Description: From BATTLE MAGICSuddenly lines and circles moved and rose. Briar stood on a hillside. He looked down to find himself in armor, wearing the bead necklace, holding a bead in his hand. He looked out over the stony ridge before him, seeing the thinnest trail of smoke rise from behind it. "Tell the men ready." The order seemed to come from his own throat."Ready!" cried a soldier at his side. Together the men at his command set their weapons: bundles of tubes shaped like arrows bound together at the end. Long fuses trailed from the end of each tube and were twined together to form one big fuse. With his finger Briar traced the image of one line until it met a dot and an enclosing circle on the wooden bead. He put forth a little magic, raising the picture of all three into the air above his necklace. Steering the line with his finger, he shifted it until it pointed straight at that thin column of smoke. He nodded at the man beside him. That man shouted, "Burn!" The soldiers touched flame to the single long fuse on their weapons. It burned swiftly through the twist. The moment each of the smaller fuses fell free, on fire, Briar said, "Loose." The man next to him shouted, "Loose!" The soldiers on the catapult let their strange weapons fly. They soared high into the air, trailing smoke and the mingled scents of sulfur and boom dust. The ground shook. Earth, trees, and rock spouted high into the air where the weapons must have struck. Trying to hide his trembling, Briar wound the length of beads around his hand. If soldiers saw these rockets coming through the air and ran to get out of the way, the general could simply redirect them with his finger and the flat willow target beads. What other monstrosities for war did the emperor have up his very wide sleeves?

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