City of Demons Read Online Free Page A

brothers even gave up using him as a training dummy. But this new freedom was tainted by the way they looked at him when they thought he wasn’t looking back. He caught it from the corners of his eyes or in the reflection of the copper pot hanging again on its hook behind the table. Their eyes held fear and hatred. Fear? Of him? His mother’s and Allia’s treatment of him was unchanged, unless you could count a warm gratitude and pride that coloured every word or look his mother sent his way. His little sister seemed unaffected by these earthshaking events. She yowled and twisted, hugged and demanded as much or as little as before. After all , thought Garet, with one of the few smiles he had in those weeks , what was a mere demon to a child who risked sudden death a dozen times a day?
    As the moon passed into its dark phase, word came from Three Roads that Demonbanes had ridden from the cities of Old Torrick and Shirath. They came to track the demons that had attacked not only Hilly’s farm but also farms and villages throughout the Midlands. Garet heard this from his mother, who had it from the tavern keeper’s wife.
    Returning from delivering eggs to the trading post, she told the family, “Trallet says there have been attacks all through the Midlands. Many have died. Pranix has gone to the Rivermeet.” She looked at Hilly. “Will you be going?” It was a direct question for someone who usually hedged her speech in ‘ifs’ and ‘perhaps’ to avoid challenging her violent mate. Since the demon’s attack, Garet had seen his mother become more confident, as if she too were tired of her fears.
    If it was a direct question, it was also a fair one. Hilly was the unofficial leader of the hill farmers near Three Roads, if only because his temper meant no one cared to disagree with him. The village of Bangt, where the North Ar was fed by the Plainscutter River, hosted the Rivermeet every year. The hill farmers would need representation, and none would trust Pranix, the tavern keeper who overcharged them for trade goods and underpaid them for their wool, to look after their best interests.
    Hilly, however, sneered at the suggestion. “What can a hundred fat Southerners do about,” and here he stumbled, for he never spoke of that fearful night, “...about anything!” He stomped out the door, and the twins slouched after him.
    His wife sighed and said, more to herself than to Garet, “They’ll be off to the tavern now, trying to get free drinks.” Her expression showed that this was unlikely, and Garet had to agree; Pranix and Trallet’s stinginess was legendary.
    Garet also sighed. With Allia taking up so much of her mother’s time, most of the work of the farm now fell on his own shoulders. His father and brothers disappeared for whole days at a time. He knew they did this to avoid him. He also knew that when it came time to dig up the root crops and store them, or plow the land in the spring, the farm would need their strength. Maybe he should leave, finally fulfil one of his daydreams and escape from this life. With so many said to be killed on the plains, there must be a place for a farm lad used to hard work. If their farm failed because he stayed, he would end up hurting his mother and Allia. He could not bear the thought of them with the pinched faces and bloated bellies of starvation. He remembered all too well the children of less fortunate farmers who came begging at the farm gate in the early spring when the poor suffered most. If Hilly was around he would chase them off with curses, but if his mother was alone, she would give them some of her gathered wild greens or a scrawny chicken to take back to their homesteads.
    Garet’s time in the sheep pasture was now spent considering possible, rather than imaginary, futures. These weeks were like living through the low part of winter, between the great events of harvest and spring. But