Battle Magic

Finally Rosethorn had heard enough. She rode forward to Souda’s side. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” she told Souda, her voice carrying to the villagers, “but if they don’t want to leave this place, they don’t have to. If they want to trust their safety to logs that have been eaten hollow by insects, let them. Surely there are other people around these parts who will be grateful for the warning.”

Briar hadn’t thought the bug munching was that bad, but it was his and Rosethorn’s pattern to reinforce what the other said. He dismounted and walked to the wall beside the gate. With one hand he reached out to a log he guessed wouldn’t bring the gate down and pushed. No one had to know that he asked the weak wood at the base of the log to give way for him. The log groaned, and then toppled onto the ground outside. He shook his head, tsking to himself.

“When did you last replace these logs?” Rosethorn wanted to know.

“Magic!” the headman shouted, his face red-bronze with fury. “You used magic!”

Briar turned and looked at the man. “I can’t magic the kind of bug damage that got done to this log,” he said. “Rosethorn can’t, either. We’re plant mages, not bug mages. Look at this wood yourself.”

“We just came up the Snow Serpent Pass with the emperor’s warriors chasing us,” Rosethorn snapped. “We didn’t have time to spell your logs. Believe us or not, but ask your wives and children if they mean to wait here with you behind your rotten walls.”

“We come at the bidding of the God-King,” Captain Lango said last. “Why would we be foolish enough to use his name for a lie?”

The village leaders were finally convinced, and the soldiers set up camp outside the wall. Rosethorn vanished. Briar could tell she had walked outside the wall, probably to listen to whatever songs her burden was singing.

He found work helping a woman and her children pack. Jimut, seeing what he was up to, obtained a mule the fatherless family could use for their burdens. While Jimut helped to load the mule, Briar gathered piles of sticks and what twine was available and made carry-crates for the villagers’ birds and pets. If he didn’t have enough twine, he simply persuaded the sticks to grow through one another to make the joins he needed.

The afternoon was half over when he heard a crash from a hut and a child’s screams. He ran to see what was wrong.

Inside the hut, two women were bent over a wailing child who lay between several wooden boxes. The little boy clutched his left shin with both hands, shrieking. Blood leaked between his twined fingers.

Briar pulled off the sling he wore on his back. “Excuse me,” he called loudly to the women. “Please, I can help. I’m a nanshur. I use medicine.”

The women moved aside. Briar felt inside the sling for a roll of linen bandage and a potion he kept for bleeding wounds. He leaned close to the child’s face and yelled, “Hah!”

The boy threw up his hands to protect his face. Instantly Briar gripped his leg. He felt it gently to see if it was broken — it did not seem to be. He used a touch of his power to tug a square of linen off the bandage roll. Carefully he pressed the cloth against the wound. After a short wait he took the cloth away for a quick look. The boy had cut himself from his knee halfway to his ankle, but the wound was a shallow one. Quickly Briar pressed the cloth to it again.

The older of the two women, assured that he knew what he was doing, got a wet cloth and set about cleaning the child’s bloody hands. The younger woman began to carry the fallen boxes outside.

When he heard steps approach, Briar looked up from his patient. A much older woman came over with a small kettle of steaming water and a bowl. “I think you will need this for your work?” she asked. “You are very good to come to the help of strangers.”

“I used to scream like that, too,” Briar said, grinning at the child. “When it looks so bad you think the healer will cut your leg off, you get scared. It is just a very ugly scratch.”

“We should have watched him better,” said the woman who had cleaned the child’s hands. Now she had given him some kind of sweet. He was sucking on it and watching Briar’s every move. “There is so much to put in the wagon that we forgot.”

With the two women to help, Briar cleaned the wound, covered it with his medicine, and bandaged it. The only thanks he accepted was a couple of very good dumplings that he shared with Jimut. After that he settled by the well and continued to make carry-crates.

The soldiers and the villagers combined resources for a large meal after dark. Though everyone was friendly enough as they came together to eat, the villagers’ faces showed their worries. The scramble to pick what to take and what to leave continued long into the night. Briar was dozing over a half-finished crate when someone nudged him awake with a booted foot. He looked up at Souda.

“Bed,” she ordered with a friendly smile. “In the camp. Come on. I’m turning in, too.”

Saddest of all, he was so worn-out he could not think of anything witty to say to impress her as they walked out of the village and into camp. Jimut was waiting. He bowed to Souda and took Briar to his bedroll.

They left in the early morning. Captain Lango detailed two squads of warriors to keep the villagers moving. The rest of his company and all of Souda’s, together with Rosethorn and Briar, returned to the main road. They halted that day only to rest the horses.

It was twilight when they reached the Temple of the Sun Queen’s Husbands. As a fortress, it made Fort Sambachu look like a collection of crates. Its walls, painted with blue and green many-armed men, were thick and lined with men and women armed with longbows. The walls were built in step fashion like those at Sambachu; so, too, was the temple itself, building up to a tower that gave a view of the road and plain. The heavy gates, each one painted with what Briar assumed was a husband who held weapons in every one of his eight hands, stood wide open to admit the villagers.