had moved for Briar. One crimson-fanged warrior-demon now showed his bare behind to anyone who cared to see it.
Briar looked at the priest. The man blinked, then backed up a step. He leaned in closer and inspected a broad section of the paintings with borders that had moved. Finally he scowled at Briar and hurried off, telling his novice to put his paints away.
Briar turned his back on the paintings and tried not to look at any more of them. He said nothing to his companions, just as he had not mentioned the boulder paintings and the naga queen before. If they thought his twitches and flinches were strange, they were too polite to comment. Mages were expected to be odd. He would ask Rosethorn what was going on when she came back. He had an idea that it had something to do with his touching her cursed burden.
Briar also refused to sleep inside, despite the arguments of Parahan, Souda, and Jimut. There were just too many paintings to avoid. In the end, his friends gave him an assortment of furs to use as well as his bedroll, to keep off the early summer cold. Briar didn’t care. There were no paintings inside the curtain walls, and the stars above moved only as they were supposed to move. He fell asleep looking at them and asking Rosethorn’s gods to watch over her.
When the morning sun touched his eyes, Briar opened them to find a shaven-headed priestess in heavy robes squatting beside him. She grinned, showing off a scant mouthful of teeth. “Don’t worry,
Briar sat up and accepted the bowl. “Thank you. You’re very kind. I would prefer not to have been touched at all.”
She cackled. “But then they would not have their fun with you, the little gods, and it is so rare that they may play! The power in you makes it possible for them to enter our world for a time. They have been stirring for years, knowing that the evil was coming. At least now the waiting is over, and we will all see.”
Briar sipped the tea for a moment, thinking. She was a nice old woman. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind a question or two from a silly foreigner. “May I ask — why do even the temples here in Gyongxe have walls, like castles and big cities do? From what I’ve heard, you aren’t attacked very often.”
The priestess chuckled. “We aren’t worried about enemies outside our borders — it’s our neighbors who are trouble too much of the time,” she explained. “Our walls and fighters are to keep the tribes and warriors from the other temples out. If god-warriors take your temple, your priests must become priests of their god, and your temple becomes the temple of the enemy’s god. And the tribes are always fighting.”
“But you weren’t fighting when I was in Garmashing before, and no one’s fighting each other now. We’ve got at least five different tribes and warriors from four different temples riding with us. I heard Parahan say so.”
The priestess straightened. “When were you here before?”
“This winter.”
She snorted. “Nobody fights in winter. Everyone would die. And no one fights now because we all have the same enemy. Gyongxe belongs to us, not to that lowland emperor.” She nodded and said, “I would rather fight Weishu.”
Briar had finished the bowl of tea. “Thank you for telling me about all of that,” he said, returning the bowl to her with a bow.
“Don’t let the little gods worry you,” the priestess told him. “They are on our side. Mostly.”
She left Briar. He dressed under the covers in the chilly air. It unnerved him that she spoke so blithely of the things that moved on her walls. The priest-artist hadn’t seemed used to them. What else was she accustomed to seeing?
And what of these little gods? he asked himself as he struggled into his boots. If they could leave their walls and boulders, might they be convinced to fight Weishu? Could they even damage him and his armies? Might as well ask Lakik or Mila of the Grain to pick up weapons and fight!
He did up his furs and bedroll, and went to breakfast with Jimut. They were about to see if Parahan or Souda had orders for them when a horn sounded a long, low call throughout the temple compound. Everyone stopped what they were doing and waited, their eyes on the central temple. The highest tower there was capped by priests wielding horns so large and long that the curved ends rested on the ground.
The biggest of the horns sounded again, a long call, then three short calls. A long call, and three short calls. This second repetition was picked up by every temple horn. Briar didn’t have to ask what the calls meant. Every temple warrior was scrambling for the walls, crossbows in their hands. Briar’s warrior companions did the same.
Priests ran to bar the gates. Others backed wagons full of stones up against the gates once they were closed. Priestesses covered the large courtyard wells to keep arrows or stones from landing in the precious water. Novices guided the herds back into the barns just as they had begun to lead them out for the day. More temple workers gently urged the refugees that had come outside back into the buildings, where they might be safer.
Briar and Jimut gathered up their own weapons. Then they, too, ran up to the walls. They found their commanders on the southern wall, just over the main gates. There, together with the warrior-priest in command of the temple troops, they watched as three hundred Yanjingyi soldiers galloped up the road and fanned out before them, just out of shooting distance. A novice ran along the walkways to speak quickly in the warrior-priest’s ear.
“Two hundred more at the north gate,” the commander said to Souda, Lango, and Parahan. “We are nearly evenly matched unless they have others hidden on the far side of the ridge. I doubt this. None of our watchers has reported movement, and our guard changes have occurred without incident. The last change came just with the morning bell.”
“They could have used magic to get closer,” Parahan said uneasily.
The commander had a rich, deep chuckle. “It would have to be very unusual magic to get past our watchers, their dogs, and the guarding spells in the tunnels the watchers use to return here,” he assured Parahan. “A spy did get into the tunnels last year. He did not get out. They never learned where he vanished to. Captain Lango, will you reinforce my people on the eastern wall?” The Gyongxin captain nodded and ran down the walkway, beckoning for his soldiers on the ground to follow him.
A Yanjingyi soldier was riding up to the gate. He bore a white flag.
“They’re coming to talk,” Souda remarked. She slung an arm around Briar’s shoulders. “But he doesn’t need five companies just to talk. Maybe we’ll see action against these curs, eh, Briar?”
What a bloodthirsty girl! he thought in admiration.
The Yanjingyi messenger halted his mount and waved his white peace flag on its long pole. “Honored priests of the great Temple of the Tigers, I bring you salutations from General Jin Quan of the Imperial Army of South Gyongxe!”
“The blessings of our tigers be upon his head,” the commanding priest replied.
“I wonder if that’s a good thing,” Souda whispered to Briar.
“Our glorious general is merciful, and our mighty emperor, sixth of his dynasty, beloved of all the gods, Weishu Maorin Guangong Zhian of the Long Dynasty, holds this realm of Gyongxe close to his august bosom,” the messenger went on.
“So it was strangers that killed all those people in the river and the gorge?” Briar murmured to Souda.
“The blessings of our tiger gods be also upon the head of your emperor,” the commander replied. “In the Heavenly Time to Come, they will surely reward him in the most fitting manner.”
If the messenger thought this, or any of the commander’s replies, to be strange or double-edged, he did not show it. “My master the general bids me to say, we hope to make our visit to your glorious temple a brief, peaceful affair. Give to us the smallest of tokens of your esteem for our lordly and puissant emperor. If you do so, we shall proclaim our desire for peace between our great empire and your gods, and leave here.”
“Interesting,” murmured the commander. “What exactly are these small tokens?” he called.
