That was a mistake, as I’d sat down unthinking. Very bad idea. I managed not to howl in pain, but was forced up into a very unstable crouch.
“I think these men are with Choybalsan,” he said. “We should ask for him.”
I could not believe my ears. “After the six of them have split me like a melon with their pustulent cocks, they might take you to him.”
“Not if we make them respect us.”
“A naked, bloody girl and a naked, sticky boy?”
He passed me a small paper packet. “Hold this, I’ll light it. Then throw it at them.”
I clutched his packet as a lucifer match flared. He touched it to the corner of the paper, which began to hiss and spark.
“ Throw it,” Septio said urgently. “Now!”
In midair, the packet burst in coiling red smoke, shot through with black veins.
Ah, I thought. Fire powder.
The sparking missile landed amid a stand of dried-out thistles, which resisted only moments before curling into fire themselves. The oncoming bandits yelped and scattered. A bolt whistled high to spang off the cliff face before rattling to a stop a few feet away on my boulder. The attackers regrouped about ten paces below me, just in front of the little flare-fire. Their grins were back.
“That didn’t work,” I said.
“I have more.” Septio frowned and passed me a larger packet.
“We’re going to amuse them to death?”
“Just throw it.”
That packet sparked as the last one had. I tossed it right at the bandits. One of the bowmen grinned and caught it with his free hand, cocking his arm to throw it back at me.
This one went off like a granary explosion. A blinding flash erupted, followed by a solid thump, which I felt inside my chest more than heard. I closed my eyes, blinking away the glare just as a crossbow, hand and arm still attached, smacked into the stone above me. It slithered to rest nearby.
I grabbed up the bow, tugged the former owner’s hand free, and set myself madly to cocking it. I happened to know where there was a bolt handy.
When I looked up again, four of them were down hard. One was on his knees throwing up. My would-be rapist staggered toward my boulder with murder in his eye. I sent him a crossbow bolt for his trouble. Not being practiced with the weapon, I missed his neck, but the shot to his cheek seemed to discourage him.
“They can have the damned fires out there for their funerary offering,” I said, sliding down on my belly to where Septio had been hiding. I was in no way prepared to set my ass against the stone again. When I found my feet, I snapped at him, “We must go, now. That was enough noise and smoke to summon everyone within miles.”
“You are welcome for saving your life.”
I grabbed his face and kissed him. “Not now, foolish boy.”
Septio had to wrap me around the hips in a sling of torn muslin before I could manage to tug on my blacks and riding trousers. My breasts ached a bit, but I bound them with more of the muslin. Over them I slipped into the robes we’d brought to wear as Brothers of the Empty Hilt. The horses had fled from the fire and the fighting, so we carried only water, our satchels, and my blade.
Two remained alive-the vomiting man and one who’d taken the brunt of the explosion. His eyelids were burnt off and his lips black. I gave him mercy as kindly as I could. The vomiting man had finished his business, but he had the shivers and would not talk. I gave him the mercy as well, but I let it hurt a bit. I wiped my blade on his cloak, then walked to the stream and cleaned it again there among the little fish.
When I stood again, I found Septio watching me. His face was drawn and pale.
“What?” I snapped.
“You killed them.”
“Well, yes. They tried to kill me first.” He was such an idiot. “Besides, you were the one carrying bombards in your satchel. What did you intend them for? Festival crackers?”
“No-I…” Septio’s voice trailed off. “You made it so personal.”
I began walking uphill, toward the crest of the pass. The muscles in my ass burned terribly, pulling me off my stride, but I kept moving. Out here I could scarcely retire to a couch and call for mulled wine until my body had healed itself.
I shouted over my shoulder at Septio, who trailed me by a dozen paces. “Death is always personal. How can you worship that bloodthirsty god and not understand that?”
He trotted to catch me. Presumably I seemed safer now. “People come to us already in pain. They ask to die, or be taken up.”
“While these men were merely minding their business.” I snorted. “I can see your point.”
The Eirigene Pass was about fifty furlongs ahead of us, across the next valley. Except for the last of the fumes rising from before it, the morning was clear enough to see the alabaster ruins of the Temple of Air. A great dome had collapsed with the fire, and bodies were scattered down the stairs before it.
Then a dozen men on horseback pounded from behind the rocks immediately below. They shouted at us to lie flat or be slain.
The bandits were angry about the fate of their fellows. Not quite angry enough to kill us out of hand, but we took some good, solid kicks. When they began to strip off my robes and saw the blacks I wore beneath, a great discussion ensued.
Clearly they’d been set to search for me.
They were angry all over again when I would not sit astride one of the horses. Then they laughed at me once they understood why.
I wound up with my boots stripped off, making the ride slung over someone’s saddlebags, which smelled of old cheese and moldering cloth. By craning my neck, I could see Septio. He seemed dazed as he swayed upright behind another bandit. The worst insult, in its own small way, was that our two faithless nags had come seeking the company of other horses, and now were being led riderless behind the column.
Our band took a trail that went downward through a ravine, rather than across to the ruins of the Temple of Air as I’d expected. That meant we would be joining the upper reaches of the Barley Road.
The ride was long and painful. I had not imagined I would be wishing so soon for my old saddle, but I did. Eventually, we passed through a series of camps, at first quite ragged and sparse, then in time more kempt and crowded together.
I heard thunder, too. A lightning storm seemed strange, given that my upside-down view of the sky showed clear blue troubled only by wisps of smoke.
The horse sidestepped to a halt. Rough hands dumped me over. I narrowly avoided striking my head on the ground. A redheaded man pulled me to my feet amid another echoing carronade of thunder as someone else led the panicked horses away.
Lightning sizzled down out of the clear sky to strike the ground about a hundred yards before me. It struck again and again, always in a circle that ringed a large tent of furs. After a moment, I recognized them as skins from the Dancing Mistress’ people. My gut churned at that, and I found sympathy for Septio’s reaction to my mercies of the blade.
It was a fence. A wall of electrick fire and deafening sound from the heavens. The cleared space extended around the circle in all directions, as Choybalsan’s followers kept their distance.
“A god indeed,” I said.
“Very good, for a priest,” my fire-haired bandit growled. His Petraean was accented, but as a hillman’s speech rather than a foreigner’s.
“It takes no talent to see a miracle like this.” No faith, either. This was godhood for the unbelieving. And a very expensive sort of magic. No wonder the Lily Goddess had been worried. Could a titanic come into the world again? Or were all divine births so explosive?
“In you go.” I was pushed toward the lightning ring. Between my crossbow wound, the worn muscles, and the long ride, I could barely keep my feet. Septio staggered up beside me.
“Hey.” I gave him a sidelong glance.
His eyes were unfocused. Blood trickled from his mouth.