From the cottage behind them, they heard the first bark. Little Bear did not like to be left behind.

"Maybe she'll keep them off with lightning, or the wind," Daja said. "You know how she is. They might not know the lightning she wears doesn't hurt."

"Wait," Sandry told them. She closed her eyes and held out her hand, palm-up, wriggling her fingers. "I feel your thread, Daja, and Briar's-" She closed her hand and opened her eyes. "She's headed for the south wall, for certain." As they began to run again, she added, "Maybe the lightning only just tickles us because, well-"

"Her magic's bleeding into ours," said Briar. "So maybe it thinks we're part of her? I hope she sees that before she scorches somebody who isn't part of her."

"When I catch her, I am going to give her a pounding," threatened Daja. "She is the most aggravating girl I ever met - apart from you," she told Sandry.

"How long before they find out we're gone?" asked Briar. "Not too long, if Little Bear keeps it up." They ran faster.

Tris did not run - she was too fat, and it would be silly to reach the wall only to be too winded to climb to the top. She walked - quickly - because her friends might just follow. Tramping through the gra.s.s beside the wall, she worked her feelings to a fever pitch: emotions were the key to her power to damage things, weren't they? She remembered the look on her parents' faces, when they told a perfect stranger at Stone Circle Temple that they no longer wanted her. She remembered Uraelle taking her books when the ch.o.r.es weren't done as well as she demanded, and dormitory girls taunting her about her looks. She remember Winding Circle boys who called her "fatty", and made pig noises at her.

The winds came to her, whipping her clothes and wrestling the lightning for her hair.

They tugged her this way and that as she mounted the stairs a few hundred yards from the South Gate.

"Get out of here!" cried a guard, running towards her. "It's not safe-"

A billow of wind struck his chest, knocking him down. "Stay back," Tris warned. "I don't want to hurt you."

He got up, and advanced. She sent the wind at him again, strengthening it. Knocking him down a second time, it pinned him to the wall. Glancing to either side, Tris saw more guards take notice; they were coming to their comrade's help.

Behind them, further down the wall, mages were looking to see what the trouble was.

She had to keep everyone off her. Using winds on them cost her little; she only needed a dab of magic to send them where she wanted, since the winds were already here. Working them was distracting, though, and she couldn't afford distractions.

Once Niko had told the four that, when things were difficult, they could open their minds and let the magic guide them. Tris did so now, looking to see how she could work uninterrupted.

The image of a circle bloomed against her closed eyelids. Rosethorn and Lark had created magical circles before, to keep magic in. Who was to say they couldn't be used to keep people out?

She dragged her fingers through her hair, collecting a palm-full of sparks. A quick glance around told her the mages were now advancing with the guards. Swiftly she worked the sparks with her free hand, ignoring the needle-like p.r.i.c.ks the bits of lightning gave her as she shaped them. Pointing to the walkway before her with the hand that held the ball of sparks, Tris began to turn, drawing a circle in lightning. Its fire streamed down, burning where she placed it, until she closed the circle. She was now fully enclosed, with a good two feet of room on either side. Twitching her fingers, she raised the fiery circle until it made a wall over five feet high at her back and sides: before her lay the top of the wall and the cove. Now she could get to work.

Tris grabbed two fistfuls of wind. She twisted them around each other, following the lessons taught by Lark and Sandry: spinning makes weak fibres into strong thread.

Finished, she backed up to the inner edge of her lightning-circle, and stood her wind- thread at its centre. Grimly, she twirled her finger clockwise. The wind began to whirl.

Bit by bit it drew in pieces of other winds, growing taller and wider. When it was of a size to crowd Tris out of the circle, she guided it into the air, and let it touch down in the blanket of thorns on the other side of the wall. Twigs and sticks fought their way up the growing funnel as it ate vines,. to give it a th.o.r.n.y kind of armour.

Once before Tris had fought, and failed, to make a water-funnel do as she wanted, and it had been only ten feet tall. When her cyclone towered thirty feet in the air, higher than the wall on which she stood, she urged it up, out of the brambles. Making shooing motions with her hands, she sent it forward.

The moment it entered the sea, the funnel inhaled, to become a waterspout. It widened and continued to grow as it bore down on the pirate fleet. Ten yards or so from the closest galley, the waterspout struck the pirates' magical barrier, and stopped.

"Aymery," she growled to make herself angrier, and slammed her creation forward. It sprayed against the gla.s.s-like wall, grinding at it. "Aymery, and the carpenters, and your poor slaves." Again and again she threw her creation at the barrier, without result.

"Now you know why you need us." Sandry walked through the lightning-wall to stare reproachfully at Tris. "You should have waited."

Soldiers and mages were cl.u.s.tered at a respectful distance from Tris's fiery hideout. It was easy for the other three to see those who had gone closest to it: their hair stood on end. Daja nodded gravely to them as she and Briar followed Sandry through the lightning.

Tris stared at her friends, baffled. "It didn't hurt you?"

"It stings," said Daja, rubbing her arms.

Briar took a place at Tris's side. "You can't pound pirates without us," he told her. "It wouldn't be as much fun."

"They'll know we're gone soon," pointed out Sandry. All four knew who "they"

were. "We need more than this circle to keep them from stopping us."

"This was the best I could do." Tris sent more winds out to help the waterspout, and smiled as the funnel got longer and fatter still.

"But we can do better," Sandry informed her. "Why not take this circle up, and I'll weave us a new one?"

"New one first," said Daja. "Then break the old one. Otherwise those guards outside will grab us."

Sandry nodded. Laying her palms flat against the lightning barrier, ignoring the pain as its fire bit into her skin, she searched her mind for the wall that had kept them safe at the North Gate. Thread by thread she wove it against the lightning's surface, her magic shuttling faster than the eye could follow. Her barrier rose around the four, holding the same shape as the lightning wall.

When it was complete, she took her hands away. "It'll be stronger when we join," she told her companions.

Tris closed her eyes, calling to her original protection. The lightning poured over Sandry's wall in a stream of white heat to pool in the redhead's cupped palms. When she had retrieved all of it, she rolled it into a fiery ball, and put it on the wall in front of them.

Closing their eyes, the four came together as they had once done in the middle of an earthquake, to become one. Daja was not sure that she liked such closeness. Briar felt the same way. Sandry brushed them with soothing warmth, reminding them that it was just for the moment, then turned her attention to the moon-pale wall that she had built. Touching it with their joined strength, she made it blaze.

Let's get to it, Tris said.

Not so fast, replied Daja. Weren't you listening? There are mage-traps in the barrier.

If we attack it, let's make sure we don't strike one.

We don't even know what they look like, Sandry argued.

Just look at it, Briar told her. We've been seeing magic for days, so let's find out if we can spot differences in the stuff.

Leaving their bodies on the wall, the four went to the magical shield. Sandry hunted for changes in its weave, Tris for storm centres, Daja for rust spots. From his long experience in climbing garden and house walls, Briar knew better than to trust his eyes: Bags always paid extra for spells to hide other spells. Flinging his mind forward, the ex-thief went over the silvery wall an inch at a time, poking it with a finger.

Here, he said at last. And here, and here.

We don't have to look more, Tris pointed out. If we hit the barrier in the middle of those spots, we might break through.

Let your waterspout spin us together, Daja suggested. To make us stronger. When we come out through the top, we'll fly at that place.

Briar left a dab of green fire to mark their target. The four drifted to the top lip of the waterspout as it whirled before the pirates' barrier.

Looking at the funnel, Briar said approvingly, You've got a monster this time, Coppercurls.

Let's go! Tris cried, and let herself fall into the outside of the spout. The others followed, wrapping themselves around her. The floods that whipped along the funnel's sides grabbed them, twirling them around and around as wind and water carried them down to the sea. They could feel themselves being wound ever more tightly into one being.

Daja felt heat as well, the heat of a forge-fire, warming them, making them blend together easily. How much more of their power would leak between them if they survived this? There was no chance to really consider it - they rushed madly into the pointed end of the funnel, and were sucked inside. Now the current bore them up through the spout, speeding them up.

Just a bit more, thought Tris as they neared the top. A little more, a little...

They shot out of the spout's top, and slammed into the barrier at eyeblink speed.

Something before them gave. The barrier's magic no longer felt like a smooth and solid whole.

Again, decreed Sandry.

They returned to the waterspout, soaring into its outside current and letting it yank them down. It too was spinning faster, twirling the four wildly. They felt powerful and furious. Shooting out of the top, they leaped away to arrow at the green spot Briar had left for them.

The entire barrier shattered like gla.s.s. In roared the waterspout, to fall on a galley in the front ranks of the fleet. Chunks of wood went flying as it bit into the port oars.

The four broke apart, ready to get to work.

Briar looked back. There were bare, charred patches on the sh.o.r.e where battlefire had devoured the brambles that he and Rosethorn had worked so hard to grow. Now a single longboat was drawn up on the blackened slope, its load of pirates already ash.o.r.e. They were throwing skins of battlefire on to the remaining thorns and setting them ablaze, making room for even more invaders to land. A pair of men who glinted with magic shielded them from the spells of Winding Circle's defenders.

The boy glanced at the top of the wall. There was the glow of Sandry's protective barrier, with the four's real bodies just visible through a notch in the stone. Most of the soldiers and mages who had encircled them were gone, manning the walls and catapults against the pirates labouring on the beach. He couldn't find Skyfire's shock of red hair, but it was a long trot from Discipline to the South Gate: the general would be there soon, he had no doubt. Skyfire would be needed - in the cove seven more longboats filled with armed pirates and their protector-mages waited for room enough to land.

Briar was not about to permit that, any more than Winding Circle's defenders were.

He sank into the earth, drawing on the link between him and the girls for the power to regrow his brambles.

Daja circled a galley. Where to start? The metal on its catapult looked promising.

She thought back to that morning - just yesterday! - in the harbour. Right before Frostpine had raised the chain she had felt a thin shiver in the air, like a razor drawn down a bone. She called that shiver out of herself now, putting the strength of her link to the other three in it. She invited dull metal to fly.

Wood squeaked as nails fought to escape it. Weapons rose, yanking from their masters' holds. Metal fittings worked themselves off the ship, and soared into the air.

She drew all of it over to the ship's lee, then let the metal fall into the water. Section by section, she went over the ship, leaving ruin in her wake.

Suddenly she had to catch her breath. Opening her real eyes, Daja squinted to see through the white light of their barrier. Only a couple of soldiers remained just outside, keeping one nervous eye on the four, and the other on the sh.o.r.e below. The South Gate mages, led by Moonstream, defended the cove against a pirate landing- party. Other initiates had moved into every spot along the wall that gave a view of the invaders. They knew the fleet's magical barrier was down. As Skyfire stalked to and fro on the wall shouting orders and calling out targets, everyone who could throw fire, or make ropes or chains come to life, or pop lanterns from holders, was at work.

Invisible hands shoved raiders overboard. Oars on neighbouring ships fouled one another.

A galley exploded with a roar. Someone had managed to fire its load of black powder.

Daja returned to her part of the battle. A mage with a mirror-bright bra.s.s shield was deflecting fire-bolts away from his ship's catapult. She would see how long he could hold on to the shield.

When the pirates' magical wall went to pieces, Tris summoned the ball of lightning that she'd left in front of her body on the wall. Waiting for it, she looked the fleet over. Where was this Enahar? Wouldn't their boss mage - as Briar put it - be on the biggest ship? He'd be close to the pirate leader, surely.

She examined the largest galleys. Each sported men and women ablaze with inner magical fire, so that was no clue. The dromon at the centre of the fleet, though, had even more mages than the others. Beneath the scarlet pennant flown by every ship was a smaller blue flag, with crossed black swords for a device. Since no one else flew two banners, she was ready to bet that was the flagship.

This is for Aymery! she cried, stretching the lightning in her hands into a long strip.

For the carpenters, and the soldier who liked dogs! This is for my starling's dead parents! She hurled the lightning with all her might, putting her rage into it.

Lengthening as it flew, it made the air boom in its wake. It struck the flagship dead centre.

The ship blew up in a spray of flame and smoke. Tris flinched, though her magical body couldn't be hurt by flying debris. Burning corpses flew by, making her quail.

There were cries below as pieces struck neighbouring ships. Chunks of burning wood and red-hot metal rained down; sails caught fire. A length of flaming mast speared a lesser galley, crunching through its aftercastle. After a moment, that ship exploded.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Tris fled back to her body. Served them right, she thought, opening her real eyes.

Served them right. They're just a bunch of murdering thieves.

Reaching into her pocket, she drew out Aymery's earring. It still gave off the glow of magic to her eyes. Enahar was alive. If he hadn't been on the flagship, where was he?

"Sandry?" she asked.

The other girl opened her eyes and coughed. Clouds of smoke from the brambles thickened the air around them. "Tris, that was horrible."

"They wanted to do it to us," Tris pointed out.

"I know. I know - you're right." Sandry shook her head. Pirates were vermin and had to be crushed; she knew that as well as she knew her own name. It was just hard to remember when they screamed.

"He wasn't there." Tris showed her the earring. "I need to find him, Sandry. This is his fault. He ordered Aymery killed. Help me track this thing to its source?"

Sandry nodded. Both girls closed their eyes, and sent their magical selves out. They pa.s.sed over a wide band of green fire, where Briar and his thorns fought landing parties for possession of the cove. Under his direction the vines lashed like whips, forcing the invaders back, as the smaller th.o.r.n.y plants stuffed themselves into any clothes opening they could find.

In the sea Tris's waterspout prowled, clipping oars, sweeping people from decks, and eating rope as it swept to and fro. A copper blaze hovering over a dromon was Daja.

She had called the anchor to her and it came, rising inch by inch as it dripped seaweed and brine. Drawing it over the ship's midsection, she let it drop. It crashed through deck and hull as hard as a catapult-stone. Water fountained through the hole as the ship began to sink.

Tris looked everywhere, seeking the silver points that were mages. In places their numbers were so many that their lights joined to form a single, large blot. She kept losing the pale glimmer of the earring's thread among them.

What kind of pattern is this? Sandry wanted to know. What's it for? It's huge, whatever it is!

What pattern? asked Tris, confused.

You don't see it? Back on the wall, Sandry put an arm around Tris. How about now?

The magical Tris rose higher over the fleet. Now that she was in physical contact with Sandry, the pattern was clear, even with ships drifting out of line or missing entirely.

Magical threads pa.s.sed from mage to mage. They were thin in places where the gap between mages was extra-large -where they had lost mages - but the overall design still held.