Rosethorn and Briar also patched wounds on their companions. Twice during their ride up the pass they were cut off by Yanjingyi soldiers and had to fight their way out. Rana said with grudging respect that these Yanjingyi warriors were enemies to be respected. They had seen Rana and his company ride east and done nothing. It was Rosethorn and her companions who brought them out of hiding to attack.

Every day the hills around them rose ever higher. Trees grew straight up, clamoring for each bit of sun. There were fewer broadleafs and more pines. Scrub and grass clung to the lower slopes where wild goats and yaks grazed in between ribs of naked limestone, shale, and granite.

It did not help Briar’s peace of mind in this land of stone that Evvy twice dropped loads of rock onto Yanjingyi attackers. In his head Briar knew that even if the cliffs and ridges that soared above the road were unstable, Evvy would redirect loose stone if it fell. In his heart he waited for a ton of boulders to drop on him. If he could do it without Evvy noticing, he sent a screen of tough ivy crawling over any area that looked like it might be inclined to fall, just in case.

After supper the night before they were due to reach Rana’s base, Fort Sambachu, Evvy walked out beyond the picket line of sentries. Sergeant Kanbab came running for Briar.

“The men chased her, trying to get her to come back. They didn’t dare call to her, and they kept tripping in the dark,” she explained as she led Briar to the place where his student had last been seen.

“On rocks,” he said. He didn’t need to ask.

“On rocks,” Sergeant Kanbab agreed. She left him when he could see the pale gleam of Evvy’s yak-skin coat. Briar followed Evvy until she halted on the edge of the riverbank. He called for some of the grasses there to sprout up in case Evvy slipped and tumbled into the icy water. She could control rocks, but not dirt.

When he reached her, he had to shout in her ear. She had chosen a spot right over a series of rapids. They boomed in the night.

“What are you doing?” he cried. “The enemy could be nearby! And you scared the sentries!”

“The mountains sing.” Strangely enough, her voice was perfectly clear. “Not like the Yanjingyi singers do, or the Gyongxin warriors. It’s in my bones. They sing of caves and snow and vultures.”

“No, thank you!” Briar shouted. “I’m sure it’s lovely, you bleat-brained stone mage, but we’re going back to camp now! I bet your pocket stones will sing to you if you ask them nicely!”

“All right,” she said, as if he’d asked her to feed the cats. She linked her arm in his and walked peaceably back to the cook fires with him. She even apologized to Kanbab and the sentries. Briar was shivering by the time they sat down to get warm. These mountains weren’t like any others they had seen. She had liked the heights and the occasional glacier, but she hadn’t been strange about the mountains themselves. He remembered the skeletons stepping out of the cliff face not so long ago, and the knowledge that, in Gyongxe, this kind of thing happened over and over. Evvy had been friendly with Gyongxe’s rocks all winter. What if they survived this war, and Evvy was too entangled with the stone and mountains of Gyongxe to leave? What could he say to her that would compete with the highest mountains in the world?

FORT SAMBACHU

SNOW SERPENT PASS GYONGXE

The sunrise was just touching the river the next day when the hills in the east ended in towering cliffs. They were free of the gorge. Half a mile on they found a wide bridge that crossed the Snow Serpent River. They turned south and rode across it, off the main road. A lesser road following a deep stream took them to a short and jagged hill where Fort Sambachu was built at the feet of the Drimbakang Lho mountains. By then Briar was leading Evvy’s pony. Her eyes were fixed on the soaring peaks ahead. In the gorge the hills had obscured the mountains beyond. Here Evvy saw the immense, snowy heights that stood between Gyongxe and the Realms of the Sun.

“See those three?” Kanbab asked Evvy, pointing to the nearest mountains. “According to the worshippers of La Ni Ma, our sun goddess, those mountains are her husbands. The east one is Ganas Rigyal Po, the Snow King. The west one is Ganas Gazig Rigyal Po, the Snow Leopard King. And the one in the middle is Kangri Skad Po, the Talking Snow Mountain King.”

“What does that mean, the ‘Talking Snow Mountain King’?” Briar asked. He wasn’t sure if Evvy even heard.

Kanbab looked at Briar. “I think the worshippers feel he is the most conversational of the Sun Queen’s husbands.”

“The sun isn’t a queen in the Living Circle,” Evvy murmured.

Kanbab smiled at her. “But this is Gyongxe, the home of many faiths. Surely they told you that when you were here for the winter. Garmashing itself has more temples than even the God-King can count, it is said. People come here to build at least one temple for their faith because our realm is closest of all to the heavens, and our mountains hold them up.”

“And why do people want to be close to the gods?” Evvy wanted to know. “Back home, Shaihun does horrible things to people.”

Kanbab gave Briar a strange look.

“Shaihun is a god of the deep desert,” Briar explained. “Is that Fort Sambachu or a temple?”

“It’s the fort,” Kanbab said in confirmation. “Let those lowland creepers come against us there and see what they get!”

Briar had to admit, the fort looked promising. Its hill and its towers commanded a view of the pass, the road, and the grassy plain for a good distance. The curtain walls sloped inward and climbed the hill in steps, which would allow the archers on the highest level to shoot above the heads of those lower down. Around the outer walls an army of five hundred or more tents was camped, flying banners of crimson, turquoise, and emerald silks.