Captain Jha was out there with one hundred warriors. They had looked like a lot before, when they were all crowded together on the road west. Now, imagining them against the emperor’s thousands, he realized the number was pathetic.
Stop panicking, he ordered himself, when it seemed he might vomit. The emperor has his thousands at the capital, not all the way down here. He’s got his main force guarding his own silky self, not burning a clump of wood-walled villages!
And what happens if Weishu catches you? a nasty little voice inside his head inquired. You were his guest, and you helped his pet captive escape. Then you carried word of the attack to Gyongxe, and now you’re fighting against him. You didn’t just take a vase from the guest pavilion. Weishu is going to want to do very bad things to you. And Rosethorn. And Evvy.
What he wouldn’t give for a few of those nagas and many-armed gods to send Weishu back to Yanjing!
The sky was turning gray and they had ridden another three miles or so when Briar saw something bobbing in the river. At first he thought it was a boat. He rode down to the water’s edge for a closer look. The thing that had gotten his attention was brown and muddy. A log or a branch? Several like it followed, rolling as they came over the rapids. One floated close to the edge and turned, showing him a swollen, eyeless face. Two of the corpses were missing heads. All had either ugly blade wounds or carried the crossbow bolts that had killed them. Behind them came the carcass of a yak, its hooves sticking in the air.
“Say nothing,” Rosethorn murmured. Briar flinched. “Our soldiers have orders to keep the villagers away from the river or they’ll panic. We’re only a mile from the temple.”
“What if the temple’s under attack?” Briar asked. “What if imperial soldiers are there already?”
Rosethorn shook her head. “Scouts came to tell us all’s safe. The dead are coming from west of there. No one’s been reported on the south side of the river.”
“You aren’t still going on alone!”
“I’ll be fine,” Rosethorn said. “You stay with Parahan and Souda and do as you’re told, understand? They know more of war than you do.”
Briar glared at her.
“When we go home, I am giving Vedris a big hug and kiss,” Rosethorn remarked. “I never appreciated what a fine ruler he is before we made this journey.”
“Me neither,” Briar agreed. “There’s a lot to be said for a king who isn’t greedy.”
They rode together in silence, trying not to look at the other bodies that came down the river. At last they reached the two bridges at the meeting of the Tom Sho and the Snow Serpent Rivers. The temple rose on a rocky hill high above both of them. Their people didn’t wait. Soldiers and villagers streamed across the Tom Sho Bridge on their way up the hill.
Rosethorn leaned across the space between her mount and Briar’s to kiss him on the cheek. “Travel safe, travel well,” she told him. “We’ll see each other soon enough. It takes more than the likes of Weishu to come between my boy and me.”
Parahan rode over to wait with Briar as Rosethorn crossed the Snow Serpent Bridge alone. She looked small and lonely as she followed the lesser road away from them.
“I should go with her,” Briar said, gathering up his reins. “Someone will see her by herself like that —”
Parahan grabbed his arm. Slowly, from the edges in, Rosethorn and her horse disappeared from sight. All that remained was an empty road.
FORT SAMBACHU, GYONGXE
Evvy soon learned that it was one thing to be the companion of Rosethorn and Briar, the nanshurs from the west, and quite another entirely to be a student nanshur of eastern blood who had been left behind without them. For her first day after her friends’ departure, she had slept, eaten, explored, slept, and eaten some more. Even the cats were happy to laze and stuff themselves. On the second day she wandered among the refugees who were coming in from the villages on the eastern hills and plain. Unlike Briar or Rosethorn, she could do that without inspiring awe or fear. Here near the border, her Yanjingyi face was common enough to cause no extra interest. She admired babies, helped the families to settle in the fort’s empty rooms and sheds, and — when no one was looking — shored up crumbling walls in the rooms by packing the pieces they had lost back into the crevices. On the third day she wandered idly between the buildings, sending gravel and larger stones to fill in cracks.
It was when she looked at the fortress walls that she began to worry. They were not as solid as they ought to be. She started at the gate. There were gaps between the wooden frame and the wall that surrounded it. This close to the mountains, the builders had used stone in the walls instead of the brick preferred by house builders, to Evvy’s great approval. If she was to make repairs, she could do more with stone. She would need to do a great deal to make up for all this neglect and age.
Shaking her head, she climbed up to the battlements for a look around. Things were no better here. There were holes in the plaster on the walkway where running men could easily trip. Brick edging in the crenels had fallen away: Soldiers leaning out for a look below could slip on gravel or crumbling plaster and fall to their deaths. Anxious, she began to usher loose stones into the gaps on the walkway until one of Captain Rana’s mages caught her.
“You are a student!” he shouted. “Students do not practice magic without their teachers!”
“My teachers let me do the magic I’m best at!” Evvy shouted in return. “I don’t need a teacher for filling in gaps!”