“The emperor isn’t nearly beaten enough. He’ll get more troops and mages and he’ll come back. We’ll be waiting, too. Actually, I don’t think the emperor was with this army. He might be in the north or northwest — those troops haven’t arrived, which has the God-King worried. Weishu knows he has to take Garmashing, though, to hold Gyongxe. I’m not sure he can.”
“Why not?”
“The shamans were always going to be a problem, even more than the tribes themselves,” Parahan explained. “Half of battle magic is knowing what the other side will use. Weishu’s famous mages don’t know how to fight shamans, because the shamans don’t work alone. The mages cannot direct their power at one person. Shaman magic is based on the combination of five or six different people with different strengths and skills. They practice weaving those things together all their lives. And if any of the court mages have ventured out to learn the shaman music and dances, I, for one, will be much surprised. Do you scrub feet?”
“No,” Briar replied, thinking over what the prince had said. “Do your mages in Kombanpur study the shaman dances?”
“No,” Parahan told him comfortably, “but we have never been stupid enough to attack Gyongxe. There are easier places to attack on our side of the Drimbakang Lho.”
Several novices entered in a rush to open the taps on another big tub. Steaming water rushed into it as the novices placed soap and scrubbing sponges on one of the benches within reach. Briar was about to leave and Parahan was sinking into his bathwater when Rosethorn, Evvy, and Souda came in, all dressed in bathing robes.
“Do any of you ladies scrub feet?” Parahan asked as Rosethorn stripped off her robe and stepped down into the water.
“Scrub your own feet, you lazy oaf,” she advised him.
Evvy stood there, trembling. Parahan covered his eyes and Briar looked away. It was Souda who said, “It’s safe, lads.” She and Evvy were tucked into the rising water. The novices closed the taps when the water reached a couple of inches from the rim of the tub.
Briar silently cursed himself for missing a glimpse of Souda, but he knew he wouldn’t have felt right. Bathing wasn’t for ogling women; it was for getting clean. It worried him that Evvy was so clearly frightened of being bare when she had taken baths in groups all of her life. She had sunk down in the shared tub until her chin rested on the top of the water.
“So can the shamans drive the emperor out of Gyongxe?” Briar asked, returning to his conversation with Parahan.
Their friend shook his head. “If the three of you were to stay, perhaps we could come up with something that would kill Weishu,” he said. “That would force Yanjing out. It’s his ambition that brings him here, and greed. Without him, his generals would retreat to fight over the rest of the empire. His sons would fight, too. That would keep all of them busy.”
“I hate to agree with my brother on politics, but for once he’s right,” Souda remarked.
“I will have you know that in the years I trailed the emperor like a chained monkey, I received a very good education in politics,” Parahan retorted. “You can’t ask for a better teacher than Weishu. That’s how I know Gyongxe doesn’t have enough soldiers to send against him. That’s not even counting devices of war. We fight him with no catapults, no zayao bombs. We didn’t have any pitch, for that matter. Without Briar, Rosethorn, Evvy, and Luvo to work on them, those catapults would have been the end of us. I would do anything to get my hands on the zayao formula. It’s death for anyone in the empire to sell it.”
“You don’t need to buy it,” Rosethorn said with a yawn. “It’s evil stuff, but if you truly need the formula, Briar and I both know how to make zayao.”
Souda and Parahan stared at her.
“Do you know how much my uncle paid the empire for sixty kegs of it last year?” Souda whispered.
“We’ll teach you how to make it for free if we leave you to face him,” Rosethorn announced. “But it’s evil. Once you have it, you guarantee your enemies will get their hands on it so they can use it against you.”
“Let’s not get carried away with this ‘for free’ stuff,” Briar said quickly. “If Gyongxe can pay there’s nothing wrong with that. We have a long journey to reach our ship.”
Now the twins were staring at him.
“So you mean to leave us,” Parahan said.
Briar shrugged. “We’re supposed to be on our way home now,” he reminded their friend. “If we don’t catch our ship when it makes port in the southernmost Realm of the Sun, we risk getting caught in your monsoons. We have family at home we won’t have seen for three years if we have to wait.”
“You could make the difference between victory and slavery if you stayed,” Souda explained.
“You know Weishu,” Parahan added. “He destroys what he cannot keep.”
Briar glanced at Evvy, who had sunk almost to her nose. She was weeping silently. The others saw him looking at the girl.
Souda reached out and stroked Evvy’s hair. “What is it?” she asked gently.
Evvy sat up enough to clear her mouth of the water. “He’ll torture us,” she whispered. “He’ll whip our feet till we can’t walk and he’ll murder our friends. His people killed my cats because they were in the way. They killed the villagers and Captain Rana’s soldiers for the same reason. They don’t care about anyone.” She was shivering so hard her teeth chattered. “I want you to kill me. Don’t let him get me.”