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The water was very cold. After all of the cold-water baths we took as we traveled, I should be used to this, she thought gloomily, but I’m not.
The memory of her cats, seated to watch on countless stream banks as she and Rosethorn yelped in cold waters, struck her like a knife stab. She sat on the bottom of the cave lake and silently let her tears flow.
At last she began to drag her fingers through her knotted hair. Once it was straight again and fairly clean, she lurched up onto dry land.
Her dirty clothes were gone. Beside her mossy bed lay a pile of fabric in various green-tinted colors.
“There is an enclosed place,” Luvo said as she approached. “It is like the ‘temple’ place for the Thunder Horses, but it is for my mountain and those of my brother and sister. Your humans come to it and leave things for the humans that sing there and light lamps and bow up and down as you do, only more. They use fire to make smoke that smells interesting, too.”
Evvy gave him a tight smile. “The humans here worship your mountain and the other two as gods. They think you three are the husbands of the Sun Queen.”
“Ridiculous!” Luvo said. “The sun is not even part of this world!”
Evvy knelt clumsily and sorted through the pile. Soon she wore multiple layers of gaudy silk robes lined with fur. Somehow Luvo had also brought away several pairs of breeches that fit once she had rolled them up, and two pairs of fur-lined boots. She could wear one pair. Once she was clothed, she drank some more tea and fell asleep again.
The western army, made up of over five hundred tribesmen, priests and priestesses, and shamans, mounted on small, tough horses or driving carts, arrived around noon as Briar was brewing medicines in a temple workshop. One of the children brought word of the new arrivals, but Briar was busy keeping the greatest strength of his potions from cooking off. Once, when he took a rest, he walked up onto the wall to a view of many tents and soldiers inside and outside the temple. The sight alone made him cross. He wondered if he could ask his new friend the orange stone tiger if it would let him sleep there again that night.
The village child returned later to let Briar and the other healers know that a messenger had arrived from the east. Briar was not interested. He could not feel Rosethorn’s approach. With Evvy’s death, he doubted the east held any good news for him.
Jimut brought Souda’s dinner invitation to him. Though he was done for the day, Briar refused it. He meant to beg food from a cook and go somewhere private to eat. But Souda marched into the workshop as he finished his cleanup and seized him by the arm.
“No more hiding,” she said firmly. “You will eat with us, without arguments.” She did not release him until they were inside the tent that she and Parahan seemed to use as an audience chamber. Guards had set dishes on the carpet. Cushions were strewn all around them. Parahan was there already, scooping something into his mouth with a piece of flatbread.
“You couldn’t wait?” Souda demanded.
He swallowed and said, “Briar, sit. Don’t hide, will you? I’m missing her, too. I know you knew her longer, but you know I wouldn’t be here without her.” His smile trembled. “She was too young to consider all the consequences, as you and I would have done.”
Briar nodded. He took a cushion next to the big man and picked up a plate. He spooned curry onto it, then looked at it blankly, having lost track of what he’d meant to do with it.
Souda took the plate and loaded meat, flatbread, and dumplings onto it beside the curry. “Eat!” she ordered. “We have work to do!” She sat cross-legged on a cushion of her own and served herself. “While the westerners were getting settled, another messenger from Sayrugo arrived,” she told Briar. “She wants us to meet her at Melonam. It’s northeast of here, on the road to Garmashing. Her soldiers moved as many people to the eastern temple fortresses as they could before they ran into more imperial troops than they could handle.”
“They tried to fall back to Fort Sambachu,” Parahan said abruptly. “Well, they did fall back. Except the fort isn’t there.”
Briar stared at him. “What do you mean, the fort isn’t there? It didn’t just get up and walk away.”
“The general’s letter says that maybe there was an earthquake,” Souda explained. “Only she doesn’t know how they didn’t feel a quake that was strong enough to make the entire fort collapse in on itself.”
“Could Evvy have done that? If she was dying?” Parahan whispered.
Briar shook his head. “That place was big! We pulled down parts of a house, her and me, but nothing that size.”
“I wish she had done it!” Parahan shouted. Two soldiers stuck their heads inside the tent flap. Souda waved them out again. “I wish she’d pulled it down on those murderers!” her twin snapped, his voice softer this time.
Briar hooked a hand around one of Parahan’s shoulders for comfort. “We’ll come up with some surprises for their friends, you’ll see,” he promised. When Parahan looked at him, Briar gave his friend a small, nasty smile. “We’ll make Weishu regret he ever heard of any of us.”
Parahan wrapped his hand around Briar’s. “Yes. Yes, I think that sounds like a most magnificent idea.”
“Briar, can you sense Rosethorn yet?” Souda asked.
He shook his head. “But if we take the road north from here, it’ll be easy enough to feel for her. I’ll let the plants know where I’m going. She can follow our trail.”
Evvy woke to find Luvo in the same place he had been when she had gone to sleep. The giant spider was gone. She was relieved, though Diban Kangmo had been nothing but kind to her. Still, being watched by all those eyes was nothing short of unnerving.
There was food remaining in the pots that Diban Kangmo had brought. Evvy ate a good amount of what was left. Would the spider steal more? Surely the temple inhabitants would start to wonder where their food was going. Also, the temples were supposed to be housing refugees. Was Diban Kangmo stealing food that should go to them?
She emptied the teapot and realized she had another issue that had to be addressed.
“I, um, need a privy,” she told Luvo. Then she had to explain what privies were for, and why she couldn’t just go where she stood, like the animals of his mountain. Once all of that was said, he showed her a cranny in the wall of the cave where the flooring was more sand than rock. Afterward she bathed again. Binding her hair in a scarf from his pile of offerings, she steeled herself and said, “Luvo, I can’t stay here. I have to find my friends. Sooner or later they’ll learn the enemy took the fort. They’ll think I’m dead, or that I got tortured and told where everyone is. I have to find them.”
Luvo rocked back and forth on the rounded pegs that served as feet when he wanted them. “Do you know where they are?”
“I know which way they went,” she said honestly. “The places they were going to stop at, the people there should be able to tell me where my friends went afterward.”
“How will you go?”
“I’ll walk, I suppose.” She tested the sole of one foot on the stone. They were still tender, but she had the boots, and the longer she waited, the farther away her friends would be. “I’ll steal a horse or mule if I get the chance.” It would have to be in an open field around the temples where they were grazing, and she would have to pray that the herders didn’t have any dogs.
Luvo hummed to himself. “I could find your friends.”
“How? They don’t have stone magic like me.”
“You said that the fire around your stone self is magic that lets you draw on it. I did not know of this reason for the fire in some meat creatures — humans — before. Now that I know it, I can tell which fires I see on the plain are simply magic and which are wrapped around part of the world. I can see the magic around your plant people if we are close to them. I think it is best that I go with you. Are you able to carry me?”
Evvy walked over to him. Excusing herself, she bent, wrapped her hands around him, and lifted. She heard her spine crackle, but Luv
o did not move. “You’re so heavy!”
“Forgive me. I am a mountain outside this heart aspect.” He grew warm under her palms, though not hot. “Try again.”
Evvy tugged. She lifted him an inch, no more.
He warmed a second time. “Try.”
She was able to hoist him into her arms that time, but she staggered when she tried to move a few steps. “I’m sorry!” she said, placing him on her bed. “I’m more worn-out than I realized. All of my packs weigh as much as you, but …” She turned away so he wouldn’t see her mouth quiver.
“That is the lightest I can make myself. I shall think of something.” He climbed off her bed. “Rest. I will reflect on this and resolve it.” He watched as Evvy curled up on the rags. “You cannot understand what a joy my moments of speech with you are. Each one presents me with a new idea or a new problem, when I have seen nothing new in ages. I have not felt so alive in millennia, Evumeimei.”
“Huh!” she said, disbelieving. “I’m not the interesting one. That’s Briar, and Rosethorn, and Parahan. They’ve done all these things, and they know languages, and books, and different people. I just know stones. Not even all of those.” She yawned.
“Then I look forward to our meeting with your friends. Truly, Evumeimei, do not value yourself so little. You are a bright light in my underground home.”
“Thanks, Luvo. That’s a really nice thing to say.” She pulled some rags over herself and slept before her new friend even walked away.
She dreamed she could hear Diban Kangmo talk with him.
She will be dead before you know it, the peak spider advised from a position high on one of the cave’s stalactites. It is folly to become attached to her.
I think it has been folly for me to keep myself separate from them, if they can produce young like this one, Luvo replied. Will you guard her for me until I return? I worry about the cave snakes.
She needs more food, the spider said as Luvo waddled into the dark. Get some for her. Make one of my children carry it.
When Evvy woke, she smelled cooking. She also smelled musk and dung, and heard the restless shift of hooves on stone. She opened her eyes and saw a large yak drinking from the lake. Luvo sat near her bed, next to a smaller peak spider — only three feet tall — and two covered pots.
“This is Diban Kangmo’s daughter,” Luvo explained as the smaller spider scurried off into the far end of the cave. “She is very shy of humans. She is the one who bandaged your feet.”
“Thank you so much!” Evvy called after her.
“She also brought food for you and a bag for me to ride in.”
“Ride? Ride what?”
“Big Milk,” Luvo said. “She is the queen yak. It is a great honor to you that she chose to do this for us, and our luck that she has no young to prevent her from helping. We cannot ask a male. They are too restless.”
Evvy thought she was going to cry. Big Milk had turned her head to stare at them with one eye. Or rather, she stared at Evvy.
Finally the girl thought of something safe to say, other than that the rock had lost his mind. “Luvo, she doesn’t have a saddle or bridle.”
She had to explain what those things were between bites of onion-and-mushroom dumpling. When she finished her description, Luvo said, “I could not ask one of my friends to take metal in her mouth and bind her head in leather. She might become ill. Poor thanks that would be! Besides, I have never seen anyone ride a yak in such a way. You will tie the bag around your waist and shoulders, and hold on to Big Milk’s fur. She has plenty of that. She will not even feel it if you pull. Her undercoat is quite thick and packed firmly beneath the outer fur.”
“But how will she know which way we’re going?” Evvy asked. “The reins are so you can pull right, and the horse goes right, and so forth.”
“I will tell her which way to go,” Luvo said confidently.
“Where will I sit?” Evvy didn’t say that the animal’s back looked as broad as if she could lay down on it and sleep without rolling off.
“The herd boys ride on the necks of the tame yaks. You have trusted me so far, Evumeimei.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Do you have one now?”
Evvy looked at Big Milk, who swiped a thick tongue around furry jaws. The girl sighed. “Not really.”
Evvy hated to do it, but she used one of Luvo’s silk offering scarves to wrap up the leftover dumplings. The cloth was made of brightly dyed patches, and now it would have grease stains. No doubt it would also stain the crimson shirt she wore, since she was hanging that small bundle on her chest. Once she was ready, she lowered Luvo into the bag he had brought. It was a picking bag, big enough that she could slide one strap over her shoulders and under her arms. She wrapped the coarse upper strap in a scarf so it would not chafe her neck, and wore the upper strap there.
Luvo must have said something to the yak. She ambled over and knelt on her forelegs. Impulsively Evvy scratched Big Milk between her curved horns as she would a cow. She felt a bit better when the yak turned her head and rubbed it against Evvy’s belly.
“I think we’re going to get along,” the girl said. “Now, be patient with me, all right? I’ve never ridden anybody as wonderful as you before.”
“She likes the compliment,” Luvo told Evvy. “Swing your leg over, carefully!”
With a bit of experimenting and a little struggle, Evvy managed to get herself and Luvo onto Big Milk’s back. Then she gave the great yak another forehead scratch and settled her grip into the fur on the animal’s neck. “Now what?” she asked.
Slowly Big Milk straightened one foreleg, then the other. Evvy squeaked, then bit her lower lip to keep from doing so again. She yelped. Her lip was one of the injuries from the fort that was not completely healed.
Big Milk ignored both noises. She set off briskly along the shore of the lake, headed deeper into the cave.
THE TEMPLE OF THE TIGERS
THE CONFLUENCE OF THE TOM SHO AND SNOW SERPENT RIVERS
It was clear that Soudamini would go half mad before all of the western troops had packed up and ridden north.
“We’ve been through this before,” Parahan told her, an arm around her shoulders. He and Briar had taken her up onto the roof before the westerners could hear her mutterings. “These people don’t fight for a living. Well, perhaps the temple folk do. As the war goes on, they’ll understand the importance of starting the march at dawn, not starting to pack at dawn.”
Souda gnawed a thumbnail and swore to herself in Banpuri.
“Our people are all ready to ride,” Briar said in consolation. He stared toward the distant river, hoping for the slightest hint that Rosethorn was coming. He wasn’t unhappy that the westerners were holding them up.
“They may as well have slept late for all the good it will do us!” Souda replied, her husky voice a soft growl. “Who drew the short straw so we left last, anyway?”
“You,” Parahan said.
“You may as well tell our people to unsaddle their mounts and run some weapons practice,” Souda told her twin.
“Already did,” he replied.
Then Briar felt it, the lightest touch of green. He inhaled and forgot to breathe out, waiting. There it was again. Suddenly his chest hitched and he began to hack, unable to catch his breath. Parahan shoved a flask of tea into his hands. Briar gulped half of it down. When he could breathe properly again, he stretched his power as far as it would go. That touch was a little stronger. It connected to his magic; he knew it like his own.
“I think you’ll be happy we’re last,” he said casually.
Parahan’s face lit. “Rosethorn?”
Briar nodded.
It was almost noon when Captain Lango’s people rode through the gate on their way north. Briar went to the twins, whose companies were next. “I’ll meet her and catch up with you,” he said. “I think she’ll reach the river crossing by midafternoon.”
Parahan beckoned to Jimut, who came forwar
d with saddled horses. “I have a fresh mount for her,” Jimut said. “And you do not go without a guard.”
Briar was too nervously eager to even consider an argument. After everyone said their farewells to the chief priestess and the temple commander, Parahan’s and Souda’s companies rode out the north gate. Briar and Jimut went south together with the squad of ten warriors that Parahan had insisted upon. Before they left the temple behind, Briar stopped and said good-bye to the orange stone tiger, ignoring the odd looks of the soldiers.
They walked their horses down to the river to wait and ate the meal they had cajoled out of the temple cooks. Two of the soldiers stood guard, watching north and east, while the others rested and talked. Briar paced the riverbank. He had no idea of how he was going to tell Rosethorn about Evvy. The idea of doing it made his stomach twist.
Clouds were spreading across the sky when Briar saw a flash of green — real green — atop the road that led into the Drimbakang Lho. He yipped, then clenched his hands so tightly his nails bit into the tattoos on his palms. The blooms and stems of his tattoos, swiftly turning into roses of every color, protested his grip. He apologized, silently. The enemy was supposedly gone from the area, but he and his companions had agreed to be cautious. Making noise at the sight of Rosethorn was not anyone’s idea of cautious behavior. Instead he leaped up and down, waving frantically. He stopped only when she raised an arm to indicate she had seen him, and urged her mount to a trot.
