Tallach snorted, and Kip realized they hadn’t seen Lorcan yet, though signs of his passage through the Blood Robe camp were evident in the destruction everywhere. Doubtless Conn Arthur wanted to see if his brother still lived.
Kip dismissed Tallach. He and Cruxer got down into the mud and blood to do more work. There was always more.
“Ferkudi,” Kip said, seeing a child weeping amid the bodies. Tisis had not yet arrived with the healers. “Use your brain for me, would—Dear Orholam! What happened to you?!”
“What?” Ferkudi asked as Kip and the rest of the Mighty turned to him. Blood was streaming down the back of his head. He touched his neck and brought back the fingers wet and red. “Oh, I thought I was just real sweaty.”
He patted the top of his head with no apparent alarm, then tipped it toward Kip.
“Bullet graze me?” he asked.
There was a new furrow across almost the entire top of his head, crossing the other scar, drawing a line almost from ear to ear.
“Sweet Orholam, man, how flat is the top of your head?” Big Leo asked.
“Flatter now,” Winsen said.
“Thanks for telling me,” Ferkudi complained. “Now it’s starting to sting. It didn’t sting before you told me.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have stuck your dirty fingers in it,” Ben-hadad said. “Don’t you know anything?”
“What’re the odds it knocked any sense into him?” Winsen asked.
“Ben, you take him in a moment and get him some help, but first, Ferk, I got a job for you,” Kip said.
“Sure, sure, ouch,” Ferkudi said, still poking at his scalp.
“How much would it cost one widow to house and feed… eh, ten orphans?”
“Ages?” Ferkudi said. “Teenaged boys eat more and what not.”
“Come up with an average. With housing included.”
“More than ten children per house would make it cheaper per child,” Ferkudi said.
“Efficiency isn’t the point,” Kip said.
“Well, then, wouldn’t one or two children per widow be better?”
“Fine, efficiency is part of the point.” Kip stopped speaking as he saw the gate opening to the city. “What is that? Anyway, figure it out, Ferk. And talk to Verity and tell her we’re feeding these kids tonight and until I say otherwise. She’ll complain. But they’re kids. Now what’s this at the gate? I need you Ghosts for another five minutes before you extricate. And someone go find my sword and Cruxer’s spear. We had to throw them down to mum the panic back there.”
“Love that spear,” Cruxer said.
It was best to get the will-casters out of the night mares as quickly as possible, but there were armed men facing off at the gate.
Kip jogged over there. It wasn’t the most majestic entrance he’d ever made: one unarmed man on foot surrounded by drafters mounted on great elk and weird horses.
But the city’s forces weren’t terribly impressive, either. The conn was mounted on an emaciated stallion that looked exhausted just holding him on its back. No one else was mounted, but they did have weapons, and there were several hundred of them from what Kip could see.
Kip’s men, despite not having any orders, hadn’t let the conn or his people through.
Bless ’em for having sense and feeling empowered to make tough calls.
At the sight of the night mares and the Mighty, Kip’s men moved back.
Kip went to stand before the columns. “Conn Ruarc Hill, is it?” he asked.
“So I am. And you are?”
“Really?” Kip asked.
The man licked his lips. He looked well fed, though he had bags under his eyes. His men looked starved.
Kip didn’t judge him for that, though. A starving leader could make bad decisions, so when numbers were large, it was a pretentious suffering to starve alongside your men. He did judge him, however, for being an asshole to men whose weapons were still bloody and bloodlust high—men who were here to rescue him, no less.
“Glad you came to greet us, but you didn’t need to bring all these men,” Kip said. His own men had been smart enough to stop the column before it got out of the gates. If Conn Hill was going to attack, he was going to have a bad time of it.
“We came to help clear the heathen Blood Robes from the field of battle and hunt down those who’ve fled.”
“You have no cavalry,” Kip said. “The Blood Robes are well fed and have a good lead on your men. Hard to hunt those who are faster than you.”
“Perhaps, then, we could help with those tasks that are nearer the walls,” Conn Hill said.
“Ah, you mean the claiming of slaves and plundering the camp,” Kip said. “The meager rewards for the blood my men have spilled while you sat safe behind your walls.”
The man went red. Desperate, then, perhaps not entirely an asshole.
The conn said, “We have a claim to the takings here. We have suffered. You fought them for one morning. We’ve fought—”
“Go back into your city, Conn Hill, and—”
“This is outrageous! I am conn of the most revered city in Blood Forest, and you are what? A bastard son with a few soldiers? I demand—”
Nope, not just desperate. Also an asshole.
“Conn Hill! Let me remind you…” Kip interrupted.
The Mighty’s rage had been fading like the last thrumming notes of a lute’s battle song. But impudence and insolence and insult to their Kip threatened a reprise of their favorite bloody verse.
Kip walked close to the man and lowered his voice so none could overhear it. The man himself had to bend over in his saddle to the unmounted, vulnerable Kip. Kip sometimes liked subverting power dynamics. “Let me remind you, there’s more than one way to liberate a city.”
Then Kip turned his back on him. He didn’t look back, but he was no fool. He looked at Cruxer’s eyes. They would signal of an impending strike.
None came.
Kip turned and mounted one of the great elk gingerly.
“Go back into your city!” Kip shouted. “Go talk it over with your elders or just take a good long drink of water, and come back here and try again. Think about flies and vinegar versus honey. Oh, and one thing, Conn Hill. My army is many things: bold, unconventional, fierce, fleet, frightening… oh, and not least, victorious.”
The Nightbringers within hearing roared at that.
“But one thing we are not, and this is very, very important: we are not heathens.”
Conn Hill snarled and sawed on his reins savagely, nearly making his horse trample his nearby men. The rest of his threadbare army withdrew behind the walls with him.
“What was that last little bit?” Cruxer asked. “Not heathens?”
Kip said, “Dúnbheo is actually where the Chromeria got the idea of voting in a promachos in times of crisis, except they call him a conn, a chief. Ordinarily the city rules itself through a Council of Divines—a title they take seriously—and they only appoint a conn for limited tasks. Conn Hill was appointed until ‘the heathens were banished from before our walls.’”
“So you just stripped him of office.”
“Oh, only the Council of Divines can do that,” Kip said with a grin.
“But you made it irresistible for them to do so.”
“He was a dick.”
“There’s more than a little Andross Guile in you, isn’t there? You’re changing, Breaker,” Cruxer said.
“And not only in good ways,” Kip said.
“The old Breaker never would have made an enemy for no reason.”
“Not for no reason,” Kip said. “Sometimes the quickest way to make friends is to make the right enemies.”
“You’re not telling me this was all part of some grand plan?” Cruxer said.
“Not grand. Not even really a plan. I just saw an opportunity. And he was being a flesh protuberance.”
“That’s my old Breaker,” Cruxer said with a smile.
“This’ll be a few hours,” Kip said. “Have the men keep a watch. Ghosts, you can disintegrate. Mighty, with me, I’m afraid there’s a bear we need to help bury.”
Chapter 67