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“Look,” Sandry whispered, once Daja’s shoes and stockings were off. She touched Daja’s right cheek. In the same place where the three at Discipline sported red weals, Daja had a nasty-looking scratch. “This has to be cleaned.”
“Right here.” Briar came in with a bowl of sharp-scented water and dry linen cloths. “Rosethorn says water with fresh yarrow crushed in will clean that ouch she’s—we’ve—got.” Pulling up a stool, he sat next to Daja, and dipped a cloth in the bowl. Wringing it out, he dabbed at Daja’s scratch, gently cleaning it. “I’m glad you left that staff of yours upstairs,” he told the sleeping girl. “I’d hate to have you bonk me on the head for cleaning this out.”
Pain flared on Tris’s cheek. Her own welt stung almost as much as when she’d first gotten it.
“Wish I’d been there,” Briar murmured, to himself as much as to the girls. “All those ships …”
“Shalandiru,” whispered Daja, eyes closed. “Oared warships, lateen rigs.”
“I don’t know if she’s babbling or dreaming,” remarked the boy. Reaching inside his sleeveless shirt, he brought out a little stone jar and opened it. “You’ll love this,” he told Daja. “My first batch of comfrey salve. It’ll fix you up in no time, without even a wicked scar.”
Sandry, whose uncle was a pirate-chaser, leaned over her friend. “What kind of shalandiru?” she asked, watching Briar gently smooth ointment on Daja’s cut. Interesting, she thought. The weal on her own cheek was hurting less. “How many, Daja?”
“Front rank, ten dromons,” Daja murmured. “Every other one alternating with single-bank galleys.” She sighed.
“Front rank? There were more?” Sandry asked.
“It’s a fleet, saati,” whispered Daja. “I didn’t get a good look at the second rank, or third—but they have them. I’m so tired.”
“What’s a dromon?” Tris wanted to know.
“Two banks of oars,” Briar and Sandry replied at the same time.
“Most galleys just have the one,” Sandry continued. “Dromons are bigger.”
“And they have the thunder-weapon.” Daja opened her eyes and tried to sit up. None of them helped her. At last she surrendered. “Frostpine?”
“Rosethorn’s room.” Briar jerked his head in the proper direction. “He’s as melted as you.”
“What thunder-weapon?” Sandry asked Daja, frowning. “Was it that boom-thing we heard?”
“It sank one of the duke’s galleys.” A tear rolled slowly down one of Daja’s cheeks, leaving a clean track in the grime. “It tore the sailors to pieces and blew a hole in the keel. We saved a few, but our boat was nearly full to start. Oti Bookkeeper give them credit, and send them to a kinder berth.”
“A catapult stone would hole a ship,” Briar pointed out. “You don’t need thunder for that.”
“A—a stone”—Daja yawned, her eyes sliding shut—”doesn’t rip people and planks to shreds and fire the hold.”
Tris started at this description of it. Leaning forward, she wrapped a hand around Daja’s wrist. “Wait. This smoke, that’s all over you and Frostpine.” She ran a finger down the other girl’s arm. It came away sooty. “This black stuff. The smell—it’s not just wood smoke. Is that your thunder-weapon? It makes this stink?”
Daja nodded and slept again.
“Briar! Tris! I need you!” Rosethorn called, her voice sharp. “Now, not tomorrow!”
Briar placed his salve on the desk, along with the water and cloths, and headed for the door. Turning back, he saw that Sandry was stroking Daja’s hand, looking thoughtful. Tris was sniffing her finger. She had gone a strange shade of pale under skin reddened from yesterday’s time in the sun. “That isn’t Lark who wants us,” the boy prodded. “Let’s go, before she gets testy.”
8
Ten minutes later, Briar and Tris walked onto the spiral road, both carrying empty baskets and message-slates: Briar’s for Gorse, Tris’s for Moonstream. Rosethorn had ordered special foods for Daja and Frostpine, while both she and Lark felt that the Dedicate Superior ought to know what now lay before Summersea Harbor.
“Dedicate Moonstream?” Briar asked a passing dedicate in Fire red.
“South gate,” she replied and hurried on.
People and carts streamed by them on the road as they walked. These were local farmers, come to shelter inside Winding Circle’s thick, high walls. In a way, Briar was glad to see them—it was like being back in the city of Hajra, though much cleaner. Little Bear and Tris did not agree. The dog was simply miserable. He had begun life as a stray in Summersea and had bad memories of crowds. Tris took each brush, each bump, each wait as a personal insult, her face getting redder and redder. Briar noticed that the wind had picked up, blowing every which way. He said nothing—the breeze helped ease the day’s growing heat—but he kept an eye on his housemate. If she got too out-of-temper, he supposed he would have to make her relax, somehow.
Near south gate, the crowds evaporated. None of the refugees seemed to want to get too close to the cove and whatever lay in it. The woodshops and forges between the Water and Fire temples, however, worked at full capacity. To the left, in the yard around the school for physical training run by the Fire Temple, red-robed dedicates and white-robed novices drilled with swords, wide-bladed spears, and shields. Many of the boys that Briar knew from his short stay in their dormitory were holding their own weapons practice. There were a few girls among the boys; more girls and women wore red or white, and drilled as warriors.
Other red-garbed dedicates, in metal-studded leather jerkins and helmets, lounged around the south gate, weapons close at hand. The gate was closed and barred with huge timbers. In the deep tunnel that ran from it through the wall, both Tris and Briar saw the blaze of magic. Power shone from the many round stones embedded in the mortar that lined the tunnel walls.
“Here—you lot, scat!” yelled an armored dedicate. She wore the sleeves of her crimson habit tied up, baring arms as muscled as those of any blacksmith. For all Briar knew, she was a smith, like so many Fire dedicates. “This is no place for you!”
Triumphantly Briar held up the pass-token that Lark had given him before he and Tris left Discipline. Unlike the iron one, this was made of precious glass, with Lark’s and Rosethorn’s marks pressed into the sides. Lark had also tied a red silk cord so that it formed a cross on both sides of the round. That would get them anywhere in Temple grounds, she had told them.
The dedicate took it, looked it over, then spat on the ground. “The dog stays here,” she ordered. “The baskets, too. Keep out from under people’s feet on the wall. If you’re ordered off, I’d better not hear that you argued. Who’re you looking for?”
“Moonstream.” Briar tried not to sound smug. “The slate in this basket is for her.”
“Then you only need to carry the slate, not the whole basket.” The dedicate returned the token but kept her hand out. The two passed over their baskets and ordered Little Bear to sit. To their surprise, he obeyed, thumping his tail in the dirt. “She’s right over the gate,” the woman told them. “Behave yourselves.” She bent down to give the dog’s rump a scratch.
Reaching the steps, Tris growled, lifted her skirts, and began to climb.
“Now what’s the matter?” demanded Briar, following her.
“I’ve been climbing a lot of stairs lately,” she snapped breathlessly. “I’m starting to hate it.”
“Maybe they’d go easier if you didn’t climb like you hated them,” he remarked. “Those flap-rags of yours don’t help, either.”
“Those what?” she gasped.
“Flap-rags. Skirts, and underskirts. Swap them for breeches, like Daja.”
Tris halted. Turning, she glared at him. “Breeches? Like some—some street rat, or busker, or—or a Trader? I come from a decent family, I’ll have you know, and decent females wear skirts! And petticoats!” With a final glare, she whirled and finished the climb to the top.
“Once a merchant, always a merchan
t,” Briar muttered. The world was truly a marvelous place when a girl as smart as Tris Chandler clung to the very clothes that made her hot and cranky.
Moonstream and Niko were talking to a lean, redheaded dedicate in crimson. The two friends only glanced at the people they had come to find. Before them, visible at last, a pirate fleet lay in the cove. Like the fleet that Daja had described, galleys with two banks of oars alternated with single-bank galleys in the row closest to the land. Other ships lay behind them. Briar tried to do a rapid count, without success. The ships’ images doubled and tripled and wavered before him, all lit by the silver glint of magic.
“No children allowed,” a rough, high voice informed them. Strong, thin hands gripped Briar and Tris by the shoulder. They looked up. It was a long way to look: the redheaded man who’d been talking to Moonstream and Niko was over six feet tall. His short-cropped red hair stood at all angles, as if he often ran impatient fingers through it. His skin was weathered, his nose a thin, sharp blade. Tucked behind a neatly trimmed red beard, his mouth tossed out words as barks. His eyes were his only attractive feature, a deep shade of blue that drew the attention of anyone near him, whether they wanted to be drawn or not. His habit sported the black border of an initiate, or temple mage. The embroidered gold circle on his robe over the heart meant he was the First Dedicate—the head—of the Fire Temple.
“Things might get rough here,” he told them now. “The guards shouldn’t have let you up.”
Briar held up the glass token and the slate. “We have this for Moonstream,” he said firmly. “It’s important. Honest.”
“And I came for Niko,” Tris said. Somehow she tore herself away from the Fire dedicate’s gaze and out of his hold, to walk over to her teacher.
“She’s with me,” Briar said half-apologetically to the man.
“I guessed that. And I know who you are: Briar Moss. The gardening mage-boy. I’ve heard about you and your housemates. Been setting the Circle by the ears.” He steered Briar toward Moonstream. “That’s the weather-witch, Trisana Chandler. She knew we had a problem last night, correct? Nice bit of spotting. Smart girl, is she?”
“She does all right, for a skirt,” Briar said, with a hooked smile.
By then they had reached Moonstream. “I notice you said that while Tris is talking to Niko and can’t hear,” she remarked, taking the slate. “By the way, this is First Dedicate Skyfire.”
Briar shook hands with the lanky redhead, awed in spite of himself. They shared a homeland, Sotat. Five years before, Skyfire had been a legend as a general. On the death of his wife, he had given up his lands and armies and taken his vows to the gods of Fire. As First Dedicate of that temple, he was in charge of Winding Circle’s defense.
“I’m glad Lark and Rosethorn sent me this information on what’s in the harbor,” Moonstream said at last. She handed the slate to Skyfire. “I know the duke will pass it on, but the sooner we get it the better, for some things.”
Briar noticed that pinched lines had appeared around Moonstream’s plum-colored lips. What harm could come to them, with Skyfire running the game? the boy wonderd.
“Niko, I’m telling you, it was the exact same smell,” Tris repeated anxiously. “I don’t make mistakes about smells. It’s the same as the one on Bit Island.”
“I believe you, my dear.” Niko looked worn and anxious. “What it means …” He gazed at the sea, combing his mustache with his fingertips.
Tris waited a moment, but not more. Her curiosity was killing her. “How many ships are here?” she asked. “This is a different group from what’s in front of the harbor, right? How many?”
“I can’t tell,” he replied. Seeing her frown, he added, “Like you, I can see they hide their numbers with illusions. But they’re craven, these pirates. They hide behind layers of spells, done by at least a dozen mages. I don’t yet have the key to all those spells, so I’m as baffled as you. No fewer than six dromons, I’m afraid, and ten plain galleys.”
“The duke’s navy will drive them off, won’t they?” she asked, shading her eyes as she squinted out to sea. Something was taking place on two or three of the big galleys—dromons, two banks of oars, she told herself, fixing the word in her memory. Illusion spells rippled over them like heat waves, making it impossible to see anything but the closest ships clearly.
“The navy is scattered all along the coast,” Niko quietly told her. “The few ships left in Summersea harbor are trapped now. We have to wait for the ships that are at sea to gather and come to our rescue. What are they doing out there?”
“Catapults.” Neither of them realized that Skyfire had come over; both jumped at the sound of his harsh voice. “I can’t see ’em—don’t have to. The movements are right. It’s what I’d be doing, right about now. Shurri knows they’ve got our range.”
“C-c-catapults?” squeaked Tris.
“Could be worse,” Skyfire told her, shielding his eyes. “They could be landing in the cove—which is what they will do, when they learn the spell-net down there is gone.”
Tris remembered what Daja had said about the spell-net and flinched. Winding Circle had no army, just the dedicates of the Fire Temple, those who wanted to help them, and mages. Would they be enough? Would pirates take this place and burn her only home? Would they take her and—
“Sometimes a good imagination is a bad thing.” Niko put an arm around her shoulders. “The defenses around the rest of Winding Circle are in perfect condition, and we aren’t exactly helpless here.”
“Certainly not,” commented Skyfire, with a bark of a laugh. Raising his voice he called, “Six mages—Air and Fire, if you please.”
The top of the wall was dotted with red- and white-robed soldiers, mingled with dedicates from all four temples. Now Tris saw that all of the non-warriors had the black-bordered robes of initiates. Three in yellow, initiates from the Air Temple, and three in red came over to Skyfire. He paired up Fire and Air, then pointed out their stations along the wall, about fifty yards apart, all facing the cove. “By air,” he told them, still watching the shimmering vessels. “By air—a hundred feet up, no less. I want a solid shield—no sloppiness. No cracks. Get ready.”
Tris eyed the pair closest to her. They were rapidly threading copper wire through the wide links of a two-foot-long gold chain. Once that was done, the initiate in yellow hung dull gray stones on small hooks in the wire, spacing them well apart. The initiate in red did the same thing with stones that looked like amber, flint, and onyx.
“Copper is an air element,” Niko mumured in her ear. “The gray stones are pumice, a stone of air. Gold—?”
“Fire, and protection,” said Tris.
“Very good. And onyx, amber, and flint are protective.” Niko kept his voice soft, in order not to distract the initiates. “Everything in the device has been repeatedly spelled for protection against trouble from the air. Daja would call it a bijili, a thing that stores magic. With such a tool, these mages don’t have to use much of their own power—which they might need later—to protect this section of the wall. All they need do is call on the strength of the metal, and the stones—”
“And the temple walls,” added Skyfire. Tris jumped. She hadn’t even thought he was listening. “Like everything else here, the walls themselves hold magic, put into them over—here we go.”
Two black, round balls soared into the air between the ships and the walls. Squinting at them, Tris shivered. She got the impression of magical signs and of her eyes being thrust away from the balls. Quarreling breezes yanked at her hair until her kerchief fell off, and her unruly curls went flying. She scrambled for the cloth.
“Why bespell catapult stones?” she heard Niko ask.
“Too high!” someone down the wall, an archer, yelled, shielding his eyes to follow the missile’s flight. “They’re too light for stones, Skyfire!”
“He’s right,” growled the dedicate. “What in Shurri’s name—?”
Higher and higher the dark balls ros
e.
“They’ll be over your shields!” cried Skyfire. “Raise them, raise them—”
Tris shook, terrified. It was as plain as day that the things would pass over the wall higher than a hundred feet. She would be ripped to pieces, like the dead of the Bit Island tower and the men Daja had seen on that galley!
Winds swirled over the wall, coming from everywhere. They raced around Tris, knocking Skyfire, Niko, and Briar out of the way. Tris barely noticed; her eyes were on the round balls as they began to drop. She reached blindly for the winds.
They shrieked, spinning tighter and tighter, shaping themselves into a funnel. The narrow end of the funnel swirled around her hands, tearing at the skin. The wide end stretched and stretched as the whole thing grew.
Tris clenched her fists, then opened them.
The funnel jumped free of her, racing into the sky to scoop up the twin balls. Turning, it paused, as though trying to decide which way to go.
A giant, invisible hand pressed those on the wall. A breath later, a dull crack boomed through the air. The funnel blew apart. In another breath, a dusting of soot, dirt, and splinters rained down on them all.
Tris sneezed. Niko drew a clean handkerchief from his overrobe, wiped her cheeks with it, then gave it to her so she could blow her nose.
“I must rethink my opinion of weather-witches,” Moonstream said, her voice clear and calm in the ringing silence on the wall. “It seems they do more than just bring rain.”
Skyfire leaned down so he could look straight into Tris’s eyes. Nervous, the girl backed up a step, then two, until she collided with Briar. The boy held onto her. Two more steps, and they would both go off the wall.
“Girl, can you do that cold?” Skyfire wanted to know, making his voice as gentle as he could. “Or do you have to be scared? If it comes to that—” He grinned, showing far too many teeth for Tris’s comfort. “I’m sure I can think of ways to scare you when they launch those things. The other way is much friendlier, of course.”
