LITMIR.BIZ

      ‘Mistress Dawn!’ a call came, breaking the silence as they filed from the Holy House. Briar looked up to see Tami Bales running up the road. Tami was only a year older than Briar, but the Damaj children weren’t allowed to play with the Baleses since Tami’s father, Masen, called Relan a desert rat at the Solstice festival. Relan would have broken his arm if the other men hadn’t pulled them apart.

      Tami’s dress was splattered with mud and red with blood. Briar knew bloodstains when he saw them. Any Animal Gatherer’s child did. Dawn ran out to meet the girl, and Tami collapsed in her arms, panting for breath. ‘Mistress … y-you have to save …’

      ‘Who?’ Dawn demanded. ‘Who’s been hurt? Corespawn it, girl, what’s happened?’

      ‘Corelings,’ Tami gasped.

      ‘Creator.’ Dawn drew a ward in the air. ‘Whose blood is this?’ She pulled at the still-damp fabric of the girl’s dress.

      ‘Maybell,’ Tami said.

      Dawn’s nose wrinkled. ‘The cow?’

      Tami nodded. ‘Stuck her head over the pen, blocking one of the wardposts. Field demon clawed her neck. Pa says she’s gonna get demon fever and went for his axe. Please, you need to come or he’ll put her down.’

      Dawn blew out a breath, shaking her head and chuckling. Tami looked ready to cry.

      ‘I’m sorry, girl,’ Dawn said. ‘Don’t mean to belittle. I know stock feels like part of the family sometimes. You just had me thinking it was one of your brothers or sisters got cored. I’ll do what I can. Run and tell your pa to hold his stroke.’

      She looked to Relan and the others. ‘Girls, get home and finish the washing. Boys, help your father haul the collection cart. Briar, I’ll need to brew a sleep draught …’

      ‘Skyflower and tampweed,’ Briar nodded.

      ‘Cut generously,’ Dawn said. ‘Takes a lot more to put down a cow than a person. We’ll need hogroot poultices as well.’

      Briar nodded. ‘I know what to get.’

      ‘Meet me in Masen Bales’ yard,’ Dawn said. ‘Quick as you can.’

      Briar ran off home, darting through the herb garden like a jackrabbit, then blowing through the kitchen like a breeze, snatching Dawn’s mortar and pestle. He was on his way down the road before his siblings even got home.

      He caught up with Dawn just as she was getting to the Bales farm with Tami. Already, he could hear Maybell’s bleats of pain.

      Masen Bales came out to meet them. He was carrying an axe. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Briar, and he spat some of the tobacco he was chewing. ‘Thanks for coming, Gatherer. Think you’re wasting a trip, though. Animal ent gonna make it.’

      He led the way to the barn. The heifer was lying on the straw floor of her pen, neck wrapped in heavy cloth soaked through with blood. Masen Bales ran his thumb along the edge of his axe. Tami and her siblings crowded around the cow protectively, though none were large enough to stop their father if he decided it was Maybell’s time.

      Dawn lifted the cloth to look at the animal’s wounds – three deep grooves in Maybell’s thick neck.

      Masen spat again. ‘Meant to put the animal down quick and sell her to the butcher, but the kids begged me to wait till you came.’

      ‘It’s good you did,’ Dawn said. ‘This ent too bad, if we can stave off the infection.’ She turned to the crowd of children. ‘I’ll need more cloth for bandages, buckets of clean water and a boiling kettle.’ The children looked at her blankly until she clapped her hands, making them all jump. ‘Now!’

      As the children ran off, Briar laid out his mother’s tools and began crushing the herbs for the sleeping draught and poultices. Getting the animal to drink was difficult, but soon Maybell was fast asleep, and Dawn cleaned out the wounds and inserted a thin paste of crushed herbs before stitching them closed.

      Tami stood next to Briar, horrified. Briar had seen his mother work before, but he knew how scary it must seem. He reached out, taking Tami’s hand, and she looked at him, smiling bravely in thanks as she squeezed tightly.

      Masen had been watching Dawn work as well, but he glanced at Tami and did a double take, pointing his axe at Briar. ‘Ay, get your muddy hands off my daughter, you little rat!’

      Briar snatched his hand away in an instant. His mother stood, moving calmly between them as she wiped the blood from her hands. ‘Ent going to need that axe any more, Masen, so I’d appreciate you not pointing it at my boy.’

      Masen looked at the weapon in surprise, as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. He grunted and dropped the head, leaning it against the fence. ‘Wasn’t going to do anything.’

      Dawn pursed her lips. ‘That’ll be twenty shells.’

      Masen gaped. ‘Twenty shells?! For stitching a cow?’

      ‘Ten for the stitching,’ Dawn said, ‘and ten for the sleep draught and hogroot poultices my rat son made.’

      ‘I won’t pay it,’ Masen said. ‘Neither you nor your mud-skinned husband can make me.’

      ‘I don’t need Relan for that,’ Dawn said, smiling, ‘though we both know he could make you. No, all I need is to tell Marta Speaker you won’t pay, and Maybell will be grazing in my yard before tomorrow.’

      Masen glared. ‘You ent been right in the head since you married that desert rat, Dawn. Already cost all your human custom. Lucky to get animal work these days, but that won’t last when folk hear you’re charging twenty shells for it.’

      Briar’s nostrils flared. If Relan was there, he would break Masen’s nose for speaking to his mother so disrespectfully. But Relan wasn’t there, so it was Briar’s responsibility.

      His eyes ran over Masen Bales as he recalled the sharusahk lessons he had watched Relan give his brothers. Masen had a weak knee, always complaining about it when the weather was damp. One well-placed kick there …

      Without turning, Dawn made her voice a stern murmur only the children could hear. ‘Don’t think your mum don’t know what you’re thinking, Briarpatch. You mind your hands and mouth.’

      Briar flushed, putting his hands

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