The old priestess chuckled. “Doubtless he wants you back to make another. This Rosethorn is separated from you?”
“Just for now,” Briar replied. “She had an errand.”
The woman looked at him as if she knew Rosethorn’s errand was a secret, very magical one. Then she said to Parahan and Soudamini, “And you two troublemakers?”
“We are not slaves,” Parahan said quietly, his hands white-knuckled in his lap. “My uncle sold me to the emperor, but I escaped.”
“It does not matter,” the old priestess said. “Emperor Weishu believes threats will make us crumble like dried mud. Last year, he sent me a beautiful box, carved all over with snakes. It was a very splendid gift.” She shook her head. “It is thanks to my friend that I lived after I opened it.” The old woman stroked the cub’s back. He butted her shoulder with his big head. She balanced with the ease of long practice. “He ate the small viper the emperor had tucked into my lovely box. We were up all night with his belly ache, but now he knows not to eat vipers.”
“But why?” Souda asked. She looked at the cub with longing. “Why did the emperor send you a viper?”
“I believe he thought that my successor would be likely to forget the debt of gratitude we owe to the God-Kings for allowing our temple to be here. He thought that if he killed the cranky old woman, he would have a friend in Gyongxe. Instead he still has a cranky old woman who now holds a grudge against him. We sent my would-be successor to him in a box of our own.” She stood and went to the wall. The cub stood beside her, his forepaws planted on the ledge. “Messenger! Your imperial master knows who I am — he tried to kill me last year. He failed.” Though she spoke in normal tones, her voice rang in the air. It startled not just the messenger’s horse but those of the mounted soldiers behind him. “Tell him this for me: His palace will crawl with angry cats before I surrender anyone. Gyongxe has many surprises for you people. Get out while you can!” She stepped back from the wall and beckoned to the commander. “Are you ready?” she asked quietly. Her voice only reached those near them. Briar got to his feet. Souda and Parahan were already up.
“If you are,” the Gyongxin soldier replied.
Briar looked out. The messenger was galloping back to his own people. The archers must have set their bolts and drawn their crossbow strings earlier, because their weapons were raised and ready to shoot.
One Yanjingyi soldier, a burly fellow in gold-painted armor, raised a crimson banner. Several men shouted orders as the archers aimed over the temple wall. The soldiers trotted their horses forward.
Then the priestess — the head of the temple, Briar knew now — and the commander began to chant.
The immense orange tiger statue that sat by the gate shook itself and roared at the charging horsemen. The white tiger that was already leaping into the air finished its jump, landing in the middle of the attackers.
The horses went mad with terror. They reared and plunged, screaming as they threw their masters to the ground. The tigers whirled and swung their huge paws, sending horses and men alike flying through the air.
Parahan’s and Souda’s warriors froze at the sight before them, but not the temple archers. They aimed and shot. As their bolts flew, Briar looked at Jimut. He was already aiming his crossbow. Briar turned back to the tigers and saw their weakness. They were anchored near the gate somehow. Once at their limit, which seemed to be about three hundred yards, they could keep the enemy at bay, but they could not pursue them. The Yanjingyi soldiers also figured it out. They formed up out of the tigers’ range and waited for their own mages to have a turn. These worthies had kept far back all along. Though Briar couldn’t see them closely or hear them, he guessed they had taken their beads in hand and were chanting the words that would wake the spells in them.
The Gyongxin and Kombanpur archers launched their arrows high in the air. For some reason they fell short of the mages and even the soldiers. The archers on the wall tried a second time. The bolts still fell short. The temple’s priest-mages came forward with small pots and boxes. Novices followed with mortars, pestles, cloth bags, and fists full of incense. They set their belongings on the wall and began to mix substances for the priests to burn and chant over. Briar felt their power press against his skin. The next time the archers on the wall shot, their arrows hit the enemy.
Briar ignored what his allies were doing and sat cross-legged on the wall.
“Don’t let anyone trip over me, Jimut,” he said. He sank into his magic, flowing through the roots under the temple and out below the battlefield. Here was a weight of rock that had to be one of the stone tigers. On he went until he sensed the small magics that went into the good-luck charms carried by soldiers.
Overhead now he felt bead-shaped willow with magic dug into its grain: exactly what he wanted to find. Weishu had not warned his mages to remove their wooden beads. There were other wooden beads, but for now the willow ones would serve his purpose.
Briar surrounded those beads with his own magic. They welcomed him. He brought them the memory of their life as trees, before someone had cut them into pieces and forced strange magic onto them. Willow magic healed and united. It was power that bent before it broke. Instead of flowing streams and falling rain someone had jammed killing and destruction into the wood, the kind of spells that burned and thrust.
Willows didn’t understand that magic. They wore it uneasily. Feeling themselves in Briar, remembering what they were, the bits of willow shook off the foreign power. They took up the green magic that had been theirs when they were trees. They grew. Briar guided their power to veins of water underground. Here they found the fierce strength of the Snow Serpent and Tom Sho Rivers. Briar bound their magic to his, sank both deep into the water, and let go.