Battle Magic (15 page)

“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.