Battle Magic (53 page)

The God-King shrugged. “Please yourself. Zochen Brul, would you be so kind?”

That appeared to be the cave snake’s name. It unwound from the emperor’s neck and slid down the throne to the God-King’s side in a clatter.

“I want a guard, as is my due,” Weishu said, shaking out his robes as he stood. His eyes glinted with his familiar arrogance.

Briar shook his head with reluctant admiration. It took a great deal to shake Weishu’s sense that he was entitled to rule
over everything, it seemed. He could never feel that way — his teachers and his girls would never allow it.

“You may have whomever you wish,” the God-King said agreeably. Suddenly he looked much less agreeable. “But first, you will order your mage to wake my city.
All
of my city.”

“Your monsters hold him,” Weishu said, looking down at the cocooned Hengkai. He stared up at his emperor without trying to utter a word past the spider silk that bound his mouth.

“If you would?” the God-King asked the spider that lurked in the shadows behind Hengkai. It reached out a long leg and touched the cocoon. The silk shriveled and fell away from the general. Gingerly Hengkai sat up and looked around himself on the dais. He picked up several beads and held them in one trembling hand.

Parahan turned on the guard closest to him and grabbed his sword from its sheath. The guard didn’t try to resist. The big man strode up the steps to the throne and put the tip of the sword to Weishu’s throat.

“Call me untrusting, God-King,” he said apologetically, without taking his eyes from the emperor, “but in case Hengkai
does
try something, I will take his master’s head. He was Weishu’s chief general because he can work battle magic very quickly.”

“The cave snakes have an eye on Hengkai, Parahan,” the God-King assured him. Briar looked at the general. A number of baby cave snakes and two of the larger ones lay at Hengkai’s feet, watching him. Perhaps that was why the man trembled so much. Perhaps he was steadfast enough in ordinary battle, but these strange beings were too much for him.

Hengkai handled the beads he’d gathered in a particular order, his lips moving. He passed his free hand over them. That done, he shifted the beads to his free hand and murmured, then passed the other hand over them. Briar felt a pressure on his ears, then a pop.

“Don’t you feel better?” the God-King asked Hengkai. “It can’t have been easy for you, holding such a vast spell for so long a time.”

The general did not answer him. He sank onto the top step by the throne and put his head in his hands.

Weishu did not even ask if he felt unwell. He ducked Parahan’s sword and walked down the steps, ignoring the God-King. He brushed past Rosethorn and Sayrugo, pointing to different Yanjingyi soldiers. The others moved out of his way.

“They will leave their weapons here,” Sayrugo called as Weishu was about to pass through the open doors.

“Very well,” the God-King said. “Weishu, you heard General Sayrugo.”

The emperor did not move, but the soldiers he had chosen did. They stripped off their sword belts and even their daggers, leaving them in a heap before they accompanied Weishu out of the throne room. Without discussing it, the God-King, Parahan, Soudamini, Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy followed.

“Are you coming?” Evvy asked Riverdancer when they passed her.

The shaman shook her head. “I have see too much … death,” she said haltingly, proving that she spoke a little
tiyon
.

They kept pace with Weishu and his soldiers as they passed
from the God-King’s palace onto the wall that encircled the city. From there they followed the wall down, level by level. All the way to the gate they saw that Gyongxe’s big and little gods had been fighting here, too. They found Yanjingyi soldiers in smothering bundles of spider silk and others bloated and face-black with poison. More were wounded or hacked apart by sharp edges. On and off Briar looked over the edge of the wall, inside the city and out. Quite a few soldiers had jumped to get away from whatever had attacked them up here.

Weishu pretended to see none of the men and women who had died for him.

At last they came to the main gates and the scene they had viewed in the spinneret pool. No inch of ground on the plain was untouched. The earth was dark from spilled blood. Parts of it moved. The creatures they had seen in the pool — cave snakes, peak spiders, the eagle-headed horses Rosethorn had called “deep runners,” nagas, ice lions and lionesses, and mortal snow leopards and cave bears — wandered everywhere, together with huge red, blue, green, and orange many-armed gods. Giant vultures wheeled in the sky together with mortal eagles and ordinary vultures. Some were busy killing those of the enemy who were still alive. The rest were pursuing the fleeing army. And it
was
fleeing.

Any sense of victory Briar felt over Weishu’s army vanished. These poor bleaters had no idea of what they might be walking into. They were used to fighting their northern neighbors’ armies, horse nomads, and imperial Namorn’s trained army in the northwest. The emperor had walked them into a storm of magic
and creatures from their nightmares. He wondered if they had even been given a choice about joining the army. Knowing Weishu, probably not.

He glanced at Rosethorn. She was even whiter than usual. Only Evvy looked happy. There was a small, tight smile on her lips. She’s entitled, maybe, Briar thought. More than maybe, after what they did to her.

There was no expression on the emperor’s face at all.

The God-King had to reach up to put a hand on his enemy’s shoulder. “Let’s go back inside and talk about a treaty. You won’t even think of breaking it when you get back to Yanjing, I know. You can never tell what kind of spies will choose to come back with you.”

They turned back toward the palace. Briar chose not to mention the baby cave snake dangling from a silk thread — or a spider thread — on the emperor’s robe.

Rosethorn drew a deep breath. “I’m going to get my kit and go down there,” she said. “I won’t hold it against you if you stay behind.”

As if he would let her go alone! Briar looked at Evvy, who was shaking her head. “I’ll keep Luvo company,” she told them. “There isn’t much I could do down there. At least here we can help rebuild.”

Rosethorn nodded. She and Briar went in search of their medicines.

G
ARMASHING, CAPITAL OF
G
YONGXE

A week later, Riverdancer came to the workroom to tell Rosethorn and Briar that Weishu had left for Yanjing with those healthy soldiers who remained to him. He had needed a cart just for the agreements he had signed with the God-King.

Rosethorn murmured, “Mmhmm.” Briar made no sound at all. They had spent most of their time with the Earth temple novices, filling bags with their fast-growing barley. With luck, the Gyongxin farmers might get four short, plentiful harvests before the winter snows.

“Hengkai did not go with him,” Riverdancer said through her translator.

That got the attention of the two green mages. They stared at her.

Riverdancer smiled and passed each of them a seed cake.

“Hengkai has entered the temple of the Yanjing goddess Kanzan. He hopes the goddess will forgive him his many killings and keep him safe from cave snakes and peak spiders, he says.”
Riverdancer and her translator took stools and nibbled on their own cakes when Rosethorn and Briar relaxed.

“It is too bad, in a way,” Riverdancer went on. “If he had gone home to Yanjing, he would have forgotten them, except for some dreams.”

Rosethorn looked sharply at her friend. “What?”

The translator nodded. “The gods protect Gyongxe,” she said, and translated her words for Riverdancer. The older woman spoke. The translator said, “Surely you have heard no tales about the things you have seen? Nothing about the creatures that showed themselves to you or to the emperor?”

Rosethorn and Briar both nodded. “You’re right,” said Rosethorn. “Not a word.”

“The gods do not want folk from the world over coming to disturb their peace,” the shaman said through the translator. “A veil will fall between you and these memories when you leave us. You will remember the humans, but the nagas, the cave snakes, the ice lions?” Riverdancer shook her head. “Only in dreams. They will be rich dreams.”

Briar scratched his cheek and heard a rasping noise. He would have to start shaving more often. “I’m surprised the emperor let Hengkai stay.”

“The emperor blames his defeat on Hengkai. He took away Hengkai’s lands and fortune. He wanted to take Hengkai back to Yanjing a prisoner, but the God-King left him no choice about any of Yanjingyi who wished to remain.” Riverdancer smiled. “A number of mages and generals also stayed.”

Briar whistled softly. “Weishu won’t forgive the God-King any time soon.”

“The emperor will have signs to remind him of his fate if he thinks he will take revenge,” Riverdancer said, and shrugged. “Maybe he will die of a long illness. I do not think it will be that. Many of his nobles are unhappy with his wars. He will have enough to keep him busy.” She tousled Briar’s hair. “But you have finished with your seeds, yes? It is time for you three to go home.”

“And we’ll forget?” Rosethorn asked wistfully.

“You will dream of the nagas, the spiders, the cave snakes,” Riverdancer said. “We would be sad indeed if you were to forget those of us among the humans. We will certainly remember you.”

T
HE
T
EMPLE OF THE
G
ODDESS
R
IVER
K
ANPOJA
P
ASS

Two weeks later the twins accompanied Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy to the Kanpoja Pass leading to the Realms of the Sun. Jimut and Luvo came as well. Jimut wanted to pay his respects to the river that was worshipped in Kombanpur as the goddess Kanpoja. Like the twins, who meant to work for the God-King for two more years to earn a nest egg for their coming war against their uncle, Jimut was remaining in Gyongxe.

Luvo had come to say good-bye to Evvy. One of Diban Kangmo’s daughters would carry him back to his mountain afterward.

“You’re the only thing I’ll miss about this place, really,” Evvy told him as they watched the river tumble by. It seemed less personal than watching Parahan and Rosethorn. “I mean, I’ll miss Parahan and Souda, but they’ll be riding all over the country and getting rid of any soldiers left behind. I don’t want that. No fighting, no war. I wish I could have stayed with you and learned more.”

“I wish you could stay, too,” Luvo said. “This traveling is so odd. We mountains never stray. It astounds my kin that I went to Garmashing.”

Parahan came over to Evvy and crouched before her. “I owe you everything,” he told her quietly. “You know this, don’t you?”

Evvy flapped her hand at him, her way of saying, “Forget that.”

“I would heap you with jewels were I at home, but here I am only a poor soldier. The God-King hasn’t even paid me yet!” Parahan smiled at her. “The gods bless you in your journeying, and give you sweet dreams.” He put his palms together before his face and bowed. Evvy hugged him fiercely. She would never get another chance.

When they let each other go, Souda was waiting. She, too, bowed to Evvy, her hands pressed together before her face. “Thank you for helping my brother to escape the emperor,” she told Evvy. She looked at Briar, who had come over with Jimut. “Briar, my thanks to you both. If our prayers count for anything, you will reach your home in health and safety.”

Rosethorn led her horse over to them. The peak spider followed her.

“Please count my prayers, too,” Jimut added. He had splashed river water over his face and head for what seemed like the dozenth time since they had reached the pass. “Because of you I have seen the place where the beautiful river crosses into the Realms of the Sun!” He looked at Parahan and Souda, then grinned at Briar and Evvy. “Don’t worry. I will take good care of them.”

“Then we should all go,” Rosethorn said, swinging into the saddle. Evvy and Briar did the same. “We have a long journey
ahead. Emelan is almost half a world away. Luvo, your spider friend is ready to take you home.”