Battle Magic (32 page)

In the world above the mountain roots, Jia Jui led the search party into the long canyon. On the walls of Fort Sambachu, the bodies of Dawei and Musheng hung as a warning to every idiot in the army who did not know the difference between a dead girl and a mage in a deep trance. She had already left sizable offerings
to several gods that the emperor would never learn that she, too, had examined Evumeimei’s body and pronounced her to be dead. She would have
sworn
the girl was dead, and if the emperor’s spies ever learned differently, she would pay very painfully.

She could still save herself. The bloody footprints showed that Evvy could not go much farther. With the girl back in her hands, Jia Jui meant to shackle her to her own wrist and take her to Emperor Weishu herself.

So deep in her plans was Jia Jui that she didn’t notice the quiver in the ground until it was much too late. Driven by the living heart of Kangri Skad Po, the canyon collapsed on soldiers and mage. None of them would be seen again.

T
HE
T
EMPLE OF THE
T
IGERS
,
T
HE
D
RIMBAKANG
L
HO, AND
T
HE
T
EMPLE OF THE
S
EALED
E
YE

Once he had gotten used to the fact that Rosethorn and her horse had simply disappeared, Briar listened to Jimut’s pleadings and turned to help move the refugees into the Temple of the Tigers. He busily sent runaway toddlers, goats, and the odd group of boys across the Tom Sho Bridge and up the rugged hill. It was when he reached the temple fortress at the top of the hill that he saw why the place had the name that it did.

Two giant tiger figures stood on either side of the front gate. One, painted orange with black stripes, snarled realistically at anyone who rode toward it. The other, carved of pure white stone with black stripes, looked as if the sculptor had caught it in midleap, forelegs and claws extended. Briar could even see every hair in the animals’ carved fur. Captain Lango’s Gyongxin people did not care for them. Parahan and Souda’s people only bowed as they passed: Jimut explained that tigers were common, respected animals in the Realms of the Sun. The local villagers,
unlike Lango’s fighters, were clearly used to these tigers and even rubbed them on the side or paw. Briar only relaxed once he was well inside the curtain wall. He had half expected the tigers, like the naga queen of the Temple of the Sun Queen’s Husbands, to act unpleasantly alive.

He went with Parahan for a look around when they were settled: The plan seemed to be for the soldiers to patrol a circle around the place while they waited for Rosethorn’s return. They also expected the arrival of more warriors from the west, the southern part of the Drimbakang Zugu mountains and beyond. Knowing that, Briar agreed they ought to familiarize themselves with their newest temporary home.

The place was big, with the stepped outer wall that was common to Gyongxin fortresses. A small village already fit in the lower courtyard as part of the temple, together with barns, stables, mews, chicken coops, fenced gardens, and roaming herds of goats and fowl. In the upper courtyard loomed the main house of worship with its dormitories, side temples, and kitchens.

Briar wandered into the temple. It was lit with hundreds of small lamps. Parahan explained this was the sole Temple of the Tigers in Gyongxe: All of the others were in the Realms of the Sun, where tigers made their home. It was hard to keep tigers here, a priest told them. They missed the warmth and the ability to roam that was theirs elsewhere. Also, the snow leopards resented interlopers.

Briar was fascinated by the artwork that covered the temple’s interior walls. The borders set around each large painting were made of dozens of smaller ones: pictures of prophets, gods, demons, teachers, and tigers shown in every aspect, from infancy
to godhood. Like the main scenes, the border images were done in vivid colors, showing their subjects in various poses. What bothered Briar was that the small figures seemed to move in the corner of his eye. They turned to chat with their neighbors. Worse, some leaned forward to get a better look at him, Parahan, or Souda. When he whipped around to stare at the paintings dead-on, they were still — except that the little border folk had changed position. Some of them were rude enough to cover giggles with one or several hands. One tiger had rolled onto his back. Another urinated in Briar’s direction.

He just had to ask. Fortunately a priest-artist was nearby, touching up the colors on a large painting. “Excuse me,” Briar murmured when the man set his brush down, “but weren’t the figures in the border over there placed differently before?”

The priest smiled tolerantly and came to look. “Sir, it is dark here. With the torchlight and the many shadows our paintings
appear
to change….” He stared at the section of paintings that 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,
emchi
youth,” she said, and offered him a bowl of butter tea. “Once you return to the thicker air down below, you will no longer see things. Whatever touched you was powerful. I can see its blaze all around you. Its power calls to the little gods whose doors are on our walls.”

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.