Tris's Book

Lark waded into the crowd. She put a hand on one yelling dedicate-initiate's shoulder, spoke in another's ear. Both looked shamefaced, tucked their hands into their habit sleeves, and stood back to let her through. Touching, smiling, talking quietly, Lark worked her way through the noisy gathering, leaving calm in her wake.

"There's more to Lark than meets the eye, isn't there?" Briar asked Rosethorn.

"We'll make an initiate of you yet, boy, if your perception keeps improving," Rosethorn said. "Come on. If we get arguing with this lot, we'll lose time." She headed to Skyfire with Briar in tow.

He looked out to sea. The illusion-spells were off the fleet: he guessed there were ten dromons in all, and fifteen plain galleys. Inching between the ships were long boats laden with men, small catapults and weapons: a landing-force. In the prow of each boat stood a man or woman - mages, Briar guessed, to protect the raiders from Winding Circle's magic. Not just against magic, either, he realized, seeing that all along the southern stretch of the wall, dedicates and novices readied catapults of their own. Beside each stood an open barrel filled with globes: animal skins that held a dreadful-smelling liquid.

"Battlefire?" he asked one of the mages near Skyfire, pointing. The woman looked, and nodded.

Briar shivered. Once in Hajra, three ships, survivors of a pirate attack, had limped into harbour when he and some friends were playing on the docks. Each had been hit by the jelly called battlefire. One ship burned as it came, and sank inside the harbour's mouth. The other two had docked, to off-load their dead and wounded. The sight and smell of scorched flesh had given Briar nightmares for months.

Rosethorn waited until Skyfire was done speaking with a runner, then told him, "You're so busy planning how to weave magics, shielding that and blending this, that you forget it doesn't have to be magic alone."

Skyfire glared down at the stocky woman, thin nose twitching. "Only shields will protect us from those catapults, and the boom-stones," he snapped.

"And the cove?" she asked. With a wave she indicated the stretch of open dirt below them. It was pocked with deep craters, and reeked of boom-stone smoke.

"That's why we have archers, not to mention these clackers up here," Skyfire snapped, glaring at the crowd around Moonstream. "They just haven't been useful yet."

Rosethorn poked Briar so he would show the redheaded dedicate the bag he carried. "Brambles," she told Skyfire, naming the seeds that she'd ordered Briar to put into it. "Rosevines. Sea buckthorn. Briars." She grinned at the boy. "Sea holly. Milk thistle, Namorn thistle - and a few things here and there to help it all along."

Briar tried not to smile. Before he'd tied each fistful of seed into a square of cloth, Rosethorn had drenched them in a liquid that did for plants what her other tonic did for weak birds and worn-out mages.

Skyfire lifted one of the small bundles in his hand. "You think you can grow enough of a barrier to hold off that landing force, child?" he asked, sceptical.

"Get that seed all over the ground, and Briar and I will see what we can do," she told him firmly. "All your warriors need do is launch the bundles - Lark will make sure they open to scatter the seed."

Skyfire rubbed his chestnut beard, then took the bundle from Briar and waved to a handful of soldiers loitering nearby. One of them was the woman who had taken charge of Little Bear that morning; she winked at Briar and stood at attention for Skyfire's orders. "Get two of these little balls to each of the catapults along this quarter of the wall," he said. "Load them immediately, and get them into the air. Cover all the area not shielded by the spell-nets."

"Get Lark," Rosethorn whispered to Briar.

But Lark was coming already. "I'll do more good over here," she grumbled to Rosethorn quietly. "Why is it no one wants to work with anyone else?"

"I don't want to work with those idiots," said Rosethorn. One of the war-mages standing close enough to hear snorted.

They heard a snap. The catapult nearest to them hurled a small grey bundle high in the air. From one sleeve Lark brought out a square of cloth, its edges unsewn and fraying. Her eyes on the cloth bundles as they soared over the ground, she tugged the edges of the bit of cloth, yanking out threads three and four at a time. The bundles came apart, releasing clouds of seed into the air.

Rosethorn made room for herself and Briar by a notch, so they could lean on the raised stone beside it. Briar was pressed against it, with Rosethorn close behind him. He breathed in her funny scent: pine, dark soil, hints of basil and aloe. With her at his back, he felt almost as if he rested in the arms of Mila of the Grain herself, though he quickly assured the goddess there was no blasphemy meant.

"Are you ready?" enquired Rosethorn.

His eyes were on the seeds as they drifted to the ground. "I think so."

"The magic is a pattern of reaching into the ground and growing with the seeds from there. I'll pass it through you, so you can follow it, and me," she told him. "Just don't think you can do this with growing things all the time."

"They need to grow slow," he replied. "So they're strong clean through."

"That's right. I'm glad you understand. All right, breathe in..."

Closing his eyes, Briar drew breath in through his nose. The two of them sinking down through the cold, white-flashing inside of the wall -

What is all that light? Rosethorn demanded within his mind.