monastery of Dawn had been the base of operations for the Laktonian resistance, but Briar had never been comfortable behind walls.

“The khaffit is heavy,” Ashia said. “And he is lame. We will need a series of hidden places to succor from both alagai and Eunuchs as we make our way to Everam’s Reservoir.”

Briar brightened. “Ay. Can do that. Might take a few weeks to sweep ’em off.”

“Preparation is the key to success.” Ashia spoke the words Enkido had instilled in her like they were her own.

Kaji clapped as Briar climbed into the boughs. The night’s rest had brought color back to the boy, and returned his spirit with it.

“Smell.” Kaji slapped a hand over his nose. Ashia had been mortified the first time she saw the boy do it, but she soon learned Briar had taught the move—and the word—to him.

Ashia laughed as Briar struck a pose, pinching his own nose so his voice came out as a high-pitched whine. “Smell.” Kaji laughed and clapped again.

“Ready to get back on the horse?” Briar asked.

“No.” It was Kaji’s favorite word. It had power the others didn’t, and he was tyrannical with it.

“Rather walk?” Briar asked.

“No,” Kaji said.

“Mum to carry you?”

“No.”

“Me to carry you?”

“No.”

“Stay here?”

“No.”

Briar smiled. “Hungry?”

Kaji paused. When Ashia asked the question, she meant her breast. When Briar asked it, it meant crusty bread.

He faltered. “Bread?”

Briar produced a small loaf, but held it out of reach. “Do you want it?”

Ashia could see the strain on Kaji’s face as his desire to refuse battled his stomach. At last the stomach won and he reached out. “Want.”

Seeing them together, Ashia felt her own throat tighten. Who would have thought the half-chin son of a traitor would be a better parent to her son than his own father?

The wetland was vast, but Briar knew it well, guiding them to dry ground firm enough for Rasa’s hooves. Even so, the way was uneven and teeming with vegetation, making riding at speed impossible. Ashia led the horse instead, walking beside Briar. The air was hot and thick with moisture, mosquitoes active day round in the twilight beneath the canopy of trees. She kept her veil up, protective netting thrown over Kaji.

Briar was chewing on a stalk of alagai’viran. Ashia had become so used to the smell she hardly noticed it anymore, but the thought of eating demon root still turned her stomach.

Briar noticed her queasy look and took a fresh stalk from a pouch at his belt, handing it to her. “Try.”

Ashia shook her head. “I don’t understand how you eat that.”

Briar shrugged and resumed chewing. “Fills your belly when huntin’s bad. Keeps cories away. Sometimes keeps ’em from seein’ you at all.”

Ashia remembered their first encounter, when she had searched for him in Everam’s light and found nothing. Had she been looking in the wrong place, or was it something more?

The darkness was not complete under the trees, but it was enough for Ashia to Draw on the stored magic in her hora and activate the vision wards on the helmet beneath her silk headwrap.

The world around her lit up with magic. The glow was the root of all life, and it flourished in the wetlands. Light throbbed in the pools of water, sang in the rich vegetation, hung heavy in the ancient, stooped trees. Even the mud glowed softly, teeming with life too small to see.

But Briar, skin and hair and clothes covered in hogroot sap, looked…dim. Too dim for any human not close to death.

All save his eyes. They shone like a cat’s at night, belying the power within. Somehow, the demon root masked the magic.

“Perhaps I will try.” She reached for a stalk and took a bite. The herb was bitter, but so were many things in life. Enkido taught her to endure.

More than a week went by as they visited one briarpatch after another. Some were little more than well-positioned campsites with more visibility out than in. Others were masterworks blended perfectly into their surroundings with security, space, and comfort.

All were thick with alagai’viran.

The latest was a clearing on a small rise. Like all Briar’s hiding places, it was unremarkable at a glance. Just high enough to give visibility and some relief from the puddled ground below, but not so high as to draw attention by itself. From atop it, Ashia could see the demon root ringing the base, too even and perfect to be a natural occurrence.

“Normally just lie down at the top,” Briar said. “Cories can’t see me, but I can see ’em comin’. Never come near the hogroot, anyway.”

“We’ll lay my circles, as well,” Ashia said. “The alagai are numerous in the wetlands. In Krasia, they do not cluster so thickly in uninhabited lands.”

“Here neither.” Briar helped her set the circle. “Never seen so many cories in these parts. Odd ones. Flamers and windies. Big rocks and woodies. But they ent doin’ anything. Not even huntin’. Just…stumblin’ around.”

“In two days, it will be Waning,” Ashia said. “If Alagai Ka or his princelings rise, they will have an army waiting. We would be wise to find better shelter to wait out the dark moon.”

“Ay, know a place.” Briar laid a fire in the pit with dry kindling from his pack. “Have to backtrack a bit, but it’s safe.”

Safe for us to cower from the forces of Nie, Enkido’s fingers used to say of the Dama’ting Underpalace. Hiding behind wards grated on Ashia. She was bred and trained for the front lines.

A good kai is a patient kai, Enkido taught. Battles were won when the attacker chose the place and time to fight. This Waning was neither.

“Fight when you gotta.” Briar filled a pot with fresh water and raw hogroot, setting it over the fire as Ashia freed Kaji and brought him to her breast. “Not when you wanna.”

“Is it so clear in my eyes?” Ashia asked.

“Seen that look a lot, this last year,” Briar said. “Folk itchin’ to start a fight, because they can’t stand waitin’ for one that might or might not come.”

“That is the Sharum way,” Ashia said.

“Ent a Sharum,” Briar said. “Tenders say to always offer peace.”

“Those who offer peace to alagai are slaughtered,” Ashia said.

“Fight when I’m in a corner,” Briar said. “But it’s better if they don’t even know I’m there.”

Briar boiled it in frog meat, but the alagai’viran soup remained bitter. Ashia ate it anyway. They needed every advantage if they were to accomplish their mission. Already she could smell the demon root in her sweat, her breath, even her milk. She feared Kaji might refuse to nurse, but he was too hungry to question it.

This close to Waning, the demons were more active. In Everam’s light, Ashia could see them prowling in the darkness, and the sight of their small campfire drew the alagai’s attention. Most were turned aside by the demon root, but eventually one enterprising bog demon took up a tree branch and began to whip it back and forth, cutting the stalks like a reaper’s blade.

Briar grabbed his spear and shield, getting to his feet.

“Killing the demon with a warded weapon will be bright and loud,” Ashia said. “It will only draw more attention.”

“So will letting it scrape the wards.” Briar slung his shield on his back and set down his spear. “I’ll draw it off. Circle back.”

Ashia did not doubt he could do just that, but an inner unease counseled caution. Something of Briar’s own philosophy, perhaps.

“Let me try,” Ashia said.

“With Kaji in your arms?” Briar asked.

Ashia smiled and began to sing the Song of Waning. She and her spear sisters had sung it a thousand times under the watchful eye of their dama’ting instructor, but it was different when her sister sang it for Shar’Dama Ka on the day she married the greenland Jongleur. Ashia had sensed the power even then, and learned more from her spear sister’s secret missives.

Each verse of the song had its own rhythm, its own pitch, its own power. One to make them invisible to demons. Another to drive them away. Others still, to deceive or harm them. They required considerable range, but Ashia was up to the task.

The bog demon hacked through the alagai’viran patch and was approaching the ward circle when Ashia’s song began to nudge it back. With a touch, Ashia rolled the wardstones to activate her hora necklace. Dialing the wards into different configurations could make her silent as death, or project her voice far and wide. Listen to something far, or silence something near.

Her song grew louder, driving the demon back the way it came. When it was clear of the demon root patch, Ashia layered another verse alongside the first, confusing the demon, then added in the cloaking verse. The demon shook its head and seemed to lose sight of them, eyes passing blankly over their camp. Eventually, it wandered away and Ashia let the song fade.

Briar stood dumbfounded. “Saw magic like that in the Hollow at Halfgrip’s funeral. Two Krasian women singing.”

Kaji had fallen asleep, and Ashia laid him curled in the hollow of her shield. “My cousins Amanvah and Sikvah. They and their honored husband were touched by Everam. I am only running my fingers across the surface of their power.”

Something caught Briar’s attention. He turned away, peering into the night.

Ashia moved to his side. “What is it?”

Briar pointed to a wood demon, bigger and stronger than those common to the wetlands. “That corie’s been followin’ us.”

“Are you sure?” Ashia asked. The alagai did not appear interested in them.

“Sure,” Briar said.

Ashia squinted in Everam’s light, trying to study the pattern of magic in the demon’s aura. It did not appear interested in them, but its aura said otherwise. They were its only interest.

“I think you are right,” Ashia agreed. “We should kill it. Stay with…”

“No.” Briar was already moving out of the circle, spear in hand. “Got it.”

Ashia pursed her lips beneath her veil. She was used to commanding obedience, but Briar was his own force.

To his credit, even with Ashia knowing what to look for, Briar slipped unseen from the alagia’viran. She caught only the barest glimpse as he slipped into the trees. The demon gave no sign, in behavior or aura, that it noticed his departure.

But then there was a call in the distance. The demon cocked its head, then turned and ran after the sound.

A few moments later there were shrieks and flashes of light. Too far for Ashia to make out the details, but as the light and sound continued, a dread began to fill her. If Briar had surprised a lone demon, even a large one, he should have been able to kill it quickly. No warrior wanted a prolonged battle with a demon that large. Demons did not tire.

It went on, and on, and Ashia got to her feet, flicking her arms to extend the blades in her short spears. Every muscle in her body screamed for her to rush out and protect Briar. To stand in challenge against the alagai.

But Kaji, lying in her shield, bound her to the circle. What would happen to him if Ashia and Briar were killed?

Still the battle raged, and Ashia made her decision. She reached for Kaji’s pack. If they were to go into danger, let it be together.

The night fell silent. Ashia shivered, staring into the darkness. Ten breaths. Twenty. She picked up the pack and began to pull the straps over her shoulders.

“Ashia!” Briar materialized out of the darkness, in the open ground where the bog demon had slashed away the demon root. “Ent a normal corie. Need to see.” He stared to turn.

Ashia glanced at Kaji, asleep in her shield. “Is it dead?”

“Ay,” Briar said. “Way’s clear, we’re quick.”

“Everam curse me.” Ashia lifted her spears and followed, running low to the ground until she caught up with him in the trees. “Briar! By Everam, you will tell me…”

Briar turned to face her, a cool breeze at his back, and for once he did not smell of demon root.

It was all the warning she had before the mimic demon lashed out with an arm that lengthened into a tentacle with a spearlike tip. Ashia threw herself back at the last instant, but it was her armor that saved her. The overlapping plates of warded glass deflected the blow, but she felt the woven layers of silk holding them in place weaken and tear. She would not survive a second blow in the same place.

Enkido’s training came to her instinctively. She stole energy from the blow, using it to roll out of the way and back to a position of balance. She felt the vibration as tentacles twice struck the ground mere inches from her, but she kept ahead of them as she circled back in, spears leading.

Another tentacle whipped out to slow her, but Ashia bent as a palm in the wind, slashing with the blades of her spears as it passed overhead. There was a spray of ichor and a lifeless thump behind her as she stepped in close, stabbing at the demon’s body.

The demon howled as magic flared and rushed into her. Ashia looked up, expecting to see the light leave its eyes, but the demon only snarled and spit fire in her face.

Firespit was one of the most dangerous weapons in the alagai’s arsenal. It clung like sap but burned hotter than a furnace. Instinctively, Ashia pulled back, even as the wards on her jewelry warmed, turning the fire into a cool breeze.

The demon stole a moment to re-form, but Ashia knew the respite would be short-lived. She glanced at the rise and saw with horror that demons were coming out of the surrounding woods in frightening numbers. The foremost held branches, mowing down the demon root with calm efficiency. The demons hissed as they stepped onto the bed of mown alagai’viran, but they pressed forward, closing in on Kaji.

Ashia turned and bolted for the rise before the demons grew too thick to get past. She made several strides before a tentacle snaked around her ankle, pulling her from her feet. She caught herself with her hands, using the energy of the pull to twist into a slash of her long-bladed spear. The severed tentacle fell limp around her ankle, and she shook it free as she rolled into a defensive stance.

The mimic was still mostly in the form of a wood demon, and it abandoned water demon tentacles in favor of powerful branchlike arms.

They were formidable weapons, talons like sharpened stakes, but the large form was slow compared with tiny Ashia—her speed heightened by magic. She wove through the blows to step in past the demon’s guard, stabbing with both spears. They crackled with magic, and Ashia felt some of it rush into her.

She longed to keep the feeling, but there was no time. She pulled the weapons free and rolled away from the mimic’s attempt to claw her. The demon struck itself instead, howling in pain.

A few quick strides closer to Kaji before she was forced to turn and face the demon again. Already alagai crested the rise and were testing the wards around Ashia’s circle. Magic skittered across the wardnet like dew sparkling on a web.

The mimic came in hard, and like a tree sprouting new limbs the gnarled arms split, four attacks instead of two. Ashia ducked one, slipped another, parried a third, but the fourth snaked around her guard, striking her across the back. Her armor held, but at least one of her ribs cracked with the blow.

The demon came on again, and this time Ashia was faster, dancing past all four limbs and preparing to deliver a devastating counterblow.

But four limbs became eight. The demon spun, limbs whipping at her too fast to see clearly. Ashia worked on instinct, skittering back and trying to bat the blows out of alignment, tangling its limbs. She gave ground until the demons swarming the hill were at her back. Those nearest turned to face her, and the mimic struck.

The lesser demons did not attack, simply blocking Ashia’s path. With no room to retreat, she went back on the offensive, slicing away at the demon, bit by bit. Mimics could heal most any wound that wasn’t fatal, but they could not regrow or reattach mass that was severed.

She could wear it down.

A familiar squeal cut through the sound of combat. Ashia stole a glance and atop the rise saw Kaji, roused by the sounds of battle and demons at the wards, roll out of her wobbling shield in a tumble of blanket.

And then he did something miraculous.

She watched with shock and a little pride as, for the first time in his life, Kaji rose shakily on his own two feet and began to stumble through the camp, right for the flashing wards.

“Wads!” he shouted, and Ashia felt fear like she had never known.

The distraction proved too much. The mimic pounced, knocking her down and pinning her arms, spears useless. Ashia struggled against its foul weight, but even her heightened strength could not overcome the physics of it. This was no mindless alagai. This demon knew how to fight. Its maw opened, jaw unhinging as it grew wide enough to swallow her head. Even as she watched, rows of teeth added to the thickening gums.

Drawing a deep breath, Ashia did the only thing she could do. She shrieked.

It was not a cry of fear or a wail of pain. It was the raw essence of the verse in the Song of Waning that gave pain to alagai. Unable to sing fully, she held those harsh notes in the air, waving them like a torch.

The response was immediate. The wood and bog demons nearest to her scattered, and even the mimic loosened its grip, limbs moving instinctively to cover its head. Ashia lost one of her spears in the struggle to get free, but she managed to kick the demon off her, scrambling up the rise, using her voice to drive the demons away. With her free hand she pulled off her veil and dialed the wards on her necklace, adding power to her song.

A tree stump, torn from the ground the way a child might grasp a handful of sand, struck her hard in the back before she made it to Kaji. The heavy wood blasted the breath from her, and scattering soil choked her when she tried to draw another. The song died on her lips.

She went limp, letting her armor absorb as much of the blow as possible as she hit the ground in a roll, diffusing the impact. It only took a moment to find her balance, landing just steps from her son, toddling toward disaster.

But it was long enough for the mimic to pounce, pinning her. She gasped a breath, throat still raw, but a tentacle snaked around her mouth, silencing her. The demon drew back an arm, razor-sharp talons lengthening.

A speartip, bright with magic, thrust out from the mimic’s midsection, spraying Ashia with ichor. The demon screamed, loosening its grip enough for her to draw a shallow breath, but not enough to escape.

Briar appeared, running up the mimic’s back and taking its head in a sharusahk hold. His hands blazed with magic. The demon thrashed and gnashed its jaw, but it could not loosen the hold. Ashia could see it jolting as wards on Briar’s hands sent waves of crushing magic through its skull.

The demon began to lose cohesion, the limbs holding Ashia turning flaccid. She struggled, managing to slip free. She hacked with the blade of her spear, stabbing and cutting while the demon did not have the wherewithal to heal.

But then there was a flash of light and a cry from above. A demon had struck at Kaji, slamming against the wardnet. The alagai rebounded, stunned, and Kaji fell back, landing hard on his bottom.

“Go!” Briar shouted.

Kaji had begun to cry, but stopped when he saw her coming. “Mama!” He got to his feet more easily this time, reaching for her and again stepping toward the wards.

And then she was there, sweeping him into her arms. “My son, my son! I am with you.” She kissed his head. “Be brave, Kaji.”

She tucked him into his pack and slung it over her back. Twisting the end of her remaining spear, she telescoped it to twice its size, taking her shield in her other hand.

Briar gave a yelp, and Ashia looked up to see the mimic had him wrapped in a horned tentacle, its flesh hissing and giving off some foul vapor as it gripped him. Unable to hold on for long, it flung the boy into the ward circle. Briar tangled up in the cord as he rolled to a stop, pulling the wards askew and opening a great gap in the protection.

The mimic took a moment to regroup, three demons forming a defensive wall around it. Briar’s spear sloughed out of its body. Its flesh became hard and resilient once more, but Ashia could see its magic was dimmer. The demon was weakening.

Rasa gave a terrified whinny as alagai swarmed for the break in the circle. She pulled up her stake, rearing and leaping out into the night. For a moment it looked as if she might break away, but then the demons turned and half a dozen raced after her.

Rasa’s screams sounded almost human as they tore her apart.

A pair of bog demons were first to reach the gap in the wards, but Ashia made short work of them, batting the attack of one into the other, then using the distraction to spear the second through the heart. She twisted her spear as she pulled pack, making sure the organ was torn beyond the alagai’s ability to repair before it died.

She caught the next attack from the first demon on her shield, punching her spear up through its chin and into its brain.

But it was all just distraction as the newly re-formed mimic came at them, a rock demon’s body gliding on wind demon’s wings. It lashed out with the horned tentacles of a water demon, its flame demon snout aglow with firespit.

Ashia felt Briar rushing her way, but without his spear she did not think he could get close enough to do the demon harm before it killed him.

Still he leapt by her, turning a circuit and hurling the soup pot at the demon. Briar’s hogroot stew splashed across the mimic and it shrieked, flesh boiling and bubbling like tar.

They both rushed in, Ashia catching a thrashing mass of tentacles on her shield, severing a thick one before skittering back. Briar leapt in, and Ashia could see the large wards tattooed on his palms, shining with magic. He struck the demon in the throat with the impact ward, choking it on its own firespit, then boxed its ears.

The demon stumbled and Ashia was back in, stabbing and slicing, spear spinning.

A swamp demon managed to get behind her. She sensed its leap, but was not fast enough as it struck Kaji’s pack with its talons.

Kaji cried out, but the warded glass scales woven in silk between the layers of stout cloth turned the blow. Her son’s cries told her he was all right even as she opened the swamp demon’s stomach and gave it a kick, watching its vital organs spill onto the wet ground.

The mimic was just getting its footing when Briar threw a pouch at its maw. Instinctively, the demon chomped down, and the pouch erupted in a cloud of demon root powder. Ashia slashed across its throat as Briar rolled down the hill for his spear.

More demons took the places of the fallen. One fell before it could reach Ashia and Kaji, Briar’s thrown spear pinning it to the ground. Briar retrieved Ashia’s lost spear as well, burying it in the mimic’s back.

Her breath returned, Ashia began to sing, her voice keeping the lesser demons at bay while she and Briar pressed the mimic. It was slowing noticeably now. Healing and transforming its flesh took an enormous amount of magic, and in Everam’s light it was growing dimmer and dimmer.

They did not let up. It tried to take flight, but Ashia slashed a great rent in its leathery wing, bashing the light, flexible bone that supported it with her shield. The wards on the rim flared, and she felt the bone shatter.

The other wing fell limp and Briar ran right up it, seizing the demon’s horns in his warded palms, pulling its head back. Ashia took the opportunity to lunge, and at last managed to sever the demon’s neck.

The other demons froze as the mimic fell dead, already beginning to melt like wet clay.

Ashia shrieked at them, and the alagai fled.

Briar had broken down the camp as the sky filled with color. Ashia patrolled the ring, her warded eyes searching the darkness and fog for signs of cories. It seemed the demons had fled the rising sun’s power, but they were not prepared to break the wardnet before sunlight touched the rise.

Neither of them slept, even after the circle was restored. The power they Drew battling the mimic was more than enough to sustain them. Briar’s muscles felt like ship cables, and he was jittery with energy. He felt he could throw Ashia and Kaji both on his back and run a hundred miles.

Only Kaji slept, snoring peacefully in his harness on Ashia’s back. His breath was deep and even, like Briar’s father, Relan, had taught his sons during their sharusahk lessons. Briar breathed with him, borrowing the boy’s peaceful nerves to settle his own.

He made quick forays outside the circle to harvest the hogroot the cories had reaped, filling his pockets and pouches. He bruised handfuls of leaves, rubbing the sticky sap into his clothes.

He handed a few stalks to Ashia. “You, too.”

He was getting better at reading her expression under the veil. Her nose scrunched slightly in disgust.

Briar was not offended. Folk were always like this around him. Some threw stones, calling him Stinky. Mudboy. Ashia was not so cruel, but he could smell the soap on her, and even after weeks in the wetlands the silks she wore remained pristine as one of Leesha Paper’s dresses. She might be down in the mud, but she was raised in a palace.

Still, there was no time to coddle. Briar shook the leaves at her. “Cories got our scent. Need to do everything we can to shake the trail.”

Ashia sighed, taking the stalks. “Do you think we can?”

“Got a few tricks to pull. Gonna be a long day’s running, but we’ll have safe succor tonight.”

“We will need it,” Ashia said. “It will be the better part of a week before Waning is safely past. It seems even a crescent strengthens Nie’s power.”

The words were serious, but Briar remained confident. “Best briarpatch I got. Cories can get us there, they can get us anywhere.”

Ashia stared at him a moment, then nodded. The decision made, she was thorough and efficient, grinding the leaves and rubbing them over every inch of her silks, permanently ruining them with sticky, smelly sap. She set Kaji down, rubbing the sap into his pack, even his blanket.

Briar broke off the best leaves, mixing them with nuts and berries and a bit of oil for their breakfast.

“Why do you hide them?”

“Ay?” Briar looked up, finding her staring at his hands, again covered in their wraps.

“Your tattoos,” Ashia said. “Do you cover them because you fear I will be offended?”

Briar remembered what Jarit had told him about the Krasians and tattoos. It was supposed to be an affront to Everam, but Briar could not see how.

Briar turned slightly, hiding his hands. “Don’t like the look of them, is all.”

“But they give you power,” Ashia pressed. “I do not believe they are an affront to Everam. My master Enkido was tattooed, and I know of no man save the Deliverer himself who carried greater honor.”

“Got ’em for the wrong reasons,” Briar said.

He worried he’d said too much and she would press for more. He could see the desire in her eyes, but she respected his privacy. “What does the reason matter? The alagai cannot abide your touch, and your honor is boundless.”

Briar took his hands back out, pulling the wrapping from one to look sadly at the ward beneath. “Think so?”

Ashia moved over to lay a hand on his shoulder. “I know you do not like to fight, Briar Damaj, but you leapt atop a demon kai for me and my son. Everam is always watching, even if I had not borne witness. You will be received in glory at the end of the lonely path.”

“Won’t,” Briar said. “Nothin’ I do can make up for what I done.”

“What happened to your family wasn’t your fault,” Ashia said.

Briar turned away, knowing he must speak the words now if he was ever to, but fearing what he would see in her eyes. “Was. Laid the fire wrong and filled the house with smoke.”

Ashia was silent for a time. Too long. Briar wanted to scream, to run off into the mist. Anything to escape the silence of her judgment.

Instead, she gently squeezed his shoulder. “That was ten years ago, Briar. You were a child. Nothing occurs, but that Everam wills it.”

“Everam willed me to kill my family?” Briar was incredulous.

“Perhaps.” Ashia shrugged. “Or perhaps it was going to happen, and He simply did not stop it.”

Briar looked back at her. “Why?”

Ashia reached out, touching his face. “All things come second to the First War. Like me, Everam forged you in pain to be a weapon against Nie.”

“What’s the point of doing anything,” Briar asked, “if it’s all Everam’s will?”

“My master used to say Everam draws power from our courage. Will is the one gift we can give to aid Him in His never-ending battle against Nie. Everam guides us, but the choice to be fearless or a coward, to fight or flee,” Ashia reached out, touching his chest, “this comes from within.”

The silk wrapping Ashia’s sandaled feet was soaked through with water and muck from the bogs Briar led them though, zigzagging through the wetlands, sometimes wading hip-deep in water in an attempt to obscure their trail.

By midmorning he seemed satisfied, leading them onto drier ground. Ashia was completely lost, but Briar seemed at home as they picked up speed on the flatter land. By midday, they made it to the coast, and followed the cliffside up and up.

The excess magic from the demon kai burned off with the sun, but Ashia knew the danger they were in and said nothing at the brutal pace Briar set. She thought she and her spear sisters had endurance, but Briar Damaj put them all to shame. They covered many miles before the sun began to dip low in the sky.

“Is it much farther?” she asked finally. The reflection of the setting sun was so bright on the water it stung her eyes, but she knew it heralded darkness soon to come.

“There.” Briar pointed to a seemingly unremarkable section of cliff, hundreds of feet above the waves crashing below.

Ashia was going to question, but she could see the confidence on Briar’s face and trusted that he was about to produce one of his usual surprises.

He went to the edge of the cliff and knelt, reaching over the lip. “This way.”

He jumped.

Ashia started, staring a moment before moving to peer over the edge. Dozens of feet below, Briar was sliding down a rope made of braided alagai’viran fibers, secured in a crevice just under the lip of the cliff. He kicked off the rock face to give the rope some swing, and disappeared.

Ashia sighed, tightening her pack straps to ensure Kaji was secure as she took the vine and rappelled after him. Perhaps thirty feet down the sheer cliff, she came across a small cave, invisible from above, obscured by vines of alagai’viran that appeared natural at a glance.

She slipped inside and found the cave larger than the entrance had led her to believe. The walls and floor were carpeted in dried demon root, softer and safer than raw stone, preventing alagai from rising in the cave. Too high above the lake for water demons to reach, too far below the cliff’s edge for land demons to notice. The entrance was too small to admit a wind demon with its wings unfurled, even if it should see past the curtain that grew across the entrance.

“What do you think?” Briar asked at last.

Ashia smiled at him as she took Kaji from his straps. “It is perfect, son of Relan. Your skill is as boundless as your honor.”

Briar grinned, walking past her to part the alagai’viran vines covering the entrance like a curtain. “Haven’t even looked at the best part.”

Ashia turned, and the view took her breath away. The lake spread out before them, the horizon glittering with the last rays of the sun, sky brilliant in purple, white, and blue.

Kaji’s eyes were wide. He pointed at the horizon. “Wud?” He wanted to know the word for what he was seeing.

Ashia hesitated. What word could do justice to such a sight? Sunset fell far short.

She knelt, placing Kaji on the ground beside her. She touched her hands to the floor, and he mimicked her. “It is Everam, my son. Creator of all things, Giver of Life and Light. It is for Him we live. It is for Him we fight. It will be for Him, when we die.”

She began to sing The Prayer of Coming Night to him. Briar did not join them, but Ashia’s sharp ears caught him stumbling through the words under his breath, as if sifting it from memory.

When the prayers were done, Briar pointed north. “There’s the monastery.”

Ashia had to lean her head out of the cave mouth to see, but there it was, a fortress alone on a high bluff jutting out over the water. Lights glowed in its tower windows and on its walls.

More lights shone out on the water, marking the fleet of Laktonian ships that held the blockade.

“More’n they need to cover the docks,” Briar said.

“Do they mean to take the fortress?” Ashia asked. With their numbers, the fish men could likely take the docks and storm the fort, but seeing the long climb from the water, Ashia knew the cost in lives would be enormous.

“Maybe bait for Qeran,” Briar said. “Try’n pull his ships north.”

“He won’t be fooled,” Ashia said. She took Kaji inside, feeding and changing the boy in the warm glow of Everam’s light. Briar had no wards around his eyes, but he moved about as comfortably in the near pitch blackness as he did in the light of day.

They moved in silence for a time, preparing a cold meal and eating, lost in their own thoughts. Kaji was the first asleep, and soon Briar followed suit, curling into a small nook at the back of the cave, breath calm and even.

Ashia closed her eyes, seeking the shallow sleep of her training, but tired as she was, it was difficult to find. Too many images flashing across her mind. Kaji’s first steps. The mimic in Briar’s form. The swarm of alagai tearing Rasa apart. The ring of demons closing on her helpless son.

The weight of her body seemed to double. She slumped, succumbing to the insistence of deeper sleep, where the images became nightmares filled with flashing claws and demon shrieks.

She started, coming awake. There was the cry again. It hadn’t been a dream. Had the alagai found their hiding place? If so, there was no escape. They would need to hold the entrance till dawn. With her circle laid across the narrow threshold, it was possible.

Unless there was another mimic on their trail.

Ashia drew her spears, rolling to her feet, but Briar was already moving past her, darting to the cave mouth to seek the source of the cries. She moved close and readied herself for action as he stuck his neck out past the wards to look upward.

There was a flash of light, and Briar gasped and pulled himself inside, scrambling back as a wind demon dropped right in front of the cave mouth, opening its wings with a great snap! and catching itself on a current of air.

The demon was lit from below, visible without Everam’s light, and Ashia realized in horror that it clutched a flame demon in its talons, the glow of the creature’s eyes and mouth illuminating the carrier.

She readied her spear for a throw, but hesitated. If she threw out over the water, there would be no retrieving the weapon.

But then the demon flapped off into the night, soaring out over the water away from the cave—unaware of their presence.

Ashia and Briar returned to the entrance, watching the sky come alive as dozens of wind demons leapt from the cliff with their burning payloads, winging out onto the water.

“What in the abyss could they be doing?” Ashia whispered.

“Fightin’?” Briar asked. “Flamers don’t get on with other cories ’cept rockies. Maybe they’re gonna drop them in the lake?”

Ashia shook her head. “The winds are not dropping them, and the flames are not struggling. This is some stratagem.”

“For what?” The answer to Briar’s question became obvious as the flight of wind demons banked with uniform precision, soaring toward the Laktonian fleet.

Ashia drew a ward in the air. “Everam preserve us.”

The wind demons threw out their wings, abruptly changing direction and using the momentum to fling their charges at the sails. Flames blossomed on the canvas as the demons slid down to the deck, spitting fire on crew and boards alike. They raced across the decks leaving a burning trail, then leapt suicidally from the bows.

But they did not fall into the water. The wind demons, circling above, swept in and caught them again, winging back toward the cliffs, their part in the attack complete.

In moments it was done. Burning crew members ran across the decks of every ship, some rolling on the deck, vainly trying to extinguish themselves, others leaping into the lake, heedless of the water demons.

The remaining sailors beat frantically at the flames, but firespit was sticky, clinging to everything used to beat at it. A bucket brigade formed, but the water only made things worse. Demonfire was so hot the water instantly turned to steam that sent fire leaping through the air to stick wherever it spattered.

Soon the ships were engulfed in flames, visible for miles in the dark of night until at last the heat and smoke weakened the wards on the hulls. Water demons churned the waves around the ships, pulling them under, flames winking out one by one.

“What?” Briar’s face was lit in the glow.

Ashia reached out, taking his hand and squeezing it. She did not know if the act was to comfort him, or herself.

“Sharak Ka has begun.”