By then the cave snake had changed its hold enough to tighten its grip on the emperor’s throat again. Briar was close enough to see that its body was in reality all backbone, made of metal and dirt like its skull. He wanted one.
“He has a point.” Parahan, Soudamini, and Sayrugo had left their guards to stand with Rosethorn. Briar and Evvy went to join them. “We have the emperor and his mages, but it will do us no good,” Parahan continued. “The army is still here. His heirs will want to finish what he began.”
Luvo walked closer to the God-King. “Your nearest army has its own problems at this time.”
The God-King sat up, eager. “Would you show me?”
The biggest spider of all slid down a flaxen rope to the floor. Everyone stepped back except Evvy, who bowed low and said, “Hello, Diban Kangmo. It’s very good to see you again.”
The great creature uttered several squeaks and touched Evvy’s cheek with the hard edge of one arm. Then she settled back and began to eject fluid from her spinneret. Evvy backed up then, too.
“Who’s your friend?” Briar asked Evvy.
“She’s Diban Kangmo. I told you about her. She’s a peak spider. She and her daughter helped heal me after Luvo brought me into his mountain,” Evvy explained. “The peak spiders are the gods of the highest parts of the mountains. I’m not going to look at that,” she added, turning away from the pool of spinneret fluid. “I know it’s perfectly natural, what they make the webs from and all, but I think that looks nasty.”
The milky pool spread over the floor until it was several feet across. Diban Kangmo straightened and stepped away from it. The peak spider that had placed Luvo on the dais now carried him down to the floor and set him at the pool’s edge.
As Luvo waited, an image grew in the milky liquid. It was a view of the plain outside the main gate. Briar did his best not to gape. There were creatures out there. Horse-like ones with eagles’ heads, thin legs, and metal hooves fought the cavalry, their golden beaks and silvery hooves cutting deadly wounds on horses and riders. Lions that looked, impossibly, as if they were made of ice fought beside snow leopards, cave bears, and nagas, fully fleshed, not painted. Cave snakes shone as they slithered through the ranks of foot soldiers. Peak spiders walked among them, casting webs over several soldiers at a time. Giant vultures attacked from overhead. Whole companies of soldiers were giving the creatures the great bow, their foreheads on the bloody ground.
And it was very bloody, Briar saw. The creatures who fought for Gyongxe could die. The Yanjingyi soldiers were dying, too. The peak spiders had a stinger; it killed. But they were vulnerable to arrows or swords. Many of them lay sprawled in the dirt, their limbs and heads hacked away. The horse-like creatures bled dark blood when they were cut down.
“What are those horse things?” Briar asked, pointing.
“Deep runners,” Rosethorn answered, to his surprise. “They live far underground.”
“Sometimes my brothers and sisters get bored, and they make things,” Luvo said. “Sometimes things make themselves.”
There was movement in the pool. A company of soldiers, battered and limping, was struggling away from the field of battle. More turned to follow.
“Cowards!” Weishu shouted. “You will die for this!”
More soldiers saw what was taking place. They abandoned their flags and fled, the strange creatures pursuing them.
“Your army has abandoned you,” the God-King said, facing the emperor. “I think that if you want to live, you will have to make some arrangements, don’t you? Oh, hello, small one.” He reached down and lifted something from his shoe. It was a baby cave snake. The God-King looked at the one around the emperor’s neck. “Is this little one yours? I won’t hurt it.”
Briar could have sworn the skull on the serpent around the imperial throat looked cross. It nodded to the God-King. A moment later small cave snakes were crawling on many of the captive mages. Hengkai in particular was horrified and struggled to get away from the one that was tugging on his mustache. He fell over. Briar was in no way inclined to pick up the general.
“I’d kill him.” Souda eyed the emperor with intent. “He’s earned it a million times over.” She looked over at the mages. “And them.”
“But there are so many problems that come from his death,” the God-King reminded her. “If you two are to regain your kingdom, you can’t worry about imperial assassins, or imperial money going to pay every rebel who ever dreams of raising an army against you.”
I will never think of him as a boy again, Briar thought, staring at the God-King. How does he not go mad, with all those gods talking to him and giving him advice? I go crazy with my sisters, or Rosethorn and Evvy, telling me what to do, and none of them are gods.
“I don’t believe that.” The emperor pointed to the pool, which was vanishing into the cracks between the stone tiles. “Magic. I can buy a thousand illusions like it. Any of these hand wavers could have done the same.” His own wave of the hand dismissed the mages bound in spider silk on both sides of him. “I demand to look on the field of battle myself.”
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.
“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
“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
