Battle Magic

She nodded.

Briar took a breath and coughed. Rosethorn helped him to sit up. Jimut knelt beside him with a flask. Briar hesitated, then drank. It was cold water. “Thank you, Jimut. I believe you would have told me,” he said to Rosethorn. “And you think you are safe with that thing?”

“Safer than you,” she said. Parahan and Jimut hoisted him to his feet.

Souda waited nearby with men who held their saddled horses. Their small army was ready to march.

Briar felt better in the saddle. He didn’t complain when Jimut rode close to him and collected the reins so he could lead Briar’s mount. That seemed like a good idea, too.

It was hard to concentrate on what anyone said, or on anything but the strange pictures that rippled through his brain: lions that seemed to be carved of ice and snow, tiny metal serpents with skulls for heads, and orange fanged gods with flames for hair. Blue goddesses danced on the mountaintops with a different weapon in each of their six arms. A yak whose head was as big as he was tall snuffled in his ear. He had wanted to know what Dokyi had foisted on Rosethorn — what all the secrecy and risk was about. Now it seemed like ignorance might not be such a bad thing. At least, not when it came to that pack. Clearly Rosethorn could carry it without problems, but he thought he would leave it alone.

Briar opened his eyes to full daylight. He found himself at the back of their group with the pack animals and their crossbow-wielding guards. The rest of their numbers trotted ahead. Briar twisted frantically, looking for Rosethorn. That was when he discovered someone had tied him to the saddle.

“You’re back with us,” Jimut said cheerfully. He rode between Briar and an attendant who led a train of supply mules. The reins to Briar’s horse were in his hand. “You are back?” His furry eyebrows inched up toward his hairline.

“I never left!” Briar retorted, annoyed by the question. Then he looked at the sun. It was almost noon. “Did I?”

“Your eyes were closed. You didn’t move. Forgive me,” Jimut said, bowing as Briar yanked at the long scarf that secured him in the saddle. “I didn’t want Nanshur Rosethorn angry if you fell off.” He edged his own mount over to Briar and traded Briar’s reins for the scarf once Briar untied the knot.

“I … was in a mage trance,” Briar announced, trying to recover his dignity. “Don’t your nanshurs have trances?”

“Weeelll, yes,” the older man drawled. “But usually they shake rattles and hum and chant for a long time first to give us warning.”

“Mine caught up with me fast,” Briar replied, thinking quickly. “I had no time to warn anyone.” He looked ahead. “Shouldn’t we be riding up there if I’m to help guard the warriors?”

Jimut looked at his friend, shrugged, and led the way as Briar nudged his own horse into a trot. They picked up the pace to a gallop. A few of the warriors they passed called out jokes to Jimut, suggesting that it was nice of him to join them. Jimut only turned his beaky nose up haughtily.

“I’m sorry,” Briar called. “You should have roused me.”

“I tried!” Jimut replied. “It didn’t work!”

“I don’t normally sleep like that,” Briar said as they slowed. “I really don’t.”

“Whatever Nanshur Rosethorn carries, it must be as strong as the great river Kanpoja — the Thundering Water,” Jimut explained. “You can hear her in Kombanpur from miles away. She comes to us from here in Gyongxe. The hero Ajit Robi fought the Drimbakang demons to set Kanpoja free. He cut a path for the goddess through the mountains, and she leaped from Gyongxe into Kombanpur. All of our great rivers are born from her.”

Briar looked at the tumbling band of the Snow Serpent. “This river is the Kanpoja?”

Jimut shook his head. “Farther west. Along the Drimbakang Zugu and through the Drimbakang Lho. Maybe we will see it, where the goddess’s temple stands.” He sighed. “I have always wanted to see it.”

He and Jimut had just caught up with Rosethorn, Parahan, and the others when they reached a bridge across the Snow Serpent. Here Rosethorn, Briar, Jimut, Souda, the Gyongxin Captain Lango, and two companies of warriors turned off the road and crossed the bridge. A large village several miles up this road had to be evacuated. Parahan rode on to collect people on the south side of the road and ensure they reached safety, while the other Gyongxin captain, Jha, left them to do the same errand on the north side of the road.

At the village, the officials were not impressed with the warning carried by Souda and Captain Lango. They did not like the arrival of two hundred-odd soldiers at their gates, half of them southern foreigners. They did not believe that the Yanjingyi emperor had declared war on Gyongxe. Yes, the headman said, messengers had come from that fortress to the east, but messengers were excitable. They would claim a caravan was an enemy army. The headman said his village wall would hold off any invisible army.

Finally Rosethorn had heard enough. She rode forward to Souda’s side. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” she told Souda, her voice carrying to the villagers, “but if they don’t want to leave this place, they don’t have to. If they want to trust their safety to logs that have been eaten hollow by insects, let them. Surely there are other people around these parts who will be grateful for the warning.”

Briar hadn’t thought the bug munching was that bad, but it was his and Rosethorn’s pattern to reinforce what the other said. He dismounted and walked to the wall beside the gate. With one hand he reached out to a log he guessed wouldn’t bring the gate down and pushed. No one had to know that he asked the weak wood at the base of the log to give way for him. The log groaned, and then toppled onto the ground outside. He shook his head, tsking to himself.

“When did you last replace these logs?” Rosethorn wanted to know.

“Magic!” the headman shouted, his face red-bronze with fury. “You used magic!”

Briar turned and looked at the man. “I can’t magic the kind of bug damage that got done to this log,” he said. “Rosethorn can’t, either. We’re plant mages, not bug mages. Look at this wood yourself.”

“We just came up the Snow Serpent Pass with the emperor’s warriors chasing us,” Rosethorn snapped. “We didn’t have time to spell your logs. Believe us or not, but ask your wives and children if they mean to wait here with you behind your rotten walls.”

“We come at the bidding of the God-King,” Captain Lango said last. “Why would we be foolish enough to use his name for a lie?”

The village leaders were finally convinced, and the soldiers set up camp outside the wall. Rosethorn vanished. Briar could tell she had walked outside the wall, probably to listen to whatever songs her burden was singing.

He found work helping a woman and her children pack. Jimut, seeing what he was up to, obtained a mule the fatherless family could use for their burdens. While Jimut helped to load the mule, Briar gathered piles of sticks and what twine was available and made carry-crates for the villagers’ birds and pets. If he didn’t have enough twine, he simply persuaded the sticks to grow through one another to make the joins he needed.

The afternoon was half over when he heard a crash from a hut and a child’s screams. He ran to see what was wrong.

Inside the hut, two women were bent over a wailing child who lay between several wooden boxes. The little boy clutched his left shin with both hands, shrieking. Blood leaked between his twined fingers.

Briar pulled off the sling he wore on his back. “Excuse me,” he called loudly to the women. “Please, I can help. I’m a nanshur. I use medicine.”

The women moved aside. Briar felt inside the sling for a roll of linen bandage and a potion he kept for bleeding wounds. He leaned close to the child’s face and yelled, “Hah!”

The boy threw up his hands to protect his face. Instantly Briar gripped his leg. He felt it gently to see if it was broken — it did not seem to be. He used a touch of his power to tug a square of linen off the bandage roll. Carefully he pressed the cloth against the wound. After a short wait he took the cloth away for a quick look. The boy had cut himself from his knee halfway to his ankle, but the wound was a shallow one. Quickly Briar pressed the cloth to it again.

The older of the two women, assured that he knew what he was doing, got a wet cloth and set about