Battle Magic

7

ON THE SOUTHERN OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY OF DOHAN

The caravansary was the biggest Evvy had ever seen, with beautiful paintings of flowers and fish on the inside plaster walls, and a large square well in the middle. There were two levels of rooms, with the bottom level reserved for the bigger caravans and the upper for smaller traveling parties. This was a Trader place, very clean and in good repair.

The ride leader of their caravan came running as they rode through the gate. As soon as she and her people took charge of their group, the imperial escort bowed to Rosethorn and Briar and left them.

The ride leader, who had introduced herself as Rajoni of Twenty-eighth Caravan Datta, frowned. “That’s odd. Usually some of them stay for tea and any news we care to pass on, but this year the imperials have been very … distant.” She shook her head, as if shaking off bad thoughts. “Dedicate Rosethorn, you and your companions are blessed. I was unable to send a message before your departure from the palace, but as it happens, we leave in the morning, a day early, for Hanjian.” She looked at their animals. “You have more horses than your note said.”

“The emperor was an overwhelmingly gracious host,” Rosethorn explained.

“Well, then, we shall make accommodation.” Rajoni looked around. The Trader boys and girls who had taken charge of the pack animals stood a little straighter, knowing the ride leader’s eye was on them. When Rajoni nodded, the youngsters led the animals off to the stables. Only those who held the reins to the cats’ horses, the shakkans’ bearers, and the horses Rosethorn pointed to, the ones with the mage kits and their next day’s clothing, waited and followed as the ride leader showed them to their rooms in the caravansary. Once they had stowed everything they wanted to keep with them, Rajoni said, “Midday is being served now, if you wish to eat. There are tables by the fountain, or you may carry your food here.”

“I can bring the food here,” Briar said. “We’ll take supper with the rest of your company tonight.”

Evvy sighed. She wanted a nap, but she also wanted time to herself, to think about what Parahan had told her. She hadn’t had a moment alone with Briar and Rosethorn since they had ridden away from the palace. She had hoped to talk to them here, but what if there were listening spells on the walls? If they were Trader listening spells, that wasn’t so bad. But what if they were imperial ones?

Rosethorn said, “Rajoni, I saw a stream outside the walls. Is it safe for me to meditate there?”

“This area is very safe,” the ride leader assured them. “We only ask that you be inside our walls by dark, when we close and lock the gates for the night. We leave at dawn.”

Evvy and Rosethorn went inside to inspect their rooms. Using her guard stones, Evvy set the cats up in a corner of the main room by the entry. She filled a shallow basket with dirt in which they could relieve themselves, fed them from the sealed jar of cooked pork scraps the palace servants had left for her, and put down several dishes of water. Constant travel had made Evvy inventive when it came to providing for her companions. When she went to set up her own bedroll next to the cats’ place, she discovered that Briar had returned with food.

It had been a long time since the rice she’d had at dawn. Evvy did her best not to slop the bowl of chicken and lemon stew all over her face as she ate, but it was a near thing. She thought she might die happy when she saw the plate of spicy seminola cake that Briar had also brought.

“I love Trader food!” she cried.

“Do you know, when I don’t particularly want to eat, all I have to do is watch you devour whatever is before you and I feel hungry,” Rosethorn remarked.

Evvy and Briar carried the empty dishes back to the Trader washing tubs and did their share of washing up in thanks for the meal. By the time they returned to their chambers, Rosethorn had left in search of her meditation.

“I’ll be back,” Evvy told Briar and the cats in Chammuri when she saw the woman was gone. “Unless you want to come along. Actually you should.”

Briar, who had picked up one of his shakkans, looked at her with suspicion. “Go along where? I thought you would want a nap.”

At least he’s quick enough to speak Chammuri, Evvy thought. “I have to talk to Rosethorn.”

Briar’s lips went tight and his eyes went hard. “You have to do no such thing. You heard her. She said meditation. She needs quiet. She needs to relax. All of that imperial carrying-on was hard on her.”

Evvy crossed her arms on her chest. “I know that almost as well as you, Briar Moss. Maybe I’m not a brilliant, dung-nosed nanshur like some people, but I’m no paperwit, either. You might think that I have something important to say. Something she ought to know, even if I don’t have a cartwheel of metal hanging around my neck.” She marched out of the building, bound for the gate.

It wasn’t long before the tiny rocks on the path behind her let her know that he was following. She had found the stream and entered the wood before he said, “Evvy, stop. Look at me.” She did. “Don’t pout,” he ordered. “I just don’t think she needs to know we helped, you know.”

“That isn’t what I was going to say,” Evvy snapped. “What I am going to say? She’ll bite my head off if I wait too long to tell her.” She set off down the stream bank again. “You don’t believe I care about her almost as much as you do.”

“I know you care about her,” he retorted, trotting until he could walk beside her. “Or I would’ve just pushed you into the water.”

“Do you think you could talk any louder?” they heard Rosethorn call. “Because I am reasonably certain my meditations did not include the two of you squabbling like a nestful of birds.”

As they rounded a bend in the stream, they saw Rosethorn seated cross-legged on top of a large, flat boulder. “He started it,” Evvy replied. “I didn’t ask him to follow me. He invited himself.”

“I was trying to stop her,” Briar said.

“What part of alone did either of you not hear?” Rosethorn wanted to know.

“I’m sorry,” Evvy said, climbing up until she was close enough to Rosethorn to whisper. Briar came to stand beside her. “Bend down, please? Parahan told me something yesterday. This is the first time I think it’s safe to tell you.”

Rosethorn frowned and leaned toward them. The three were so close that strands of Rosethorn’s hair brushed Evvy’s head while her sleeve covered Briar’s face until he held it back. The woman braced herself gently on Briar’s shoulder.

“He said the emperor is going to Inxia to join the rest of the army that’s been gathering there since Inxia surrendered,” Evvy whispered in soft Chammuri. “As soon as the emperor gets there he’s going to invade Gyongxe. They’re already near the border. He doesn’t trust his generals anymore. He’s going to lead the attack himself.”

Her legs hurt from standing on tiptoe when she was so tense. She lowered herself until she was flat-footed. Looking up again, she realized Rosethorn had covered her open mouth with her hand. She was stricken, and Evvy had done it.

“I’m sorry,” Evvy said, still whispering. “I know it was bad. I told you as soon as I thought it was safe. Briar didn’t know. I was scared to say anything in the palace, not when I didn’t know what had spells on it!”

Rosethorn stared off into the distance. Evvy wanted very badly to ask what she was thinking, but sometimes it was best to leave Rosethorn to her thoughts. Finally the woman clambered down the boulders.

“So much for quiet meditation,” she muttered. “I’ll have to consider this for a while. You two will mind your tongues and behave, do you understand me?”

“Yes, Rosethorn,” they chorused.

She set off down the path back to the caravansary, her pace brisk. Briar held Evvy back until Rosethorn was out of earshot. He then demanded quietly, “You couldn’t have told me this before?”

“I didn’t dare,” Evvy said as they followed Rosethorn, walking more slowly. “It was last night. We were seeing him off. Then we were going back and I was so tired. It’s not like there’s anything we can do.”

Briar rubbed the top of his head, looking tired. “I just hope she feels the same way.”

“I’ll be glad when we leave Yanjing,” Evvy told him. “I’m scared we’ll trip over something really bad. It hasn’t happened yet, but I keep expecting it.”

“There are shrines to the gods in the walls all around the inside of the caravansary,” Briar said. “First thing we do when we get back inside the gates, you take an offering to that Heibei luck god of yours. A nice offering, mind. And you ask him to get us out of here safely!”

Evvy beamed at her teacher. “That’s a splendid idea.” She had a piece of white jade that would be perfect, and a piece of lapis lazuli for Kanzan the Merciful. Even gods couldn’t be able to resist such fine bits of stone. She would feel better once she had enlisted their help. Heibei had to like her more than he did the emperor, who handed out bad luck to so many, and how could Kanzan like someone who hurt and killed so many people?

At the back of her mind she felt a dark flicker of fear — what about the gods of Gyongxe, and Parahan’s gods, who also had something at stake now? She stomped on that flicker until it didn’t bother her anymore. Prayers and presents to her two favorite gods would fix all of this, just as giving Parahan’s news to Rosethorn had meant passing a hateful burden to someone who could handle it. She could concentrate on the journey, and only the journey.

Later in the afternoon the three of them were cutting vegetables into a soup to share with some fellow travelers when they heard the thunder of horses approaching the gate. They drew together, dropping their knives into the bowls of vegetables.

Caravansary guards ran to the gate, iron-shod staves in their hands. An archer on the wall turned and whistled three sharp notes that sent the men away from the road as a company of imperial troops, accompanied by three mages, rode in. Ten of them galloped through the caravansary in the direction of the rear gate.

Evvy felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest. “Relax,” Rosethorn murmured softly.

Rajoni and Changdao, the master of the caravansary, walked up to the haughty man who appeared to be in command. Changdao and Rajoni bowed deeply.

The noble did not speak at all. The younger man who carried his banner did that. The older mage who rode next to him made a series of motions with his hands, forcing Briar to look away. Evvy knew he could see the magic being done. When the bannerman spoke, his voice was loud, much louder than it would have been without magical help. She was certain it was being heard everywhere inside the caravansary walls.

“Travelers and those who keep this place, attend. A valuable slave of southern Realms blood has escaped from the grounds of the Winter Palace!” the bannerman proclaimed. “Remain in your places as the imperial warriors search. No harm will be done unless you are sheltering this runaway. Any who do shelter this Parahan of Kombanpur will receive the utmost of the emperor’s displeasure — those persons, their parents, grandparents, families, cousins, to the third degree of relationship both older and younger, no one will be spared.”

“Mila, save us,” Rosethorn whispered.

“Those who give us useful information will receive great rewards and advancement at the hands of our glorious lord, Wielder of the Dragon Sword, Holder of the Orb of Wisdom, Emperor Weishu of the Long Dynasty,” the bannerman continued. “Go about your tasks unless our warriors require your assistance.”

The soldiers dismounted, leaving the horses with a few of their number, and dispersed among the stables, supply buildings, and housing. Only the captain, his bannerman, and the mage who had amplified his speech remained where they had halted. Changdao stayed with them, though they did not talk to him at all. Rajoni trotted off in the direction of the brightly painted Trader house carts, presumably to act as middle person between the soldiers and the caravan.

“Back to work,” Rosethorn said. “Not you, Evvy, not chopping, anyway.” Evvy looked at her hands and had to agree. They were shaking too much for her to risk picking up a knife.

Briar sent her for a bucket of water. She got it, looking at the ground rather than the warriors. She almost dropped it on him when she saw three soldiers enter their set of rooms.

“The cats!” she cried. “They’ll knock over the gate stones!” She put the bucket down and ran to their quarters before Briar or Rosethorn could grab her. Two of the soldiers were looking into the bedchambers. One knelt just outside the line of gate stones and was scratching Ball under the chin.

“I’m sorry,” Evvy said. It was hard to think badly of anyone who petted her cats, even if it was Ball, who liked everyone. “I just wanted to warn you, the stones are magicked so they stay on that side of them.”

“There’s a nice trick,” the soldier said with admiration. “Useful when you’re traveling, I’ll wager. But … do they run alongside, or how do they keep up?”

Evvy showed him the carry-baskets and the basket the cats used as a privy. He told her about his own cats, to the point where she almost forgot to be terrified. She walked out with the three of them and, once the inspection of the caravansary was done, waved good-bye as they rode away.

Rosethorn and Briar walked up behind her as the other occupants of the caravansary took deep breaths and talked a little too loudly in their relief. “Did they try to get into our mage stuff?” Briar asked.

Evvy shook her head. “Not even enough to get hurt by the protecting spells,” she said, “not like those yujinons yesterday, looking into our bags like we’d bundled a big man into one.”

“Charmed by the cats again?” Rosethorn asked. Evvy nodded. “How many times have we used checking on those creatures to keep an eye on soldiers inspecting our things?”

Briar put an arm around Evvy’s shoulders. “They earn their keep, those cats.”

Rosethorn gently tweaked Evvy’s ear. “They do indeed.”

When Evvy turned to protest an unearned ear tweak, Rosethorn tweaked her own ear, then laid her forefinger beside her nose. That was a sign Briar had taught them both, a bit of thief sign from his youth that meant uncanny doings, or mage work. The tweak of her own ear was notice to both of her younger companions that Rosethorn suspected the soldiers had planted spy spells in the caravansary.

Evvy growled.

“You’re getting hungry,” Briar said wisely. He didn’t resent being spied on the way Rosethorn and Evvy did; he expected it. He did sigh when Rosethorn shook her finger, telling him silently he wasn’t to try to find and dismantle the spy spells. Evvy giggled despite her resentment. “Let’s finish working on that soup.”

After the soldiers’ departure the Traders retreated to their house carts. Evvy didn’t blame them. Too often, when nations were in upheaval and looking for someone to blame, they singled out Traders. In return, the Traders had strict rules in their dealings with outsiders. If Briar’s sister Daja, and in fact Briar and all three of his sisters, had not done some notable services for Traders now and then, these eastern Traders would not be so willing to help them now.

The company of travelers was subdued as they gathered for supper. Everyone had something to contribute: bread they had made on flat stones, different kinds of tea, pickled vegetables, cooked eggs, and fried fish. The other diners were loud enough in their complaints about people who broke the peaceful traditions of a caravansary that the silence of Rosethorn and her companions went unnoticed.

“I’ll tell you this for nothing,” said a merchant from Namorn who was also bound for the Pebbled Sea. Rosethorn had cared for a cut on his arm and he felt kindly toward her. “You won’t see anyone from a Living Circle temple between here and Hanjian. The emperor’s Magistrates of the Vigilant Eyes announced back in Seed Moon that they had uncovered a fearful plot against the Living Circle faith. For the protection of the temples and those who serve in them, they put them under guard, by soldiers. None of the dedicates or their novices, or even any of those that worship, are being allowed in or out.”

Rosethorn stared at him. “But I heard none of this where we were!”

“Yanjingyi people don’t talk about the doings of the Vigilant Eyes,” the merchant replied. “It’s bad luck.”

“It isn’t only the Living Circle,” another diner said. She was one of the drovers who handled the Namornese merchant’s mules. “Many of the foreign temples are either closed or under guard. Only ones for the Yanjingyi gods and goddesses are open to all, and too bad for us that worship other gods. We can only hope they hear us so far from home.”

“A pity you couldn’t go to Gyongxe,” a woman from one of the other groups of travelers said. “They say that even if your god has no temple, you still have a chance of reaching his ear with your prayer.”

“Oh?” the Namornese man asked. “How is that?”

“It’s Gyongxe,” the woman said, as if that made the answer plain. When the people from the Namornese group stared at her, she chuckled and shrugged. “That’s why so many build their temples there, even when their faiths have homes elsewhere. That’s why the rivers that spring from there are sacred. Gyongxe is the closest you can get to the gods without dying. Everyone knows that. The Drimbakangs, all three ranges of them, they are the pillars that hold the heavens aloft.”

“Ha!” Evvy said, poking Briar. “I told you the mountains were important! And now I’ll never get to see them up close!”

“Ow,” Briar protested, glaring at her. “Haven’t you seen enough mountains?”

The girl who handled mules drew Briar closer to her side. “I’ll protect you from the skinny girl who likes mountains,” she assured him.

“I think it’s time to clean up and go to bed,” Rosethorn announced, getting to her feet. “I am sorry to hear your news,” she told the Namornese man. “We were in Gyongxe before we came here, and they had no word of this.”

“Perhaps he will return the foreign religions to favor as quickly as he took it from them,” the merchant replied. “We can all pray on that.”

Yawning, Evvy set about gathering their bowls and utensils, but Briar stopped her. “We’ll do it,” he said, taking them. “You go to bed.” From the look he gave the mule drover, Evvy wasn’t sure how much washing up would actually get done, but it was no skin off her neb, to steal one of Briar’s sayings. She hurried inside, changed the arrangement of gate stones so the cats could sleep with their favorite people, then prepared for bed. Before she closed her eyes, she sent another prayer to Heibei for Parahan.

She slept, to dreams that Parahan was running ahead of her. She was racing as fast as she could, but she couldn’t catch up, no matter how hard she tried.

Long after she could hear Briar and Evvy breathing in sleep, Rosethorn lay wide-awake, absently stroking the lanky Apricot, who lay inside the curve of her arm. She envied the cat. The day’s events and discoveries kept her thinking. Duty and wish were tearing at her heart.

Mila of the Grain, what shall I do? she wondered, desperate. I just wanted to go to the places Lark was always telling me about before I was too old to do it. I wanted to see plants and trees and flowers whose names I didn’t know in my bones, and I have. I’m bringing home seed and magicked clippings that will keep me busy for years, if I can get them there!

If I can get them there. When Evvy told me about the invasion, I confess to cowardice. I thought that the local temples would have sent word to Gyongxe somehow. Someone among them must be a far-speaker of some kind. But if they’ve been locked up for months, under guard, I can’t be sure if they know the emperor secretly made peace with Inxia, giving him a broad road to Gyongxe. I can’t be sure if the temples north of Dohan saw the armies gathering and heard gossip that their new target was Gyongxe. And if I am not sure …

Mila, my goddess, I want to go home. I want to see my lover again. I want my own food, and air I can breathe without fighting. I want to see Crane, and Niko, and the girls. I want my own garden.

But there is my duty. Somehow I have to leave the caravan and make certain that Gyongxe knows. That our First Circle Temple is prepared. They’ll need me when war comes, too. I’ll send the children on with the caravan. Briar will go if I tell him he has to look after Evvy. I think.

She lay like that for a long time, staring into the dark.

When the caravan workers came to rouse them in the gray hour before dawn, they found Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy already awake, dressed, and packed. Most of their things, including Briar’s shakkans and Evvy’s cats, were already on a wagon whose use they had paid for. The rest they loaded swiftly, with the ease of long practice, onto packhorses. Then they saddled their riding horses. Briar elected to drive the wagon for the morning, neither Rosethorn nor Evvy being awake enough to do so. The caravansary workers brought everyone hot tea and steamed buns stuffed with pork or vegetable filling as the travelers finished their preparations.

The sun was just clear of the horizon as Rajoni, the ride leader, raised her staff. Her voice swelled in the trilling cry that was the signal to move out. More and more Trader voices rose from their own wagons and from the guards on horseback, as the caravan passed through the open gates.