“They’ll know we were here,” Parahan said.
“Too bad,” Briar and Rosethorn said at the same time.
“I was tired of sneaking around anyway,” Briar added. “Let’s teach Weishu to keep his greedy hands to himself.”
SNOW SERPENT PASS
They trotted forward as the mules complained. “I don’t see what you’re whining about,” Evvy told them. “You just stood around while we did all the work.” She had put her rice ball half eaten and her bun untouched back into the cloth sling over her chest. Though she had done her part without flinching earlier, the memory of the man whose throat she’d cut kept rising past any other thoughts or pictures in her head. He joined her vivid memories of a handful of people she had killed, trying to survive before she had met Briar and Rosethorn and in bandit attacks on the road to Gyongxe. It never got easier.
When the road curved around the edge of a hill, she looked back. Thick green thorn vines covered everything between the tumbling river and the fence behind the guardhouse. The chickens and the horses that had grazed inside the fence had gotten away, the chickens to huddle on the bridge, the horses to gallop through the fields.
Someone would notice the problem sooner or later, but by the time anyone came to look, the thorns would have reached the water’s edge, blocking the road completely. They could try to go behind the guardhouse to get at the road, Evvy supposed. She wasn’t really sure when the thorns would stop growing. Rosethorn and Briar created very determined magic.
She looked ahead once more. At least the dead men were covered. That was something, since they hadn’t had time to give them a burial or prayers.
They trotted a mile before the jolting and the image got to Evvy. She cried for a halt. She dashed behind a boulder on the hillside and lost what food she’d eaten. Once she’d covered that mess, she heard Rosethorn call, “I’m coming up. Nobody watch.”
Since that meant Rosethorn needed to take care of business, Evvy thought she might as well do the same. She had her complaints about dried grass, but it was what was available. She was tugging at the ties on her breeches when Rosethorn asked quietly, “Are you all right?”
“It’s just … I don’t like killing people,” Evvy whispered, ashamed of her weakness.
“None of us likes it. There would be something wrong with you — with us — if you did. You know Briar jokes to cover it up sometimes. You know he also has nightmares.”
“Oh,” Evvy breathed. She had been so caught up in the picture of the dead man that she had forgotten all the times she had been roused in the night by Briar — and Rosethorn — crying out in their dreams.
“Parahan will be different. He’s a soldier. We saw that today. It wasn’t just bragging from him. It may not bother him as it does us. But you aren’t weak because you threw up, girl. You’re human.”
“Thank you,” Evvy whispered. Feeling less like slime, she scrambled down the hillside to wash her hands. They went numb as soon as she dipped them in the icy brown torrent. She got to her feet and tucked her fingers into her armpits to warm them, glaring at Briar and Parahan as she walked over to the mules. It wasn’t fair that men didn’t have to twist themselves into knots to pee!
Rosethorn looked up the gorge, her eyes narrow. “My boy’s restless. Not you, Briar, my mount. I don’t think he likes what he smells on the wind.”
Evvy gulped. Their long travels from Chammur had taught them respect for the animals that worked the trade roads. She went to her pack and searched for the bag that held her exploding quartz balls.
“We have no choice but to ride on,” Parahan replied. “Wait here.” Without stopping for anyone’s reply, he hung his sling of spears from his saddle horn, taking only one as he climbed the dip between two hills to their right. Evvy could see him long after she stopped hearing him. Her respect for the big man went up several more notches. It took plenty of skill to move so silently over loose gravel and long grass.
She, Briar, and Rosethorn continued to load their ponies with the magical weapons they might need for another, perhaps bigger, battle. She and Briar had their daggers as well. Evvy wore two blades inside and two outside her belt in addition to one at the back of her neck inside her jacket. She didn’t know where all of Briar’s were except for the obvious ones.
As far as Evvy knew, Rosethorn didn’t carry extra weapons. A kit with blades in it hung at her waist, but they were supposed to be used with plants. The only non-plant use Rosethorn had for her belt knife was to cut her meat. Of course, Rosethorn could turn most plants into something nasty. Evvy hoped that would be enough.
She feared that it would not be. Here in this steep gorge with its single road, she could not forget that for her entire life the one fixed idea in her world was that the emperor of Yanjing was as powerful as any god and more powerful than some of them. She had seen nothing at the Winter Palace to teach her any different. When they had destroyed the guard station, they had declared their own war against the Yanjing empire. All she could do was pray that Gyongxe could somehow do what no other country had managed to do when the imperial armies marched: defeat them.
A few stones rattled down the hillside, distracting her from her dark thoughts. Parahan was coming back.
“I don’t know what’s on the road ahead,” he told them when he reached their group. “I only saw about a mile’s length of it. But there’s a game trail that way” — he pointed uphill — “that takes us out of view while still allowing us to travel along the line of the river. We might be able to skirt anyone on the road itself.”
“Tie everything down that might make a noise,” Rosethorn ordered. “Muffle the harnesses, whatever jingles. Evvy, your chickens must take a nap, I’m afraid.”
Evvy grimaced, but she took out the packet of cat-sleep herbs and sprinkled some over the crates. She used only a pinch for each: The spell was powerful. Normally the Trader spell that disguised the cats was enough to make people think they heard hens, but Rosethorn didn’t want to risk any noise as they moved to higher ground.
Rosethorn continued to say, “We’ll walk. Check your own gear. Nothing that clanks. Parahan, muffle those spears.”
When they were ready, Rosethorn told Parahan, “Evvy leads.”
His eyes went wide with surprise. “Evvy! But —”
“You’ll see,” Rosethorn told him. “Go on, girl.”
Evvy said nothing. She was already summoning her magic. With her in the front and Rosethorn in the rear they set off, each of them leading a pair of animals. Evvy slid the reins up over her elbows so she could stretch out her hands. Gently she flicked and twitched her fingers, shaking them to and fro lightly at the same time as she sent her power out to the many bits of stone uphill of her. Inside her head she could feel the stones in the cut between the two hills giggle as they shifted and slid, all sizes easing around one another. They had never had this kind of energy before, but it was more interesting than just tumbling down, pushed by streams of snowmelt or rain or the feet of animals. They liked it. The only sounds the rocks made were faint clicks as they edged into position, each one sliding into the right spot next to another. Behind her Evvy left a smooth stone path under the horses’ and the mules’ feet. Better yet, the new footing gave way just enough to cut the sound their hooves made.
Up and up they climbed. At last she heard a soft bird whistle. She glanced back to see Parahan point off to her left. There, in a dip on the far side of the western hill, was the game trail.
She turned onto it, hands still moving. The trail itself was beaten earth. This time she urged the stones to either side, letting them roll into deeper grass.
The ground began to rise again. To their right, to the northeast, hill after craggy green hill rose, stabbing into the sky. Behind them were the mountains of the Drimbakang Sharlog. Evvy could hear Rosethorn was struggling to breathe. She needed her special tea for managing in the heights. Evvy or Briar would make it when they stopped for lunch.
They must be higher than Ev
vy realized if Rosethorn was having trouble. These were mountains, for all they looked like hills close up. They hummed in Evvy’s bones. What would she do when she came to the big ones, those with rocky sides that had been swept of almost anything but stone and snow? Those mountains would sing in a voice that would surely rattle her poor head clean off her neck.
Short of the top of the fourth hill, another soft whistle from Parahan brought her to a stop. This time he left his horse and mule and crept ahead of the others. Evvy sat in the grass and even ate a bit after she thumped the muscle cramps from her thighs. Working her magic and teasing those stones had thrust the horrors down where she didn’t have to think about them. Briar had made a cold mix of Rosethorn’s breathing tea and was pouring it for her. It was just as well they had gotten a chance to rest.
Parahan returned and beckoned them close. “There is half a company in the road,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Fifty soldiers. Yanjingyi regulars, curse it! Not locals.”
“If we’re quiet they’ll never know we were here,” Briar replied, his voice just as soft. “The game trail will put that next ridge between us and them. Even if they look up they won’t see us. We’ve got to take word to the God-King about Weishu’s plans. Guaranteed he doesn’t know these kaqs are here, either.”
Parahan grinned at Briar’s use of the Trader slang; Rosethorn nodded at his thinking. Once more they went forward with Parahan in the lead. Evvy reached farther ahead with her power, shooing the rocks away. Even the animals seemed to understand that the alternative to silence was death if the enemy caught them.
Between more hills they went, the green shoulders rising sharply on both sides of their group. The biggest worry came when they reached a stream. It ran along the foot of a tall ridge on their right. They couldn’t avoid a little splashing as the animals crossed. When they halted on the far side, there were no sounds of movement anywhere. Parahan crawled to the shoulder of the hill on their left, to see if he could glimpse the road and the enemy. When he came back, he said they were now beyond the soldiers below. If their present trail kept on parallel to the road heading west, they might evade the Yanjingyi soldiers completely.
Rosethorn and Briar weren’t listening. Like the ponies and the mules and even Parahan’s horse they had pointed their noses into the wind that came down from the north and over the stream. “Bamboo,” Rosethorn whispered. “Seaweed. Vinegar.”
Briar frowned. “Peony? Pomegranate for certain.”
They turned their heads to stare uphill at the ridge.
Parahan said a few things in his own language and drew his swords.
“Wait,” Evvy told him. She threw her magic up the slope and let it spread. When it spilled over the top of the ridge, Evvy felt weight on the stones there, the kind of moving weight that said people to her. She shifted the rocks, straining to pull the bigger ones toward the edge. Someone above shouted.
Briar knocked Evvy down. Still wiggling her hands, her power, and the rocks, she looked around. Arrowheads lay on the dirt as long wooden splinters, the remains of their bolts, sprouted tendrils and leaves. Rosethorn smiled grimly and muttered, “Try to catch me unawares, will you?”
Getting to his knees beside Evvy, Briar glared at the ridge. As weeds and grass sprouted madly along the sloping ground, five people looked over the edge. Two wore black scholar’s robes with the gold sashes of mages. Ropes of beads hung around their necks and in their hands. Two more were archers; the fifth was armed with a halberd. All five were struggling to keep their feet. The archers also did their best to fit fresh arrows to their crossbows.
Evvy yanked her hands up. Rocks flew into the air above the ridge. The archers dropped their bows as they covered their eyes with their hands. She tugged her hands forward. The mages had protected themselves from the airborne stones, but it was another matter to have the ground pull away from their feet. They stumbled, trying to stay upright. Something was going wrong with the long strings of beads in their hands. They twisted together around the mages’ wrists, binding them like rope. The loops of beads around each mage’s neck spun swiftly, winding tighter and tighter, strangling the wearer. The mages struggled to pull their traitor necklaces away from their necks, without success. Their faces got redder and redder as they fought to breathe.
Evvy gave all of the stones on the ridge one last, savage pull. This time it was the ponies and mules that saved her and her companions, hauling them away from the landslide by the reins looped around their arms as the entire ridge came down. They scrambled with the animals to retreat from the tumbling earth and rock. The stone of the ridge roared past them through a dip between hills, dragging the Yanjingyi mages with it. When everything settled but for a haze of dust, there was no sign of the warriors who had stood with them. The two mages lay on the heap of fallen rock where it had come to a halt. They were clearly dead.
Evvy crept to the southern hilltop to see the road. There was no sign of the enemy. She was starting to grin in relief when she saw movement at the crown of the western hill. She scrambled back to Parahan and pointed west.
Yanjingyi warriors in domed helmets and armor galloped over the hill’s crest. Evvy guessed they’d heard the rock slide. Now she strained to give them a rock slide of their own, struggling to find and move the medium and big stones in front of them. She was too tired for small ones at that distance. She flinched when the archers among them raised their crossbows, as if the bolts had struck her already.
Parahan scooped up a couple of round, hard stones and threw first one, then the other, with vicious accuracy. Each hit an archer in the face, knocking him out of the saddle and under the other horses’ hooves. Parahan grabbed two more stones.
Suddenly Evvy saw the bows leap from the remaining archers’ hands. The crossbows broke apart in midair, raining stocks, lathes, arrowheads, and splintered shafts down on the other riders. She laughed in spite of herself as lathes and shafts grew and sprouted leaves, then wound around the arms and necks of the soldiers. Stocks planted themselves in the ground and grew as trees. Horses reared and slipped, trying not to run headfirst into trees that had not been there a moment before. Briar and Rosethorn were hard at work. Parahan grinned at Evvy, then snapped his rocks at one soldier each, striking their heads with deadly accuracy. Down they went.
The horses that missed the growing trees slipped, losing their balance on moving stones and pebbles. They went down; those behind them piled on top. Evvy ground her teeth and kept the stones on the slope under the riders moving.
Men were screaming. She opened her eyes. Briar had run forward to pitch seed balls as far and high as they would go into the air over the charging soldiers. The cloth balls burst at his command, sprouting deadly vines with sword-sharp thorns in midair. The falling, deadly net trapped the remaining soldiers and their mounts together with the ropes grown from pieces of crossbow and the fast-growing trees.
Evvy shrieked as more arrows arched into the air from the far side of the hilltop.
Parahan, at her side, laid a hand on her arm. “Evvy, look. What are you screaming for?”
She had thought they were fire arrows. In truth they were crossbow bolts dyed bright orange. These struck short of her and her companions, into the ranks of Yanjingyi soldiers. More followed, again dropping into the net and the enemy beneath.
New soldier-archers, these in pointed helmets, charged over the hill in the wake of the arrows. Deftly they split apart to avoid the fallen enemy and the trap of thorny vines. The newcomers’ leather armor was worn over flame-colored silk. The metal pieces fixed to the leather in tidy rows were bronze, not iron, and they were rounded, not flat, as the Yanjingyi soldiers wore their metal. Their horses were smaller, nimble, and less dismayed by sliding rock. Where had she seen them before? Garmashing! These were Gyongxin soldiers!
Half of their allies split off and galloped downhill, toward the road. Parahan swung into his own horse’s saddle and followed.
Evvy released her stones and collapsed on the g
round. She watched blankly as the Gyongxin soldiers who stayed behind killed any living Yanjingyi soldiers. Two Gyongxin warriors rode over to Rosethorn and Briar.
Now that she had a chance to catch her breath, Evvy looked at the trickles of blood that emerged from beneath the heap of thorns and felt unclean. She scrubbed her hands on her breeches. We had to kill them, she told herself. The emperor’s soldiers were going to kill us, them and their mages. To stop us from getting word to Gyongxe that the emperor is coming. So the emperor can torture Parahan to death.
Why did we bother? she wondered, swimming in self-hate. She trembled from top to toe. All of this means nothing. These dead horses and dead men, it’s all camel spit in a high wind, because the emperor is coming. Gyongxe is so small. Gyongxe doesn’t have a chance against Yanjing.
The two warriors dismounted before Rosethorn and Briar. They put their palms together before their faces and bowed low to Rosethorn. “Dedicate,” the taller of them said, “I had the honor of seeing you in Gyongxe over the winter. I am Captain Rana, sent by the God-King and First Dedicate of the Living Circle Jangbu Dokyi to ensure your safe arrival in Gyongxe. This is my sergeant, Kanbab. I beg your pardon for our lateness. We did not know the beast Yanjingyi had crept up the gorge to lay in wait. Excuse me.” He turned and held up a hand. A warrior trotted forward. “Get to General Sayrugo. Tell her the enemy is here. We surprised a company and are dealing with them. There may be more moving northwest above the road. As fast as you can ride, and I know that’s fast.”
The soldier bowed and ran to collect his horse. To Sergeant Kanbab the captain said, “Take half of our people. Help Sergeant Yonten mop up on the road. We must take the dedicate and her companions to the general as soon as possible.”