They had a blind spot for him, born of their love and forgiveness. Their kindly view of him was more a reflection of their characters than his.
“Right,” he said easily. “It’s beside the point. All of us, going into Blood Forest, all armed, all with the stained eyes of drafters, all with the dark skin of foreigners? We’ll look like invaders or brigands.”
Cruxer sighed, and Kip could feel frustration emanating from him. Cruxer was the best of them, and the blindest. Kip loved him for it.
“She’ll slow us down,” Big Leo protested, but he’d already lost.
“Any more than I will?” Ben-hadad asked, gesturing to his knee. “Or do you want to leave me behind, too?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Big Leo said.
But Kip was diverted by another problem now. Verity was walking across the deck, laden with baggage, taking up a place at the periphery of the conversation, head downcast, just a slave, invisible, thanks.
“Uh-uh,” Kip said. He grabbed his own bag from her and checked it briefly: soap, spare clothes, sundries, a pot, a plate, deck box, and coin sticks—with the correct number of coins on them. “You’re not coming.”
“I’ll be most useful, my lord. Cooking, cleaning, mending, things you’ve gotten used to having a slave around for. I can ease your life on the trail in a hundred ways.”
“I have no doubt of it,” Kip said. He looked dubiously at the other bags she was carrying. How many of those were for her, and how many for Tisis?
“Uh, Breaker, someone to cook for us?” Ferkudi said. “Have you ever tried to eat Cruxer’s squirrel stew?”
“I never was good at laundry,” Winsen said.
“Is this about my former… insouciance, my lord?” Verity asked. “Because I can promise—”
Kip held up a hand. “It’s not about that. Tisis is coming with us. Her sister is going to be furious, and I need someone whom Eirene Malargos trusts without reservation to tell her that this really was Tisis’s choice, and at her insistence. I need someone to tell her the truth, the whole truth.”
“Lady Malargos will be furious with me, my lord.”
“And for that, I’m sorry. I assume you’ve tried to steer Tisis otherwise?”
She scowled. It was a yes.
“So have I.”
She took a deep breath, then bowed her head, accepting.
When Kip turned back, Winsen and Ferkudi were looking at him. Ferkudi looked glum, like a child denied a cake. Winsen, though, looked peeved. Kip realized that when he’d held up his hand for Verity to stop speaking, they’d taken it as an order for them, too.
“Have to admit, I liked it better when you were just one of us,” Winsen said. “If I may be excused, my lord?” He sketched a mock bow.
“No, actually,” Kip said. “Before we go, we have to sort one more thing out. Not just for us, but for Eirene Malargos.”
“What’s that?” Winsen asked, lemon faced. He and the others glanced over at Verity, who was suddenly trying to look very nonthreatening.
“Just what the hell we plan to accomplish,” Kip said.
“I say we go fuck up the Color Prince,” Big Leo said.
“I don’t think we’re in the audience participation portion of the show,” Ben-hadad said.
“What?” Big Leo asked.
“Shut it, both of you,” Cruxer said.
Kip took a deep breath. “The strength of the Seven Satrapies has always been its trade. As much as our religion and politics bind us, we’ve partly been strong because of the trade winds and the trade circuit and the intermingling of blood and culture and goods that’s allowed us. Ilyta produces the best firearms even though they’re as far as possible from the best sources of gunpowder, in Ru. Parian iron is shipped everywhere. Ruthgari crops feed all the satrapies. That’s meant even a farmer in Abornea can afford to buy fresh Tyrean oranges on occasion. But there are downsides to this, too. No one in other satrapies tries to mine silver on the scale they do at Laurion in Atash. Everyone knows the best and most salt comes from the Ruthgar coast. The shipyards of the Great River Delta are fed almost exclusively with Blood Forest’s lumber. Point is—and I know I’m losing you, but give me a few more moments—point is, the Chromeria has been pretending this war isn’t serious from the beginning. At every step, it’s been worse than they realize, and much worse than they let on. The specialization that has been so helpful is going to be devastating as we lose the only places that make certain necessities for us making war. It wasn’t that much of an economic blow when the other satrapies lost Tyrean oranges and Tyrean hardwoods. But now we’ve lost the guano mines of Ru for gunpowder and all the silver of Laurion—silver the Color Prince’s Blood Robes can use to hire mercenaries and pirates.
“At the Battle of Ruic Head, we lost our navy. It’s being rebuilt, but that takes time and treasure, neither of which we have in excess. But if the pagans take Blood Forest, they take away cheap, plentiful lumber that’s close to our shipyards.
“That sets off a death spiral for us: If we can’t get lumber, we can’t build ships. If we can’t build ships, we can’t defend the shipyards. If they take the shipyards, they take the Cerulean Sea. If they take the Cerulean Sea, they won’t need to win a single battle against us. Big Jasper and Little Jasper are islands, and they’re nowhere near self-sustaining. A simple naval blockade would mean everyone there starves.”
“Our skimmers can sink any ship they throw against us,” Cruxer protested.
“True, absolutely,” Kip said. “But skimmers can’t haul in food, or gunpowder, or salt, or lumber, or iron, or all the tens of thousands of things Big Jasper needs every single day. And the fact is, the secret of the skimmers won’t be a secret forever. How long will that be our advantage? A year? It’ll take the Blood Robes a year or more to build the navy they need. What will the Chromeria do if they show up with a vast navy and skimmers?”
“They’ll die,” Winsen said.
“Make this simple for us, Breaker,” Ben-hadad said. “What do we need to do?”
“I’m certain—and Lady Eirene Malargos needs to know this,” he said, looking over at Verity, “that if we lose Blood Forest, we lose the war. There was one battle already at Ox Ford, and our side lost. Grievously. Ruthgar lost thirty-five thousand men there. That, followed by Raven Rock and the worthless victory at Two Mills Junction? Ruthgar’s sick of taking the brunt of every battle. Sick of sending men to die. I think everyone on our side has written off the Foresters. They’re too far away, and too expensive and too hard to defend. A better line, they think, is the Great River. I think the satrapahs and the Colors will never say this out loud, but they’ll send token forces to make a guerrilla war in the Forest to buy themselves time to build their own defenses, but no one’s going to send tens of thousands of soldiers to die again. In short, the Seven Satrapies have already fallen. They simply don’t have the will to do what needs to be done to win.”
A silence fell over them.