Battle Magic (35 page)

“We got all but two of the ones we were chasing,” Atori, one of Souda’s archers, told Briar as he cleaned her arrow wound. “Those Yanjingyi
seps
can ride!”

Briar grinned at her use of a Banpuri curse word he’d heard Parahan use many times. She ground her teeth as the cleansing potion he had applied bubbled deep into the wound. He murmured, “Not long, now. I’ve yet to lose someone to infection with this.”

“Well, there’s the goddess’s blessing,” she gasped. “Aiiiii!”

“Done,” Briar said, and began to bandage the wound. “When you take this off tomorrow, around noon, say, your arm will look like you never got shot. Give it a week, and it won’t even be sore.”

“I’ll be able to shoot with it?” Atori wanted to know. Her face was anxious. “That was a big camp we found. Bigger than ours. Signs of an army in the area.”

“You’ll be able to shoot,” Briar assured her. “Get some of the healing tea, and keep drinking that.”

She had been sitting on a stool so he could work on her arm. Abruptly she stood, grabbed him by the ears, and kissed him well. “Oh, if only I weren’t betrothed,” she said mournfully. “Thank you, Briar!”

He stood there, grinning for a moment. She was twenty or so, definitely too old for him, but it was nice to have a pretty girl kiss him among so much insanity. Better than nice!

“Say,
emchi
,” growled the next patient in line, an older Gyongxin warrior, “if you don’t want me kissing you, would you have a look at this?”

Startled out of his happy state, Briar apologized and beckoned the soldier forward.

It was almost midnight when he emerged from the barn that had been made over into an infirmary. He’d given his slumbering patients a last check, and then cared for those who were awake and asking for help of some kind. He had just seen his bedroll and furs, set up beside a shed where they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way — thank you, Jimut! he thought gratefully — when he heard noise outside the gate. It was a horn: not the great horns on the
temple’s walls and roof, but a normal-sized one, blowing several notes. It halted, then sounded the same notes again.

Briar watched as guards hurried to open one half of the gates, which had been cleared after the battle. A rider in Gyongxin armor stumbled through, leading a weary horse. Attached to his saddle was a long bamboo wand with a blue silk banner attached. He was a messenger from one of Gyongxe’s generals.

A temple novice ran forward to take the messenger’s horse. Another came to lead him to those he needed to see. For a moment Briar wished the man brought word of Rosethorn or Evvy, but he knew better. He would not hear from Rosethorn until he saw her again, so secret was her task, and no one would send a wartime messenger for a student mage and her cats. For anything else, Briar was exhausted more than he was curious. He washed his face and hands at the courtyard well, then stripped off his boots and crawled into his bedroll.

As so often happened, he found himself too tired to sleep. After staring at the stars for a time, he sat up and pulled his boots back on. Perhaps the healers could spare some ordinary tea and maybe some food. He had not eaten supper. No doubt the temple kitchens were closed. He went back to the well for a drink of water and to clean his teeth.

It was there that Parahan and Soudamini found him. The twins looked as weary as he felt. He noticed they had taken time to comb the dust from their glossy black hair and change into comfortable Realms-style tunics and baggy breeches. Parahan carried something bulky in his hands.

“Why aren’t you abed?” Briar asked, his voice froggy from weariness.

“We could ask you the same,” Souda replied. She sat beside him on the edge of the well.

“Oh, no,” Briar said, giddy from a lack of sleep and food. “I’ve been kissed by one pretty girl today. I couldn’t take it if I got kissed by another.”

Souda laughed quietly and put her arm around him. “It would be like kissing my brother,” she said. “Briar, listen. We have news.”

He looked at her, then up at Parahan.

“We chased some of the soldiers to a camp. They got the warning in time and ran, but their general left some letters and other things.” With shock, Briar realized that Parahan was weeping. “Briar, Fort Sambachu was attacked two days after we left. The Yanjingyi enemy had enough mages to blow down their gates. They wrote to their general that they killed the refugees and the animals.”

Briar clenched his fists. “Evvy?”

Souda took up the story. Parahan was wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “They had orders to send Evvy to the emperor’s camp once she told them where we were, and where you and Rosethorn were. But — she died, as they questioned her. They had one of the emperor’s best mages with them, just for that.”

Briar heard a voice. It turned out to be his own. “You mean tortured.”

Souda bowed her head. “Tortured.”

Parahan held the bundle in his hand out to Briar. “She showed me this, one of the days when you and Rosethorn were making the flower. It was in the general’s tent with his letter. He was going to send it to Weishu.”

Numbly Briar took it and undid the ties. It was Evvy’s stone alphabet. Not the one she had begun recently, made of stones that she had found herself. It was the one he had made for her, back when he realized he would have to teach a stone mage somehow. The stones lay still and dead in the dim torch- and starlight.

“A for amethyst,” he whispered, running his fingers over the stone. It wasn’t high in quality; it wouldn’t have fetched much in the market, but Evvy had loved it. It was her first step into her new life as a mage. She had kept the alphabet where the cats couldn’t play with it….

“The cats?”

“The letter said they killed the animals. We can hope they escaped,” Parahan said, his voice cracking.

He had spent time with Evvy and her cats, Briar remembered. “Might I be alone now?” he asked politely. “I’ll be all right.”

“Are you certain?” Souda wanted to know. “We can only imagine how bad this is for you.”

“Really, I’ll be fine,” Briar said. “I do this best alone.” Or with Rosethorn, and Lark, and my sisters, he thought, and
none
of them are here! None of them are with me! They’ve all gone off to do their whatevers and left me to face this!

It wasn’t fair. He knew it wasn’t fair. He didn’t feel like
being
fair just then. He climbed up the wall and walked along until he could look north. Right now he hated everyone, the First Dedicate and the God-King, Lark for not making Rosethorn stay home, Rosethorn for not refusing the emperor and the First Dedicate, Evvy for being unwilling to come along with him. Himself for not insisting that she come, or for not staying with her.

Especially himself. He hated himself. He was her first teacher, and he had dragged her into the path of the huge imperial armies and the legions of imperial mages. He stood by and watched as Weishu smiled and played games with their lives. Briar had left his Evvy to be tortured and to die alone. She was good with her power, but these people were masters of theirs. She was only twelve.

He clutched the stone alphabet and stared at the grasslands beyond the north gate. They were gray in the starlight. Somewhere across those were the imperial armies. That way lay the torturers, the murderers, and those who would steal other people’s countries. They would pay. He would make sure of that.

In the dark the grasses strained upward, their blades trembling with the power that filled them. Their roots swelled and stretched. For a long moment the land shook, then sank back.

T
HE
T
EMPLE OF THE
T
IGERS, AND
K
ANGRI
S
KAD
P
O
M
OUNTAIN IN THE
D
RIMBAKANG
L
HO

Dawn found Briar with the orange-and-black stone tiger at the southern temple gate. He had managed to talk the guards into letting him out at some point; he didn’t remember when. The tiger was good company in his present bleak mood. Wrapped in a fur from his bedroll, he had told it about Evvy, how aggravating she could be, how protective she was of her cats, how much she loved new clothes. The tiger had curled around him, forming a bowl to hold Briar. At last he had slept.

It was the chief priestess who found him. She spoke with the stone tiger gently, thanking it for its care of Briar, until it slowly uncurled and took its normal place by the gate.

As Briar looked at the old woman sleepily, she told him, “I think we must treat the gate tigers differently after this. It is written in our books that they are mindless slaves of our magic, but apparently they are otherwise. We have you to thank — perhaps.” She touched one of his swollen eyes. “You have been weeping.”

For a precious moment he had forgotten. Tears spilled down as he told her, “They killed Evvy. My student.”

“You shall have revenge,” the old woman said. “Last night a messenger came from the west. Your people will wait here another day for the wounded to heal. By this afternoon warriors from the western temples and tribes will join you. Parahan and Souda want to go east, to trap the enemy in Fort Sambachu. We shall see. General Sayrugo is closer.”

“I want to go there,” Briar said, struggling to his feet. “I want to serve them at the fort like they served Evvy!”

The old woman helped him up. “When you agreed to help Parahan and the others, you put yourself at the orders of the God-King. You may not have a choice.”

Briar glared at her, but he was too weak with grief to argue. Instead he thought of something else. “Wait — I can’t go. I have to wait here for Rosethorn. She’ll be returning from the mountains soon, I hope. I said I would meet her.”

“And you will,” the priestess said patiently. “When was the last time you had any food?”

He shook his head, not because he didn’t want to eat, but because he couldn’t remember his most recent meal.

“As I thought,” she said. She towed him into the temple complex.

They fed him egg soup and
momos
, scolding him when he picked at his food. When he’d eaten enough that the cooks let him be, he went to the healers’ tent and helped there. Midday was curry. Jimut sat on one side of him, Souda on the other. Between them he ate all that was set before him, just to stop them from nagging him to death.

He was about to leave the temple to say prayers for Evvy in one of his new willow groves when a squad of Gyongxin warriors carrying the yellow banner of messengers galloped up the road. He knew a couple of them from Fort Sambachu.

“We almost did not come up here,” the woman who carried the banner told the gate guards. “Those trees weren’t on your road when I was here last! How —” Looking past the guard’s shoulder, she saw Briar. “Oh. I thought Rana made that up about you growing trees from nothing. Never mind. I bring messages for Prince Parahan and Princess Soudamini, and Captains Lango and Jha!”

Only when Lango identified the newcomers as General Sayrugo’s warriors did the guards open the gate. The messenger and her guards led their horses inside. Briar felt distantly sorry for them. They would soon learn of their own losses: the slaughter of Captain Jha and his company. At least they had been soldiers. They had known they were expected to die in war. Evvy had not. She had been dragged here by Briar and Rosethorn. She had not wanted anything to do with the emperor. All she had wanted to do was see the mountains.