Battle Magic

by Tamora Pierce

  He was so fixed on that flight of arrows, and the next, and the next, that he did not hear the groans of the catapults as Rosethorn called upon their own memories as trees. They sprouted roots, splitting their metal fixtures and joins. The catapults exploded into pieces as the wooden towers and throwing arms burst free of their constraints, sank roots, and put out branches. Once a newborn tree was fixed in its bed, Rosethorn moved on to the next.

  Briar kept track of her work through occasional touches as he rested between flights of arrows. A glimpse of Evvy as she drooped over Luvo and her horse’s neck told him that they had finished whatever they’d been doing.

  A roar from a large number of human throats drew Briar’s attention to the battlefield. General Sayrugo’s trumpets were sounding the attack. On their left, cavalry riders on both sides battled with spears and halberds. On the right, a pit opened under the Yanjingyi cavalry. They were trying to climb out, but the earth was dry. It slid under the feet of horses and fighters, dropping them back on top of those who were lower down.

  Whose work? Briar wondered. He looked at the different groups of shamans. One of them sat on the ground, resting. The others were chanting, dancing, or standing with hands joined. He felt magic roll off them in waves. He made a silent vow never to vex the shamans.

  A shout drew Briar’s attention upward. Twenty or more zayao globes fell toward their forces. Lighter than the boulders, they had been thrown by Yanjingyi mages, not catapults. His belly rolled and cramped. He reached with his power but knew the attempt was useless. The charcoal in zayao was dead wood, untouchable by Rosethorn and him; sulfur was metal somehow, immune to plant and stone magic. Saltpeter, the third ingredient, was outside all three of them. He had tried to tell Evvy it was part stone, but she did not believe him.

  The bombs fell, exploding throughout their army. Horses and soldiers shrieked. Riders and foot soldiers raced to fill gaps in the front and shift the screaming wounded and the dead. Clouds of stinking smoke rolled over the field.

  Briar tried not to listen to the cries for help as he reached underground with his power, seeking roots. He groped in his jacket with one hand until he found a vial of strengthening oil. The enemy’s cavalry was charging. If he rubbed the oil on his hands to strengthen his power, he could get a wide swathe of grasses to trip the horses….

  He was loosening the wax around the vial’s cork when fire, or a pain like burning, raced over his skin. A mage had singled him out for attack. He cried out and reached for Rosethorn. She lay on the ground, doubled over on herself. With a gasp she smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch me! I’m burning up!” she shouted, though he saw no blisters on her pale skin.

  He fumbled to put the vial back in his pocket. He felt more invisible flames spill over him and swore he would have the Yanjingyi mage’s teeth out in revenge. He didn’t see fire, but he heard it crackle; his nose was filled with the stink of cooking flesh. Tears of pain streamed down his face.

  Rosethorn cried out again. He fell to his knees and began to crawl to her, shouting for Evvy and Luvo.

  He stopped at a pair of splayed brown feet. Knotted brown hands yanked him up as Riverdancer shouted into his face. More heat engulfed him. Briar shoved the older woman away to keep her from being burned, but he still couldn’t see the fire that crackled so convincingly on his own skin.

  Riverdancer grabbed him again. This time her translator stood beside her. “She says, the Yanjingyi, did they get a chance to collect your hair or your fingernails?” the translator bellowed in tiyon. “Did they take clothes with your sweat on them?”

  He stared at the two Gyongxin women. They had tried to be careful back in the Winter Palace, using their magic to remove all trace of themselves from the guest pavilion, but they could do little about the cushions and drying cloths they had used during all those meals with the nobles and the emperor. A very good mage might have drawn enough of their essence from those to do them harm now. Briar had learned all about sympathetic magic and the uses of all things that were once part of a person on their journey east. He was trying to remember if they had forgotten anything important, like nail clippings or hair, when the pain swept over him and Rosethorn screamed.

  Riverdancer released him. Briar fell to the ground beside his teacher as the shaman began to dance, one foot up, one foot down. Had he known Riverdancer wore tiny bells in her clothes? One foot up, one foot down in a strange, turning step. She danced around Rosethorn and Briar, her bells singing. Fine white crystals spilled from Riverdancer’s fingers. She sang, too. Briar could see her words in the air. They spoke of the strength of the mountains and the power of eagles, about the roots of the glaciers and rivers of Gyongxe. Even though he didn’t know the language she used — it wasn’t tiyon — he saw and understood everything.

  As she danced and sang, her white crystals formed a solid, unbroken line. In it tiny shamans danced and twirled like she did. They made swirls in the white stuff without disturbing the evenness of the white line. The more Riverdancer and the small shamans danced, the more his pain eased. When she closed the circle, the fiery agony stopped. The tiny shamans waved to Briar and vanished.

  Rosethorn sat up. “Thank you,” she whispered. “That was — horrible. They would have killed us.”

  Riverdancer grinned and made a remark.

  “Now they will burn, the Yanjingyi,” her translator said. “We will take the power they threw at you and return their curses to them.”

  “Can you stop them?” Briar asked as Rosethorn leaned against him. “You don’t even know who has our sweat or whatever it is.”

  The translator smiled. “You would be surprised by the things Riverdancer can do on her own.”

  Rosethorn leaned against Briar. She was reaching for more of the catapults. Briar put an arm around her and watched the shamans. Several of them had come to make a shielding line in front of Briar, Rosethorn, Evvy, and Luvo. They began to chant softly. Now and then they stamped, or rang tiny bells. Their voices soaked into Briar’s bones, drifting down through them like silt.

  Movement in the air caught his attention. From the walls of Garmashing, arrows and big stones took flight, then dropped down into the ranks of the emperor’s army. Again and again the city’s defenders shot, hammering the Yanjingyi enemy on the western side.

  Briar let his own magic seep into the hillside. His body was weary; he felt battered after the mage assault. But it was spring: Everything in the southern Gnam Runga Plain was growing. Briar drew only a small part of that strength into his veins, just as he knew Rosethorn drew on part of it. As soon as he was ready, he sped through the interwoven grass roots down the rise and into the flat plain.

  Horses thundered over his head. Next came the remains of the catapults Rosethorn had changed to form the trees above him: They hummed with her power. Beyond those lay the weight of more catapults that were in the process of becoming trees once more, stabbing new roots down into the earth. Above the ground he sensed thousands of crossbows and bolts carried by the archers who stood in their ranks around the imperial platform.

  Briar was not searching for catapults or archers. He sought the white blaze of magic laid on the cool touch of willow, oak, and gingko.

  The mages were bunched in small groups protected by archers, many of them arranged in steps on the great observation platform. To his magical senses they floated at different levels in the air depending on where they stood on the platform. Each mage appeared in his magical vision as a series of bead groups; these glittered with an overlay of Yanjingyi magic. He felt the clash between the magic and the wood’s own power: Didn’t the Yanjingyi mages understand how much more powerful their spells would be if they worked with their materials?

  He picked at the alien spells for a moment, curious, then gave up. Whatever they did, it was dedicated to the destruction of the Gyongxin army and the kind of pain that had made Rosethorn scream. He was going to do his best to do some damage to them and to the mages who wielded them.

  Briar g
ave one set of beads a mage’s tap. It released the magic that had been forced on them: The wood was already dry and brittle from lack of care. The beads shattered; the oak ones spraying splinters into the mage’s face, the tough gingko beads cutting the string on which they were threaded. Briar searched for the next cluster of beads, creaking under their magical burden, and tapped them until they broke. When he found a mage who had strung his beads on cotton or linen, he coaxed the fibers to part and gave the beads enough strength to roll out of all reach. Each time he parted a mage from his beads, Briar immediately turned his attention to the next one, hoping to stop any of them from making Rosethorn suffer again.

  Briar was deep in a mage trance at her side when Rosethorn sat up with a moan. Riverdancer and her fellow shamans sat close by, sharing dumplings.

  “The work here continues,” the translator said, motioning to a group of shamans who danced at the front of the army. Mages in the robes of different temples were nearby, also busy with spell signs and gestures. “There were more of the zayao bombs, one batch over our eastern flank and one over the road behind us. The shamans called up a very strong wind high in the air. It blew half of the zayao balls aimed at our eastern flank onto open ground.” She touched her clasped hands to her head and lips in a prayerful gesture. “The general ordered our people off the road, thinking the enemy might strike there, so the bombs did not kill as many as they could have done. Now they have stopped the zayao bombs, because someone put too many trees in the way.”

  Rosethorn cursed bombs and the enemy under her breath. On the slopes below she could see screaming horses and the slumped bodies of soldiers. How many of the wounded and dead were men and women she had joked with, or healed, before? And when would she be able to help the healers again? She felt wrung out. The wind blew the stench of scorched meat and the dark, bleak scent of black powder into her face. Her stomach rolled.

  She looked up, and her blood quickened. There was something … off … about the gigantic observation platform that had been at the heart of the imperial army. She got to her feet, shielding her eyes from the sun. Sections of the steps on the platform had collapsed, as if worms had eaten the wood. She could not see well enough to tell if there were bodies on them or not. And part of the entire platform listed sharply to the east. It looked as though a hole had appeared there, knocking the whole monstrous structure off balance.

  To the west, on the open field, the city gates opened. Warriors dashed from Garmashing to attack the Yanjingyi army’s western flank; Gyongxin and Kombanpur troops charged past the resting shamans to fight on its southern front. Arrows flew in three directions. The translator was right: So many trees now grew between the observation platform and the Gyongxin army that it was impossible to target it with boulders or zayao bombs. The trees obstructed all vision for the remaining, more distant catapult engineers. They had as much chance of dropping a bomb or boulder on their own troops. Now the battle was down to archers and warriors. Everything was shrieking, bloody chaos, with no way to tell who was winning.

  She took a breath and entered her mage’s trance. She would look for wood beads among the enemy’s mages, and see if she could turn them on their masters.

  Evvy and Luvo had run out of catapult stones to turn to gravel. Evvy wasn’t tired in the least. Working with Luvo seemed to keep her strong. She wanted to do as much harm as she could. Turning her attention to the land, she filled as many middle-sized stones with power as she could and shook her magic. The stones were loose on the ground, having been stepped on by humans and horses and rolled over by carts and wagons. They moved easily at Evvy’s urging. Warriors and horses alike lost their footing. They backed up, crowding those behind them. Some fell as they discovered the ground in back of them or to the side was no more stable than that on which they stood.

  Evvy heard screaming. She opened her eyes, back in her body again. A reddish cloud rolled toward them from the imperial lines.

  “What is that?” she whispered.

  It swept over part of Sayrugo’s troops as they fought a Yanjingyi company. When it cleared, the group of warriors — Yanjingyi and Gyongxin, as well as their horses — lay on the ground, their bodies twisted in agony. Evvy whimpered.

  The shamans and their guards ran into the clear space in the middle of Sayrugo’s, Parahan’s, and Souda’s troops. Those with gongs rattled them all at once. As they did, the shamans spun counterclockwise. They then came together in a circle and turned counterclockwise again, chanting an eerie, deep-toned spell. They halted; those with gongs pounded them. The shamans whirled. Then they entered their circle and turned counterclockwise, chanting. With each repetition the earth boomed and the air shivered.

  With the fourth repetition the red cloud stopped in its advance. It, too, began to spin counterclockwise, pulling in on itself and rising. Slowly, so slowly at first that she couldn’t be sure, the funnel retreated, or advanced on its own army. It had become a tornado.

  The Yanjingyi soldiers directly in front of it panicked. They ran, fighting with fellow soldiers who were in the way. Some of the officers, mounted on horses, rode them down, lashing them with whips. Others galloped out of the tornado’s path. The cavalry farthest from the panic charged forward.

  Taking advantage of the enemy’s confusion, Parahan led a charge of horsemen at the imperial lines. Evvy threw herself into the stones underground and raced ahead to help. She grabbed for sandstone: There was much more of it under the flat plain than in the hills. Finding pieces of it, she called the quartz crystals in it to her. They popped free of the other minerals and followed her as stone after stone went to pieces. Suddenly the Yanjingyi cavalry horses were charging in sand.

  Evvy was dizzy. She left her crystals and returned to her body. She was aware enough to do that. There she made the discovery that she was too weak to move or call for help. She squinted down at the field. Sayrugo’s and Parahan’s soldiers were cutting a huge gap in the Yanjingyi lines. On her left, soldiers were pouring out of Garmashing. They smashed into the imperial army. Everything on that side was a mess. The Yanjingyi warriors were retreating if they could. The tornado was chopping the side of the imperial army on her right to pieces. Now it was shrinking, too. Dead soldiers and horses lay everywhere.

  Where was Luvo in her magic? She groped with her power and found a rope that seemed to lead to him. It took her to a side of the observer’s platform that was falling into a hole in the ground. Since she hadn’t caused that, and his rope led her there, she wondered if Luvo was responsible. The Yanjingyi soldiers wouldn’t like seeing their generals tilting sideways.

  The thought made her giggle.

  As far as she could see, trees grew everywhere, though the plain had been treeless. They had sprung from the remains of catapults. Had Rosethorn and Briar done all that? She had known them for only two years. They had done interesting things before, but never so much….

  Her mind was wandering. She wished she had something to drink, or something to eat, or a bed. She was very tired, but she wanted to see how the battle came out. Surely the emperor had more soldiers than this.

  She had the sense to dismount from her horse. She almost stepped on Luvo, who had somehow gotten out of his scarf-sling on her chest. His spirit was not in the stone body she thought of as Luvo, she discovered when she tried to apologize. She gave up and let her horse’s reins trail on the ground. “Don’t go away,” she told him. Then she sat down.

  Riverdancer found her and took charge of her. She made Evvy sit with her and her group of shamans, bundling her up in blankets and scolding until Evvy drank tea. Evvy tried to explain that normally she wasn’t so tired after a little bit of magic, except she had been breaking catapult stones and sandstone and limestone when she wasn’t shaking rocks under people’s feet. The explanation seemed far more complicated than it should have been, particularly when Riverdancer kept patting her on the shoulder, as if to say, “It’s all right.”

  Evvy awoke on a saddle. She lolled against someone who g
ripped her tight with one arm while he managed his horse with another. She looked up and back. Jimut smiled down at her. “Are you alive, brave girl?” he asked.

  “I’m not brave,” she said blearily. “I’m hungry. I was with Riverdancer.”

  “There will be food when you’re settled at First Circle,” he said. “I have tea.”

  “Tea’s good,” she said, and fell asleep again.

  The next time she opened her eyes, Jimut was carrying her through a plaster-walled corridor. “Rosethorn? Briar? Luvo?” she asked.

  Someone poked the back of her head. “Nice of you to ask.” Briar was being helped along by one of Jimut’s friends. He was ashen under the deeper bronze tan he had picked up during their travels. “Where did you go to?”

  “I was working on stones,” Evvy said. “Rosethorn and Luvo?”

  “Luvo’s coming.” Jimut carried her into a room. Rosethorn sat on a bed large enough for all three of them. There was another bed behind a screen. Briar’s companion helped him to that.

  “Healing,” Rosethorn mumbled. “The wounded …”

  “The city is full of healers. Most are in better shape than you, and you made the choice to be a battle mage,” Jimut said. He set Evvy on her side of the bed she would share with Rosethorn. Nearby was a small table with bowls of barley flour mixed with butter tea and dried cheese. He handed a bowl and spoon to Evvy. She began to eat, looking at Rosethorn with silent apology for not waiting. To her shock Rosethorn reached over and rubbed the top of her head.

  “You’re sure we aren’t needed?” Briar asked as Jimut carried a bowl over to him. He pointed to Rosethorn. “She’ll fuss and fret even if she isn’t strong enough to crawl.” He ate a spoonful, then set his bowl on the floor, put the spoon in it, and curled up on the bed. He was asleep instantly. Jimut began to remove his boots and armor.