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.”
“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?”