Brutes turn up on brief vacation (5)
I believe the answer is:
ogres
'brutes' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'turn up on brief vacation' is the wordplay.
'turn' becomes 'go' (a person's move in a board game**).
'up' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'brief' means to remove the last letter.
'vacation' becomes 'rest'.
'go' backwards is 'og'.
'rest' with its last letter taken away is 'res'.
'og'+'res'='OGRES'
(Other definitions for ogres that I've seen before include "Formidable people" , "Monstrous giants and man-eaters" , "Fairytale giants" , "Bugbears" , "Man-eating giants of folklore" .)