There was some quiet muttering in response to that. Teia thought it was in agreement—no one liked how Ironfist had been discarded and had then disappeared, though that was surely the only safe thing for him to do—but frankly, Teia didn’t care what they thought of her choice.
After a moment, Commander Fisk nodded, letting it go. “Well, then, if you would bind yourself and your honor to this lauded company, repeat after me.” And Teia followed him, echoing phrase for phrase: “I, Adrasteia Gallaea’s daughter.”
“I, Adrasteia Gallaea’s daughter.”
“Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to High Lady Karris White and her successors, according to the law.”
“Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to High Lady Karris White—” Terror, shambles! Teia forgot the words!
But Fisk prompted her gently, “And her successors, according to the law.”
“And her successors, according to the law.” Whew.
“I will protect the Prism with my life, and in the last extremity…”
“I will protect the Prism with my life, and in the last extremity…”
“I will protect the Seven Satrapies from him or his successors.”
“I will protect the Seven Satrapies from him or his successors.”
“So help me,” he hesitated to give proper reverence, “God.”
“So help me God.”
Then, as if Teia’s life hadn’t just changed forever, Commander Fisk continued on down the line.
Chapter 18
Buttoned tight, tall, rapier lean, and hawk eyed, Cruxer stood before the squad to give orders. He said, “I’m going to explain this to you in terms you can understand: shut up.”
The Mighty were gathered on the deck, greeting Ben-hadad with his flip-down spectacles and goofy Ferkudi, who’d just successfully tested Ben’s newest skimmer. They hadn’t all taken the news that Tisis would be joining them well. So now they paused, thinking Cruxer wanted them to shut up so that he could explain it. But he said no more.
“Oh. Come. On,” Winsen said.
“No,” Cruxer said. “You have your orders. You don’t like them. Fine. Don’t like ’em. And shut it. Since when did soldiers like the orders they got?”
“We’re not exactly just soldiers,” Big Leo pointed out. When he folded his arms like that, his biceps bulged out like sides of beef.
Cruxer said, “We are in this way: we get a task, we have to carry it out. Having to like it is nowhere in the description.”
“I’m not asking for blind obedience,” Kip said.
“He shouldn’t have to,” Cruxer said. “We’ve pledged our lives and honor to him. Stop acting like children and start acting like warriors. There’ve been lots of women in the Blackguard.”
“Every last woman in the Blackguard is a special case, and you know it,” Big Leo said, his voice low and large.
“Every last person in the Blackguard is a special case,” Cruxer said.
“None of that matters,” Winsen said. “We make our own rules. We aren’t Blackguards.”
It hurt all of them to be reminded. Only Ferkudi seemed unmoved. He said, “Well, I don’t want to make rules that get us killed.”
“I think us getting killed was pretty much assured as soon as we decided to go with Breaker,” Ben-hadad said. “No offense, Breaker.”
“None taken,” Kip said. Because it’s wonderful that my closest friends assume I’m going to get them killed.
Somehow, none of them noticed Tisis approach. With her blonde hair tucked up under a floppy petasos, scruffy trousers and tunic, and a belt full of weapons slung low and loose on her hips, she nearly fit in with the ship’s crew. “You should take me,” she said. “There’s only six of you. I’ll be lucky number seven.”
“I’m not superstitious,” Big Leo grumbled.
“I am!” Ferkudi said. “Ever since this one time, I talked to this old witch lady, and she said, ‘Son—’”
“Ferkudi!” Cruxer said.
“No, she said ‘son,’ she didn’t know my name. It was already creepy enough that—”
“Ferk!” Cruxer said.
“Oh! Oh. Right.”
Tisis said, “There are things I can do that none of you big, terrifyingly strong men can do.”
“Like what?” Big Leo asked.
Ferkudi looked pleased to be called a big, terrifyingly strong man. He flexed his pectorals in a little dance. “She gets my vote.”
“Shut up, Ferk. Like what?” Big Leo asked.
“I can talk to strangers without scaring the hell out of them.”
“Funny,” Big Leo said. “But we’re trying to have a serious—”
“I was serious,” Tisis said. “I know you all look at Ferkudi and think of him as a big goof. Stop that, Ferkudi. Look at him. Right now.” They turned and looked at the big goof. “Ferkudi,” she said, exasperated, “finger out of your nose.”
He withdrew his finger and glowered.
“There! Like that.”
“O’s saggies,” Winsen said. “I get it.”
“Get what?” Cruxer asked, clearly irritated that he wasn’t understanding.
“Look at all of you,” Tisis said. “You’ve known each other for years now. Some of you since you were barely walking. Look what happened to you while you weren’t paying attention. You’re not six boys traipsing through a foreign satrapy, looking for adventure. What do you look like?”
Kip knew what she was talking about, but he was captured by another thought. These young warriors had been cutting her off, telling her how she couldn’t come with them, disrespecting her because of her beauty. Now they were listening to her quietly. She’d turned them already, and they hadn’t noticed it yet.
Except maybe Winsen. He seemed unaffected by her charm, grimly amused by the whole thing.
“You look fuckin’ scary,” Kip murmured.
It was true, and Kip saw it crash down on Cruxer most of all for some reason. Perhaps because he was the commander. Somehow he’d seen himself as a junior officer—a leader whose command would surely be taken from him, who would be shuffled back under the leadership of someone older. A leader of boys. He had always known he would have to start at the bottom when he went out into the real world.
But now here he was. He’d been proud that the Mighty were the best squad among the Blackguard trainees, but he hadn’t realized that now they were among the best in the world.
They would be feared, because they were fearsome. Big, grinning, chummy Ferkudi might have a permanent layer of softness around his big, round frame, but he could tear off a man’s arm with the power in those big, round shoulders. Add man-mountain Big Leo, quietly menacing Winsen, graceful Cruxer with his calcified shins, sinewy and double-spectacled Ben-hadad, and Kip, and not many people would block their way in a dark alley.
“I meant you, too, Kip,” Tisis said.
He snorted, and they looked at him as if he were crazy. “What?” he asked.
“They’re calling you the Splitter of Storms,” Tisis said.
“Storm Breaker, now, actually,” Ben-hadad said. “My suggestion.”
“Oh, hey, that’s clever!” Ferkudi said.
Ben-hadad said, “Sometimes praise from you doesn’t have the intended effect.”
But Kip wasn’t listening. It was always a game, right? These names were a propping up of a fa?ade: if you’re not a real hero like an Ironfist but you have to accomplish what he would, you have to borrow as many of the trappings as possible. Ergo ‘Breaker.’ ‘Storm Breaker’ fit the mold, but that had been… a fluke. Irreproducible. Luck. If he even tried to draft paryl or chi again right now, he’d only hurt himself.
But Tisis was still staring at him, as if he were a half-wit for doubting himself.
Tisis was looking at him like that? Tisis? Who’d seen his embarrassing nudity? Who’d seen the shameful scars of a man who hadn’t been able to fend off small rodents?
‘A couple of the sailors tried to worship you,’ Cruxer had said.
It was as if all the faces around him were trying to tell him he was a different man than he knew he was.
Some men like the feel of wool over their eyes, I suppose.
That was a fine dismissal for the sailors, but his wife? His friends, who knew him far better than she did?