When they got back to camp, everything was set up and a fire cheerily burning. They ate and shared what they’d learned. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to help them make the next decision.
At Thundering Falls, they had to decide whether to pay to use the great locks to raise the boat to the level of the river above the falls, to pay for porters, to attempt to port the Blue Falcon themselves, to sell it, or to sink it and build a new one.
They had enough money to pay for portage or the locks, but Cruxer thought they might need the coin later, and porters would be able to inspect the boat closely—the first step to the Chromeria’s losing its secret advantage. The Blue Falcon was too heavy for them to carry easily, especially because the porters were known to sabotage those who eschewed their services, loosening steps and rearranging signs to point hikers up dead-end paths constructed to take them to places where it was impossible to turn around.
It was the kind of near banditry that the Chromeria had never stamped out, and probably never would. It still pissed Kip off.
But what the old veteran turned farmer had told them let them know they’d be moving up the river a lot. It was worth it to build yet another skimmer. It broke their hearts a little to unseal the luxins and let the boat dissolve into dust, but such a military secret wasn’t something to simply hand over to anyone who had the coin for it.
They made the climb easily and quickly. The porters even seemed friendly. Perhaps Big Leo’s permanent glower encouraged their deference.
When they reached the top of the falls, they hiked on another couple of leagues until they found a nice secluded spot. Ben-hadad was excited to build a new ship, even if working with so much luxin meant hastening them all to the end of their halos.
“Might as well,” Big Leo said, his eyes tiger-striped red and sub-red, “it’s not like any of us are going to live long enough to worry about breaking our halos.”
It took them all day.
That night, around the campfire, Winsen started up again. “So, Mighty Guide Lady, what’s next?
“Things get different now,” she said. “On the coasts of Blood Forest and on the lower river are many kinds of folk, and I love them dearly. But they are more citizens of the Seven Satrapies than they are Foresters. Here, up where it isn’t easy for foreigners to come, the land is wild. There are pockets of civilization here, even the two great cities, but they’re lamps in the forest’s night. You may see people with forked ears or a blue cast to their skin. Say nothing. They are the last of the pygmy blood, less than half-bloods. Quarters. Eighths. Don’t inquire.”
“Why not?” Ben-hadad asked.
“It’s never a happy story,” Tisis said.
“How so?” Winsen pressed. “We’re less likely to blunder if we know what the blunder would be.”
“You’re asking me like you think I don’t know,” she said calmly.
“You’re damn right,” he said.
“Winsen,” Cruxer said, “are you—”
“No, sir. Not at all this time. I’m just trying to get an honest take on what our strengths are here. Does our guide really know anything more than what you’d read out of a book in the Chromeria’s libraries, because see here, I realized something the other day.”
He waited.
“Oh, please, do go on,” Ben-hadad said sarcastically. “We’re on tenterhooks.”
“You said you grew up among these people. But… you’re Ruthgari, not a Forester. And you’ve been a hostage of the Chromeria as long as I’ve known you or known of you. I mean, I don’t mind that you’re just here to entertain Lord Guile at night, but if that’s all you are, I’d rather we all not pretend you’re anything other than the royal sword swallower.”
Kip was halfway across the circle before anyone could blink, but he was intercepted before he could lay out Winsen by none other than Tisis herself, who threw herself bodily against him.
“No!” she said. “No. Let me handle this.”
Kip looked around at his friends, and saw she was right. Dubious glances met his.
“Hey,” Ben-hadad said, shrugging. “Leadership should come with some perquisites, but Winsen’s not all wrong. We deserve to know what she brings to the table—and if it’s only our leader’s happiness, great! But maybe if that’s it, then she shouldn’t be leading us…? Why are you looking at me like I’m the asshole?”
“Fuck you,” Kip said. “You think I’d lie to you all?”
“Kip, Breaker,” Tisis said. “Please let me explain. Let this be between me and them.”
Kip backed off. What was he supposed to do? Let his friends tell his wife she was only good for what she could do on her back? He’d not spoken of her too kindly before he married her, granted. Orholam’s balls, this would make it a hundred times worse if they found out that the one thing they thought she was good for was actually not working out at all, at all.
“After Gavin Guile ended the Blood Wars,” Tisis said, “by his decree all the leading families of both sides had to surrender certain lands, and were given equal lands on the other side of the river. I was raised on the new Malargos lands deep inside Blood Forest. It was my assignment from the very beginning to become one of the Foresters, so that my family might hold that land, and inspire loyalty. At ten I was selected to be a hostage of the Chromeria—”
“Ten years old!” Winsen said.
“But four months of the year I’ve been allowed to rotate back into my own lands while my cousin Antonius took my place as hostage. I’ve spent the bulk of those months in the Forest, and some part in Rath, and yes, Win, I’ve spent a lot of my time at the Chromeria learning about the home I’ve adopted.
“So yes, I’m useless in a fight. I’ve never pretended otherwise. I can load and fire a musket, but that’s about the extent of my martial skills. But I know lots of arcane history that even most Foresters might not. Like—as you asked when you were trying to prove me a pretender, why you shouldn’t ask pygmies their lineage. The answer is that it implies that you think they have human blood.”
“And that’s bad why?” Kip asked.
“Because pygmy women can take a man’s seed, but they couldn’t bear his children. You understand?”
The young men looked at each other.
“No?” Kip said.
“It actually sounds kind of perfect if you like ’em small,” Ferkudi said.
They all looked at him.
“I mean, if you liked really, really small women—oh, hey, not like children! I didn’t mean it like that! And not me! I’m not—I meant no pregnancies, right?”
“No, no,” Tisis said. “What I meant was, they can get pregnant by men, but they die in childbirth. Every time. Of course, pygmy men could breed human women no problem. But in the next generation, any half-blooded daughters had the same problem. Even two half-bloods marrying often ended in the woman’s death, if not on the first child, then often on the second. Even a half-blood marrying a pygmy ran a risk. The pairings were soon banned by both sides, called cursed. So the half-or quarter-bloods you see now are either the children of taboo love or the product of something my dear, lovely, may-he-burn-in-the-fires-of-all-nine-hells ancestor Broin the Cruel called ‘retributive rape.’
“Now, male and female alike, mixed bloods are welcomed to communities—some even think they’re good luck, as they’ve obviously dodged death—but they’re utterly shunned in marriage and romance, for who would willingly pass a death curse onto their children? Even naturally tall pygmy men and women find it difficult to find partners, as everyone suspects they might have falsified their genealogies.”