Briar stretched himself above the grasses, searching for the beads wrapped around the mages’ throats and wrists. He could not tell if the general was also a mage, as General Hengkai had been. He could only sense the wooden beads. In his magical vision they hung in midair, shaping three necks and three pairs of arms. He gripped his power for just a moment, then flooded the beads with it.
The willow beads shattered, breaking the strands around the mages’ necks and arms. The oak beads sent roots shooting into the ground. The grasses told him that the horses had gone frantic at the sudden appearance of fast-growing trees. They reared and flailed at everything around them. The mages were thrown to the ground. At Briar’s command the grasses seized the mages, weaving around their throats. Strangling would teach them to kill little girls!
His rage fed strength to the grasses. They grew and tightened like rope.
That’s it! Briar told the grasses. Don’t give way for an instant!
Rosethorn was calling him. He refused to go. He wasn’t going to leave just when he was paying the Yanjingyi beasts back.
Then he got that bad feeling, the sense of fingers wrapped around his body’s real ear. The fingers twisted. Only one thing would make that pain stop. Slowly, so he wouldn’t frighten his grasses and oak trees, he retreated across the field and back into the body that hurt with Evvy’s loss.
He opened his eyes. Rosethorn released his ear after an extra hard flick with finger and thumb. “What if we’d had to escape?” Rosethorn demanded. “Do you know how many mages get trapped away from themselves?”
“You never said anything before,” he muttered, rubbing the sore ear. He wondered if the grasses had succeeded in killing those mages.
“It wasn’t a danger with you before.” Rosethorn sighed. “Revenge is as bad for the one practicing it as it is for those it’s practiced upon, Briar.”
He didn’t agree. She probably has to say such things because she’s a dedicate, he thought, gulping tea from the flask at his belt. But I ain’t no dedicate, and I’m going to get me a piece of the empire.
He looked to see what other damage he could do.
The enemy was fleeing, or rather, those who were in good condition had fled already. Those who remained swayed in the saddle or sported arrows in their own bodies or those of their mounts. Some were on foot, fighting back to back as they tried to hold off the Gyongxin warriors.
All across the ground between the road and the remainder of the Yanjingyi troops lay the fallen of both sides: horses, the wounded, and the dead. The Gyongxin healers were driving their wagons around the troops in the road and out onto the field.
Briar shook his head. “I won’t do it. They killed Evvy.”
“All of them?” Rosethorn asked.
“They killed other people here, too.”
“How many of them were given a choice about it?” she asked him. “You know the emperor. How many of them have families in Yanjing who would be punished if they refused to serve in the army? Besides —”
“I don’t want to hear besides.” He sounded like a kid even to himself.
“The more of them that have decent treatment here, the more of them will know that Weishu’s is not the only way. The more of them will realize that these people are not monsters.” Rosethorn dismounted and unbuckled her saddlebags. “You don’t have to come,” she said. “I’ll understand.” To the woman who had guarded her from the Yanjingyi mages’ spells she said, “Mila and the Green Man bless you, Servant Riverdancer.” The shaman pressed her hands palm to palm in front of her face and bowed. Rosethorn turned to her slinger and thanked him as well. He offered to take care of the horse. Rosethorn nodded, then proceeded out onto the battlefield.
Briar sighed. He could look after the Gyongxin wounded. That wouldn’t make him feel as if he betrayed Evvy’s ghost.
“Do you know what wagon has my mage kit?” Briar asked Jimut.
“The part with your medicines?” the older man inquired. He patted the bags behind the saddle of his own horse. “Right here.” He handed them down to Briar, who took them and went in search of the small army’s healers.
The soldiers raised big infirmary tents where the healers could work, then fetched empty barrels and filled them with water. Those who did not bring the wounded into the tents gave the injured horses a merciful death. They then dragged the animals’ bodies to the side of the battlefield opposite that where they laid out the human dead. Cooks set up outdoor kitchens for soup and tea for everyone as the rest of the camp was built around the healers’ tents.
Briar, Rosethorn, Riverdancer, and the rest of the healers labored well past midnight in the chaos that filled the tents. The screams of the wounded were enough to make Briar want to scream himself. To make sure that he didn’t, he bit the inside of his cheek until it bled, then found a piece of rolled bandage to chew on. There weren’t enough medicines to ensure that everyone could have their pain eased. The healers were forced to keep such potions for the unfortunates who had to have a leg or an arm cut off, or a weapon pulled from their bodies. Mage after mage was sent from the tents, worn to exhaustion, while more wounded were brought in or came to consciousness.
Jimut and a number of other people Briar recognized from the road worked in the tents together with the mages and healers, helping to hold patients for stitching or surgery, wrapping bandages, carrying water, and sitting with the dying. Briar even saw their commanders throughout the night. They came to talk to their people and even to fetch water or soup when everyone else was busy.