Battle Magic (22 page)

Getting to his knees beside Evvy, Briar glared at the ridge. As weeds and grass sprouted madly along the sloping ground, five people looked over the edge. Two wore black scholar’s robes with the gold sashes of mages. Ropes of beads hung around their necks and in their hands. Two more were archers; the fifth was armed with a halberd. All five were struggling to keep their feet. The archers also did their best to fit fresh arrows to their crossbows.

Evvy yanked her hands up. Rocks flew into the air above the ridge. The archers dropped their bows as they covered their eyes with their hands. She tugged her hands forward. The mages had protected themselves from the airborne stones, but it was another matter to have the ground pull away from their feet. They stumbled, trying to stay upright. Something was going wrong with the long strings of beads in their hands. They twisted together around the mages’ wrists, binding them like rope. The loops of beads around each mage’s neck spun swiftly, winding tighter and tighter, strangling the wearer. The mages struggled to pull their traitor necklaces away from their necks, without success. Their faces got redder and redder as they fought to breathe.

Evvy gave all of the stones on the ridge one last, savage pull. This time it was the ponies and mules that saved her and her companions, hauling them away from the landslide by the reins looped around their arms as the entire ridge came down. They scrambled with the animals to retreat from the tumbling earth and rock. The stone of the ridge roared past them through a dip between hills, dragging the Yanjingyi mages with it. When everything settled but for a haze of dust, there was no sign of
the warriors who had stood with them. The two mages lay on the heap of fallen rock where it had come to a halt. They were clearly dead.

Evvy crept to the southern hilltop to see the road. There was no sign of the enemy. She was starting to grin in relief when she saw movement at the crown of the western hill. She scrambled back to Parahan and pointed west.

Yanjingyi warriors in domed helmets and armor galloped over the hill’s crest. Evvy guessed they’d heard the rock slide. Now she strained to give them a rock slide of their own, struggling to find and move the medium and big stones in front of them. She was too tired for small ones at that distance. She flinched when the archers among them raised their crossbows, as if the bolts had struck her already.

Parahan scooped up a couple of round, hard stones and threw first one, then the other, with vicious accuracy. Each hit an archer in the face, knocking him out of the saddle and under the other horses’ hooves. Parahan grabbed two more stones.

Suddenly Evvy saw the bows leap from the remaining archers’ hands. The crossbows broke apart in midair, raining stocks, lathes, arrowheads, and splintered shafts down on the other riders. She laughed in spite of herself as lathes and shafts grew and sprouted leaves, then wound around the arms and necks of the soldiers. Stocks planted themselves in the ground and grew as trees. Horses reared and slipped, trying not to run headfirst into trees that had not been there a moment before. Briar and Rosethorn were hard at work. Parahan grinned at Evvy, then snapped his rocks at one soldier each, striking their heads with deadly accuracy. Down they went.

The horses that missed the growing trees slipped, losing their balance on moving stones and pebbles. They went down; those behind them piled on top. Evvy ground her teeth and kept the stones on the slope under the riders moving.

Men were screaming. She opened her eyes. Briar had run forward to pitch seed balls as far and high as they would go into the air over the charging soldiers. The cloth balls burst at his command, sprouting deadly vines with sword-sharp thorns in midair. The falling, deadly net trapped the remaining soldiers and their mounts together with the ropes grown from pieces of crossbow and the fast-growing trees.

Evvy shrieked as more arrows arched into the air from the far side of the hilltop.

Parahan, at her side, laid a hand on her arm. “Evvy, look. What are you screaming for?”

She had
thought
they were fire arrows. In truth they were crossbow bolts dyed bright orange. These struck short of her and her companions, into the ranks of Yanjingyi soldiers. More followed, again dropping into the net and the enemy beneath.

New soldier-archers, these in pointed helmets, charged over the hill in the wake of the arrows. Deftly they split apart to avoid the fallen enemy and the trap of thorny vines. The newcomers’ leather armor was worn over flame-colored silk. The metal pieces fixed to the leather in tidy rows were bronze, not iron, and they were rounded, not flat, as the Yanjingyi soldiers wore their metal. Their horses were smaller, nimble, and less dismayed by sliding rock. Where had she seen them before? Garmashing! These were Gyongxin soldiers!

Half of their allies split off and galloped downhill, toward the road. Parahan swung into his own horse’s saddle and followed.

Evvy released her stones and collapsed on the ground. She watched blankly as the Gyongxin soldiers who stayed behind killed any living Yanjingyi soldiers. Two Gyongxin warriors rode over to Rosethorn and Briar.

Now that she had a chance to catch her breath, Evvy looked at the trickles of blood that emerged from beneath the heap of thorns and felt unclean. She scrubbed her hands on her breeches. We
had
to kill them, she told herself. The emperor’s soldiers were going to kill
us
, them and their mages. To stop us from getting word to Gyongxe that the emperor is coming. So the emperor can torture Parahan to death.

Why did we bother? she wondered, swimming in self-hate. She trembled from top to toe. All of this means nothing. These dead horses and dead men, it’s all camel spit in a high wind, because the
emperor
is coming. Gyongxe is so small. Gyongxe doesn’t have a chance against Yanjing.

The two warriors dismounted before Rosethorn and Briar. They put their palms together before their faces and bowed low to Rosethorn. “Dedicate,” the taller of them said, “I had the honor of seeing you in Gyongxe over the winter. I am Captain Rana, sent by the God-King and First Dedicate of the Living Circle Jangbu Dokyi to ensure your safe arrival in Gyongxe. This is my sergeant, Kanbab. I beg your pardon for our lateness. We did not know the beast Yanjingyi had crept up the gorge to lay in wait. Excuse me.” He turned and held up a hand. A warrior trotted forward. “Get to General Sayrugo. Tell her the enemy is here.
We surprised a company and are dealing with them. There may be more moving northwest above the road. As fast as you can ride, and I know that’s fast.”

The soldier bowed and ran to collect his horse. To Sergeant Kanbab the captain said, “Take half of our people. Help Sergeant Yonten mop up on the road. We must take the dedicate and her companions to the general as soon as possible.”

Rosethorn took a drink from the flask at her belt. “Forgive me, Captain Rana, but we are on our way to Garmashing. We have important news for the God-King and First Dedicate Dokyi.”

The captain smiled. “The First Dedicate has anticipated you,” he replied. “He waits at Fort Sambachu, at the end of this gorge — our home base.”

“A fort? Not the temple in Garmashing?” Rosethorn said.

“I am certain the First Dedicate will explain when you see him,” Rana said. “If you will excuse me, I must see to my wounded.”

Rosethorn and Briar walked slowly over to Evvy, towing the mules and their ponies. Once the animals were tethered, both of them sat beside her in silence. After a moment, Evvy leaned against Briar’s shoulder. A glance told her Rosethorn had stretched out on the grass and cradled her head on Briar’s knee.

“Do you want to lie down?” Evvy asked Briar. “I don’t mind.”

“I’ll just lean against you,” he said. “We can prop each other up.”

“Good,” Evvy whispered. She let her eyes close. If she had her way, she would never fight again.

Evvy slid off his shoulder at some point. Briar woke in time to catch her and lowered her to the grass. Rosethorn had rolled away from him and curled up in a knot. Once awake, he felt too itchy to rest. One of the Gyongxin soldiers offered him a flask of tea. Briar had a drink and looked around at the mess they had made — they and the emperor’s soldiers — of a beautiful mountain cove.

Now that he had time to think and remember, something puzzled him. He went back to the rock slide Evvy had made of the ridge. At first his feet simply went out from under him as he tried to reach the two dead Yanjingyi mages. Suddenly the sliding rocks held still. He turned to see Evvy’s eyes on him. He smiled at her and pursued the short climb to the corpses.

He hadn’t been mistaken. Their bead necklaces had strangled them while he had bound their hands using the wooden beads in their bracelets. Briar knelt and touched a bare spot where the cord lay exposed against a dead mage’s throat. Cotton. The necklace had been threaded on cotton. Not only that, but the cord tingled with the remnants of a magic he knew very well.

He scrambled down to solid earth and walked over to his teacher. She was sitting up and talking with Captain Rana. When they stopped and looked at him, Briar said, “Cotton.”

Rosethorn raised an eyebrow at him.

“You strangled them with the cotton thread on their own mage necklaces. They didn’t even try to stop you?”

“They couldn’t even tell I was there,” Rosethorn replied calmly. “Briar, they truly don’t understand ambient magic. We will be very useful here.” Her voice was perfectly reasonable. “You could have done it just as easily.” She looked at Captain
Rana. “Would someone build us a small fire? We need to collect these beads and burn them, before they fall into someone else’s hands.” She and Briar went to collect the beads as the captain gave orders.

It took some of their supplies of herbs that kept magic from spreading, but they saw all of the Yanjingyi mages’ beads destroyed in a nice, hot fire. They were even able to destroy the enemy’s mage kits. A part of Briar wanted to go through them, for curiosity’s sake. Rosethorn pointed out that just as they left special surprises in their own mage kits for snoops, the Yanjingyi mages could be expected to have something similar. Briar and Evvy both sighed at the missed opportunity and let the kits burn.

By the time they were finished, Parahan and the other Gyongxin warriors returned to report success at the road. There were no Yanjingyi soldiers left to carry word of Gyongxin soldiers in the pass. Just as good, from Briar’s point of view, those Gyongxin who took wounds were not badly hurt. Rosethorn, Briar, and Captain Rana’s healers were able to patch them up quickly before they all rode out.

They had not gone far before Briar noticed that Evvy was swaying in the saddle. Rana allowed him to switch to one of the surviving horses so he could take Evvy up in the saddle in front of him: Briar’s pony would not have appreciated the extra weight. Evvy was exhausted. Lately the work didn’t wring her out as it had today, but she had not shaped the paths of so many rocks in such different ways before this.

Briar asked Rana if they could stop long enough to make hot tea or soup, but the man refused. Briar understood — if there was one company of the enemy in these hills there might be
more — but he was desperately worried for his two companions. Parahan finally caught Rosethorn when she began to slide from her mule and pulled her up to ride with him as well. At least the captain sent riders ahead to his camp to prepare hot liquids and food in advance of their arrival.

In camp Parahan and Briar wrapped Rosethorn and Evvy in blankets and propped them in front of the captain’s fire, where Captain Rana and Sergeant Kanbab joined them. Briar was startled when Kanbab removed his helmet to free a tumbling waist-length braid of black hair. She grinned at his obvious surprise.

“Sergeant Kanbab is my right hand,” the captain said. “I would be in bad shape without her. A good number of Gyongxin women serve in the army before they marry. Some of them stay even afterward, like the sergeant and General Sayrugo.”

Kanbab bowed to Rosethorn. “The men wish to know if they may eat the honored dedicate’s chickens.”

“My cats!” Evvy cried wearily, trying to struggle out of the blankets. “They’re really cats. You can’t eat them!”

“I’ll take the spell off,” Briar told her. “Finish that tea and have another cup.” He rose, trying not to groan. He had put out a lot of magic, too, without being able to draw more from his best
shakkan,
which was now on its way to Hanjian. Every muscle in his body ached.

The crates had been placed beside the small round tents that were to serve Rosethorn, Evvy, Briar, and Parahan. Approaching them, Briar shook his head at the soldiers who stood nearby. “Sorry, lads,” he said in
tiyon
, hoping they understood. “They aren’t as tasty as you’d think.” Kneeling among the
cackling crates, he murmured the words he’d been taught by the
mimander.

Suddenly crates, chickens, and chicken noises were gone. From the look on Asa’s and Ball’s faces, Briar knew they were going to make their humans pay for the extra-long nap they’d had from the dose of sleeping herbs.