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 ground. She watched blankly as the Gyongxin soldiers who stayed behind killed any living Yanjingyi soldiers. Two Gyongxin warriors rode over to Rosethorn and Briar.