“They’re not ours to command,” Conn Arthur said. “We here are all clanless, masterless, free.”
Kip had never heard anyone say ‘free’ with such a mix of loathing and despair. Though he’d already had long talks with Tisis about the Foresters, apparently he was going to need to have more of them.
He waved to people at their fires, almost all of them now looking curiously toward him and the Mighty. “I have things to say. If you want to hear me out, come here,” Kip shouted.
More than the twelve people at the fire came. The woods emptied, and over a hundred men and women and teens came from the trees.
Tisis raised an eyebrow at Winsen. “No people in the woods, huh?”
He cursed under his breath.
And as they gathered around Kip, these people, shoeless, hopeless, bereft, eyes glazed with shock and loss, jaws set with pitiless rage, Kip realized he was slipping into the Guile role: he would use his words to sway the wills of men. It was the Guile talent more powerful than their magic. Magic requires will, but words shape will, turn it, direct it, reflect it from one target to another.
He’d seen it done. He’d marveled at it. Envied it. Been in awe of his father’s profound, bedrock conviction that people would do what he wanted them to do.
But these lives weren’t his to spend however he willed. He was nothing to these people, a stranger, an interloper.
How dare he come to them with promises? Much less promises he could never keep.
When they were gathered, he said, “I am Kip Guile. If you’ve heard of my family, perhaps you know it is their way to sway others to their will. Sometimes for good. Sometimes not.” He shook his head. “I’m not here to be your lord. I’m not here to turn you to my will, to manipulate you or make you my vassals or anyone else’s. I’m here to fight. I’m a full-spectrum polychrome, and I’ve been taught to fight by the best in the world. With others—not alone—I killed King Rask Garadul of Tyrea, and with the Blackguards and Gavin and Karris Guile, I killed Atirat at the Battle of Ru just as he was attempting to assume godhood. I know how to fight, and the Mighty with me are better than I am. But we don’t know this country the way you do.
“I’m going to hit the Color Prince, this pretender White King. I’m going to hit him hard, and where he doesn’t expect it. I’m going to keep hitting him until one or the other of us dies. I can do a lot of damage with the Mighty alone. But alone, I don’t think we can stop him. We can do more and better and live longer if you join us, if we teach each other. If you come with me, we’re going to move fast and work hard for long hours and sleep little. We’re going to fight and kill and die. That’s it. That’s all we offer. My goal is to expel the White King from Blood Forest altogether. If we can kill every last damned wight while we do it, so much the better. I don’t guarantee victory, but I do think victory’s possible if we fight together. So no big speech. Join us or don’t. Let me know what you’ve decided in the morning.”
They looked at him as if they couldn’t quite believe that was all he was going to say, but as he got to work setting up tents with the Mighty, the crowd slowly dispersed.
“Well, that went…,” Winsen said. “But I guess they aren’t trying to kill us, so that’s something.”
“Shut up, Winsen,” Tisis said. “Kip, that was perfect.”
“I wasn’t trying to be perfect. I was trying to be honest.”
“That’s exactly what they need.”
“You said you were sent?” Cruxer asked Sibéal and Conn Arthur, who had remained with them. “By whom?”
Sibéal smiled, and Kip was certain it was a smile. “By a prophet you know as the Third Eye, and her husband, Corvan Danavis. Allies.”
“Damn,” Big Leo said behind Kip. “You telling me we got a Seer on our side? We might have a chance in this war after all.”
Sibéal said, “They send their greetings from a thousand leagues away, and wanted me to tell you this is all the help they can send.”
“Well, shit,” Big Leo said.
Chapter 24
Gavin waited for a long time there, leaning on the wall until the tears had passed and he was sure his father wasn’t coming back. He measured three hands over and two hands up. He licked his finger and marked a spot.
It had all been for this: the days of misery and starvation, the carefully calibrated fight with his father.
This was where the luxin was sealed. He’d needed the open slot in order to locate the seal. And he’d needed to make his father angry enough that he wouldn’t soon return; otherwise Gavin might start his attempt and have his father interrupt it before he could bring it to fruition.
But now came another bad part. He ate as much bread as still remained in the cell. Eating would be misery for a while after this.
Facing his father had been the worst, but Dazen had made this prison well, and blue luxin is harder than fingernail. Harder than a fist.
“What are you doing?” the dead man asked. He hadn’t spoken in some time.
Gavin said nothing, taking deep breaths, bracing himself. He measured carefully. With a pinky, he stretched his lip back, and before he could think more, he slammed his face against the wall.
He shook his head. His lip was bloody and swollen.
The dead man was baffled. “I told you if you want to kill yourself…”
Gavin slammed his face against the wall again.
It took five more attempts to loosen his dogtooth. He wobbled it back and forth, back and forth, his eyes streaming tears, and finally ripped it out with a cry.
It slipped from spit-and-blood-slick fingers. It bounced on the blue luxin, and with his depth perception ruined by having only a single eye, Gavin swiped frantically—
And caught it from the air before it could plunge down the waste hole.
He stood strong, bloodied, body broken, but determined, defiant.
Blue luxin is stronger than fingernails or fists, but enamel is stronger still, and spirit supreme. Gavin took the dogtooth between bloody fingers, and, like the lone, mad beast he was, he started chewing at the wall.
Chapter 25
Kip and Tisis were given their own tent. The idea of having some real privacy was exciting right until Cruxer said, “I’ll be right outside, taking first watch.”
He met Kip’s exasperated gaze with one of his own. “I’m like the commander, you’re like the Prism, right?” Cruxer asked.
“But it’s a tent,” Kip said.
“Thus, not even as safe as a ship’s cabin,” Cruxer said.
“But it’s a… tent,” Kip said.
“We know what you’ll be doing in there. So what? You pretend like we can’t hear, and we’ll pretend like we can’t hear. No comments tomorrow, no jokes. You deal with the brutal hardship of having to make love with your beautiful wife where someone else might hear the blankets rustling, and we’ll deal with having to stay up all night, standing watch in the wind and the rain.”
“You make me sound like an asshole when you put it that way.”
The rest of the squad cleared their throats and avoided his gaze.
“Hey, it’s not like I chose—” Kip stopped. “Wait, I actually did, huh? Fine. I’m sorry.”
He slipped into the tent. It was small, barely big enough for them to sit up; they did plan to carry everything on their backs, after all.
Tisis already had the fresh-scrubbed look of a person who’d just bathed. She passed him a clean cloth and pointed to the small tub of water. “Sleep clean, and we won’t have to launder our blankets as often,” she said.
“If only we’d brought a slave along to worry about such things for us,” Kip grumbled.
She grinned. “I don’t hold it against you, Kip.”
“I do.”
“You’re funny,” she said. “You do the right thing, often the brilliant thing, and then you pretend you didn’t want to do it. What is that?”
“I dunno. I’ve got a whole lotta stupid inside, fighting to get out. And, uh, thanks.”
br /> “For what?”
“For the ‘brilliant’ thing.”
“For calling you brilliant? It’s not a compliment. It’s just the truth. I don’t think you got that armpit well enough.”
He scowled. Trying to sponge bathe yourself while sitting and not slop soap water on your stuff was a pain.
“Hey, I have to sleep with you!” she said. She was teasing, but some part of it pierced Kip.
He looked away and put the cloth in the soapy water again, tried to lose himself in the mechanics of bathing.
“Wait, wait, wait. What was that?” she asked. “Ah hells, Kip, what did I say?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you didn’t ask for any of this.”
“Stop that! Stop that. Do you even know how loused up you are? Everything you believe about yourself is wrong. Orholam’s toe cheese, Kip, it’s so frustrating!”
“Toe cheese? Good one,” he said, grinning at her.
“Deflect and redirect. Always.” She sighed and gave up. “They love you, you know.”
“Who?”
“The Mighty.”
“They’re amazing,” Kip said.
“They respect you.”
“Well… they follow me, but that’s, you know, accidents of birth and all. I’m a Guile. I’m a polychrome. It doesn’t happen that often.”
“You think they love you because you’re a Guile?! You… you stupid…” She lay down and rolled over so her back was toward him. “So you know, I was planning that tonight be really good. If you weren’t so infuriating…”
“Huh?” Kip said. “I’m sorry?”
“You don’t understand anything about women, I know. But here’s a tip: when your wife is amorous, don’t make her angry just before bed.”
“Amorous?” Kip asked. He knew what it meant, but how’d he miss—
“Good night, Kip.”
“I’m sorry? I mean, I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
“Good night, Kip.”
“Some people like angry sex.”
“Not me. Good. Night.”
Damn.
Kip thought of lying down, but he wasn’t tired. He’d just fret. He thought about how he’d viewed that card briefly and unintentionally this afternoon. He had another deck of Janus Borig original cards in his pack, untouched since he’d put them there.
There had been two decks—one Andross had owned that Gavin had stolen from him at some point, and then the ones Kip had saved from the fire at Janus Borig’s when she’d been murdered. That had been the deck responsible for this afternoon’s vision. It had been the deck that had nearly killed him.
He really hadn’t wanted to touch any cards ever again after that. But the vision changed things. He was here, totally out of his depth among a new people. He should at least look at the cards to see if there were any that might help him. He didn’t need to view any of them, but he’d be a fool if he didn’t use such a potent tool.
Scrounging in his pack, he found the deck box readily. Pulled out the cards.
They weren’t the same cards. Disbelieving, he fanned the deck on the blankets on his lap. It was a standard deck, no unusual cards, certainly no originals. As if someone had swapped it so the deck box would have the correct weight. Verity?
But there was a slip of paper among the cards.
“Please let me know how long it took you to discover the swap. I thought within the first three days. Grinwoody bet me five danars it would be closer to two weeks.” There was no doubt whom it was from, and it wasn’t Verity.
Andross had known Kip was leaving with Tisis.
Andross had known which boat Tisis was taking.
Andross had put a man on the boat.
It had taken Kip more than two weeks.
Totally defeated by this dung-smear of a day, Kip flopped back onto his blankets, defeated. He landed across Tisis’s long hair, tugging it painfully.
“Ow!” she said. “What’d you do that for?”
There wasn’t a big enough sigh in the world.
Chapter 26
~Gunner~
“It’s not for sale,” I says.
“Who said anything about a sale?” the wrapped man asks.
“It’s a holly trust.”
That one was apurpose, and he don’t correct me, so he knows about Cap’n Gunner. Ergot, he’s crafty. I’ll have to hold my coins a-foursquare in my fists around this ’un.
But I know how to deal with conners. He’s all swattled like a babe, like he’s got the skin-sloughing disease maybe, but I think he’s well after all. He’s accosted me here, outside Lee Lee’s watering hole, my favorite tavern on the swollen teat that is Big Jasper. He was waiting for me, and I’m feeling a bit too boozy for this.
“I don’t believe in holy or unholy,” says he. “I believe in having the best.”
“What’s that to me?” I asks.
“I want to show you a ship. Best girl on the Cerulean Sea or any other.”
“Every captain or owner selling a ship says the same,” I says.
“Everyone says it. Some of them believe it. But one of them’s right.”
“The odds that one is you are blinky indeed,” I say, but I can’t help being intrigued.
“Take a look for yourself,” he says. “I’ll let you come aboard armed as you will, and you can examine it as you will.”
“What’s the hook?” I asks.
“No hook. A game. I’ll tell you more after you decide if she’s worth your time. Though there’s not been a sailor worth his salt yet who’s scorned the Golden Mean.”
There’s his bait. I’ve heard of this boat. The breathless wonder and slobbering are enough to turn a man’s stomach. And his eyes.
“I’ll take a looksie.” I wouldn’t mind being the man to disprove the silliness and lies about what a wonder she is.
It’s not long to her place at the dock. She’s a new Ilytian galleass, but I see the stories were true. She’s bone white, but with a golden sheen to her skin, like a pale Blood Forester lady riding your hips sweaty at sunset.
“Abornean teak?” I ask.
“Lightweight and stronger than any other wood known to man.”
“Too porous for decking. Your ship is shite. She’ll warp and sink ’fore Long Night.”
But I don’t leave, and he don’t defend her.
“She’s really imbibed with brightwater?” I asks.
“Just enough to fill the pores in the wood, and just on the hull. No need to add weight where it’s unnecessary. The yellow luxin imbuing the wood is segmented, though, so the wood can still flex. I’ll warn you, it does mean you have to hire a brightwater drafter every ten years. A good one. They told me twenty years, but shipwrights…”
“Would swear their own mother was a virgin, before selling her to be a poxy cap’n’s buttboy,” I agree.
He says, “I’m untrusting myself, so I hired my own yellow drafter to look her over. She estimated ten years. Bonus is that with the yellow luxin coating, barnacles won’t grow on the hull, which makes it faster still.”
“Eh. Means you can’t keelhaul a man.” Of course, you still could, but with no barnacles, he might actually live through it. Which has its own advantages.
He says nothing again.
No barnacles means you don’t have to clean the barnacles off, and that’s one of the more time intensive and costly bits of maintenance for any ship.
“How many guns?”
He laughs, and it makes his bandages slide some. I can see he’s almost as night-skinned as me. Older man, though, from how he moves at times. Skinny. “You’re familiar with the work of Phineas Vecchini?”
Here’s where his lies are gonna get his lines wrapped round his legs. I know Phin well. “Some,” I says. “This from his workshop, or stamped by his hand?”
“Master Vecchini has quit working,” the man says. “He let his daughters take over his shop.”
Everyone knows that. Guess that’s not the lie to trip him, then.
“They’re good, but others are their equals,” I grumble. “Maybe one day the youngest will be her father’s rival. Maybe. Guns from his daughters ain’t quite the braggery you’d like to claim, though.”
He adjusts his wrappings patiently. “I’m not bragging of guns from his daughters. I convinced Phin to go back to work, one last time. The girls didn’t want him to, said he’d ruin his health, and he may well have done so. He spent a year on this.”
“Pah. How’d you do that? I heard he swore to that harpy he wedded he’d never—”
“His wife passed on two years back. His daughters were as adamant he not take the work, but then I offered him something he couldn’t resist.”
“And what’s that?” I ask. “That old goat rogerer weren’t swayed by neither women, wealth, nor wine. What could you offer him?”
Like the insidious stench of wine shits after shore leave, a smug aura surrounds the bandaged man. “I told him the cannons were for you.”
Phin had spent a year, with all his forgers and smiths and cast-iron men and engravers and potboys and apprentices, his workshop belching smoke day and night? For me?
It knocks my knees a bit weak, to be forthright.
It’s one thing to shout at the world that you’re the best. I been doin’ that since it warn’t true. It’s a whole ’nother fish for the best in the world to acknowledge you as the best, too.
It’s like finding another barrel a’ brandy in the hold two days after you run dry and got the shakes.
“How many?”
“Forty guns. Various sizes. Some with parts my cannon caster and gunner together couldn’t even make sense of. Phin laughed and said you’d know what they were for, or figure it out, or—if, after all I’d promised, if the guns weren’t actually for you, that we could go… sodomize ourselves.”
I’m not sure what that means, but he’s a shipowner. They like fancy talk to keep ’em company while they sit on their piles of money and stupid. It sounds like old Phin gave him hell, though, and that makes me happier than the first lovelorn sailor on shore leave through the door at an understaffed brothel.
“I don’t believe you,” I says. “Who’s manning her?”