Peter Brett - The Core

‘Ay, Stela!’ the giant cried. ‘Nearly dawn! Where in the dark of night you been?’

Stela laughed, shoving him aside. ‘Needed a few hours away from your donkey smell, Callen Cutter.’ Callen gave the ground, if grudgingly. Briar could see with his night eyes that she was dominant.

‘Who the Core’s this?’ Callen slapped a hand at Briar as he followed in Stela’s wake. Briar seized his wrist and pulled, twisting the blow into a throw that flipped the larger man onto the ground. The wolfhound growled, crouching to spring, but Briar met its eyes and growled right back, checking it.

There were close to a hundred people in the camp. A few were children and elders, but most were of an age with Briar – not yet twenty. Briar saw Milnese faces and Angierian, Rizonan, Laktonian, even Krasian. Some wore robes or bits of armour; others bared warded flesh to the limits of decency.

Now every eye was on Briar, pinning him with the weight of their collective stare. He wanted to flee, but Stela took his hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. Callen got back to his feet, face a thundercloud, but Stela snarled and he held back.

Stela cast her eyes over the crowd. ‘This is Briar Damaj! The one Gared said saved His Highness on the road.’

‘Then led him to his death.’ A bearded man stepped forward, his thick brown hair pulled back to show a mind ward tattooed on his forehead. He wore a Tender’s brown robes covered in needlepoint wards, and carried a carved crooked staff. ‘I remember him. Mudboy. The Krasian traitor.’

Briar bared his teeth. ‘Ent a traitor. Laktonian. Ent my fault I look like them.’

Stela gave his hand another squeeze. ‘Mudboy,’ she confirmed loudly. ‘But anyone other than me calls him that, they’ll be doing it with missing teeth. We shed ichor together. He is Pack.’

Pack. The word sang to him, but looking at the staring faces, he knew it would take more than words to make it so.

‘That how it works now?’ The speaker wasn’t as tall as Callen, lanky instead of broad. His armour was lighter as well, wards burned into boiled leather. He and Stela shared a resemblance. He pointed at Briar with his short spear, wards on its blade glowing with inner power. ‘You decide who’s Pack and who’s not?’

Stela put her hands on her hips. ‘Keep pointing that spear at me, Uncle Keet.’ She used the honorific mockingly. ‘Everyone’s here to see me shove it up your arse.’

Keet hesitated. His eyes flicked about for support, but there was little to be had. Few in the camp wanted anything to do with this confrontation. They kept their eyes down, though all were watching with interest. Callen still glared at Briar, but even he seemed unwilling to challenge Stela directly.

Stela leaned in, and Keet reflexively leaned back. ‘Briar is Pack.’

After a moment, Keet dropped his eyes. ‘You want to make him a Wardskin, ent my business.’

‘We’ll initiate him,’ Stela agreed. ‘But he can find his own path after that. Once folk see what Briar can do, might be some folk start calling themselves Mudboys.’

Briar scowled, and Stela winked. ‘Better than Hogbreaths.’

Briar laughed in spite of himself.

‘We all must find our own path.’ The man in Tender’s robe stepped up to Briar. Stela’s grip on his hand tightened painfully, but the man only bowed.

‘Welcome, Briar. I am Brother Franq.’

Stela’s grip on his hand eased, and the rest of the Painted Children followed suit. Callen and Keet might not have been able to challenge Stela, but this man could. ‘You’re the one writing New Canon.’

Franq dismissed the thought with a wave. ‘The words belong to Arlen and Renna Bales. I merely record them.’

‘And help us find their meaning,’ Stela said.

Franq bowed to Briar a second time. ‘I apologize for calling you traitor. The Tenders of the Creator taught me to judge, but Arlen Bales has shown us a better way. All who stand together in the night are brothers and sisters. We are all Deliverers.’

All around the camp, people drew wards in the air, echoing his word. ‘All Deliverers.’

‘Mistress Leesha had us split into three groups at first,’ Stela said as she walked Briar through the camp. ‘Strongest were training to join the Cutters one day. Mistress gave them all specially warded spears, short to make the Draw more efficient. We call ’em gut pumps, because you stick one in a demon’s gut and it pumps magic into you. Callen leads the Pumps.’

Briar turned his head slightly, examining Callen’s faction as Stela gestured to another cluster. ‘Keet’s group was runtier – most of them tried out for the Cutters and got passed over. Call them Bones, because the mistress put slivers of demon bone in their spears. Makes up the difference in muscle, and to spare.

‘My group were folk who had no illusions about being fit to fight demons.’ Stela nodded to another cluster, mostly young women dressed as sparsely as Stela. ‘Not strong enough to swing an axe or wind a crank bow like Wonda’s set.’ She held up her warded hand. ‘Mistress honoured us most of all. Warded our very skin.’

‘Mistress Leesha tattooed you?’ Briar asked.

Stela shook her head. ‘Drew them on with blackstem, but then she went away. When the stain started to fade, I asked Ella Cutter to take a needle and ink them on permanent before they were lost.’

Briar watched how the others in the camp gave the Wardskins a respectable berth. Though generally smaller in stature, they moved like predators, even here.

‘Children have grown since then,’ Stela said. ‘Widows and heirs of the Sharum lost at new moon.’ She gestured to the tents and water well used by the Krasian faction. They were not in battle, but every one of them had their night veils up, even the men. Briar noted on closer inspection that several of them had the light skin of Northerners, but had adopted Krasian dress and manner.

‘Then Brother Franq joined us and started training Siblings.’ She gestured to a smaller group, all in plain brown robes.

A tall woman stepped to the front of the cluster of Krasians, waving to them. The hair that fell from her headwrap was streaked with grey, her eyes full of wisdom, but she did not move like an elder. She was strong.

Stela led Briar to her, bowing. ‘Briar, this is Jarit, First Wife of Drillmaster Kaval. She leads the Pack’s Sharum. ’

The woman studied Briar, trying to peel away the dirt and hogroot resin to see the features beneath. ‘What is your name?’ she asked in Krasian.

‘Briar asu Relan am’Damaj am’Bogger,’ Briar replied.

‘ Damaj is a Kaji name,’ Jarit noted. ‘Yet you claim not to be one of us?’

‘Born and raised in Bogton,’ Briar said.

Jarit nodded. ‘I remember when your father went missing. The men of Kaji searched for him in the city and Maze, not knowing if he had died on alagai talons or fallen to a Majah blade. Who could have guessed he fled to the North?’

‘You knew my father?’ Briar asked.

Jarit shook her head. ‘No, but my husband was the Kaji’s greatest drillmaster. I learned much in his house.’

‘Jarit and her granddaughter Shalivah started teaching us sharusahk ,’ Stela said, ‘after Wonda Cutter left with Mistress Leesha.’ At the comment a girl of ten appeared. She seemed more like Jarit’s daughter than her granddaughter, but Briar knew how magic could shave years from a person. He looked around the well, realizing how many of the Krasians were children. Two young Krasian men wore the brown robes of Siblings with added night veils.

‘Tender converted you, like my father,’ Briar guessed.

‘We still pray to Everam,’ Jarit said.