Karris making love all night, sometimes loudly, seemed less humorous when he saw Marissia’s carefully blank face and deeply shadowed eyes.
There are nations at stake, and I’m thinking about a slave’s feelings. Gavin cursed inwardly.
After getting dressed-Karris picked out his clothes, something that Marissia had done for ages-Gavin went downstairs. He stopped only to say, “Twenty minutes, meet me at the back door, packed and ready for war.”
Karris nodded grimly. It was almost daylight, and they couldn’t afford to burn too much of that.
Facing the Spectrum was almost a relief. Gavin thought it was definitely better than being stuck between two jealous women who both had good cause to be angry at him. It was a fight that Marissia couldn’t have, of course, because it was a fight she would lose spectacularly, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel, or that she was wrong to. Orholam have mercy. Four Blackguards accompanied him. It was understandable, given the assassination attempt last night, but it still made Gavin feel like a prisoner.
“You have me for ten minutes,” Gavin said.
“Pardon?” Delara Orange asked.
“There’s going to be a battle for Ru in two days, and I need to be there.”
“And how are you going to do that? We thought you were with the fleet,” the Blue said.
So Gavin explained, concisely. He could travel across the sea in a day. There was already a map on the table with the disposition of forces that they had guessed. Gavin moved and added and subtracted forces until it was accurate.
“How do you know all this?” Delara asked.
“I’m the Prism,” Gavin said. “Five minutes.”
“You can’t treat us like this. We aren’t slaves to take your orders. What will you do if we don’t let you go?” Klytos Blue asked.
Turning cold eyes on the little man, Gavin said, “I’ll kill you and piss on your corpse.” He meant it.
Klytos Blue’s mouth dropped open. His wasn’t the only one.
“I came here as a courtesy,” Gavin said. “But thousands of people are going to die if I don’t leave, so tell me, is there anything wrong-anything at all-in valuing thousands of warriors over one spineless worm?”
Klytos spluttered, “Are you… are you calling me a worm?”
“That’s the kindest thing I have to call you right now.”
Klytos opened his mouth, and Gavin pointed a hand at him and shrouded it in flame. “Try me,” he said. “ ’Cause I really need to piss.”
The White intervened. “Gavin, Lord Prism, what do you intend to do?”
So he told them. Delara Orange looked distraught that he was already considering Ru lost, but he told her if things went well, they might be able to save the city after all. He didn’t believe it, but it placated her. And then he left.
No one tried to stop him.
Karris was at the back dock. Together, with four more Blackguards, they crossed the seas. The ships of the fleet had anchored less than five leagues from Ruic Bay.
The battle would begin tomorrow.
Chapter 107
It was still night when Kip was summoned to the deck. He dressed quickly, pulling on his trainee’s garb. He strapped the dagger sheath to his calf, and checked that the slit he’d cut in his trouser leg allowed him to grab it. It was more obvious than he would have liked, but people probably wouldn’t be looking at his leg today. He put the lenses pouch on his right hip. He ran a hand through his unruly hair and stumbled up to the deck.
The Wanderer was under way, though only the foresails and mizzen were raised. The sailors worked silently, apparently aiming to get the ship into a different position before dawn. The Blackguards were gathered on deck around Commander Ironfist.
“How well did you study those black cards, Kip?” Commander Ironfist asked.
“Sir?” Commander Ironfist had seen the new cards, but how did he know about the black cards?
“Not many secrets on Little Jasper, Kip.”
“Uh, pretty well, sir.”
“You see any of the apotheosis cards?”
“I have no idea what that means, sir.”
“Maybe they’re just a rumor, then. Never seen any of them myself.”
The commander moved to address everyone, but Kip interjected, “Sir? Um, I know that after we were inducted, there wasn’t really time to file papers and everything. I wanted to-I’m technically, or was technically, I guess? Teia’s owner, anyway.”
“Are you worried about your payout? Now?”
“No, sir! I mean, if I die, sir, I want Teia to get it all. I didn’t even really realize until we were fighting the Gargantua that if I died she wouldn’t get anything. She needs it more than the Guiles do, sir.” Kip was suddenly embarrassed, and he wasn’t completely sure why.
The commander looked at Kip for a long moment, then nodded. It would be taken care of. He turned to the Blackguards. “All right, form up.” He barely raised his voice, but everyone moved smoothly into rows. They put the trainees like Kip up front. Commander Ironfist picked up a bowl where a fistful of shiny black berries had been crushed. “Trainees,” he said. “I expect some of you have full pupil control, but if you don’t, dab a finger in this and touch the corner of each eye. One dab will serve for both eyes. It’s belladonna. It’ll dilate your pupils for you. It should wear off by full sunrise, but you’ll be extremely sensitive to light until then. More isn’t better. This stuff’ll make you go blind.” He handed the bowl around, and almost everyone but Kip dabbed a finger in. Kip drew out his sub-red spectacles instead.
Cruxer goggled at him. “You have Night Eyes?” he asked. “Can I see them?”
Kip handed over his sub-red spectacles. Night Eyes? Cruxer put them on. He cursed aloud. It was only the second time Kip had ever heard the boy swear. “What?” Kip said.
“Orholam’s beard, Kip, there’s only like ten pairs of these in the world. Some people say Lucidonius himself made every pair. This is amazing. I can see everything!”
The rest of the trainees drifted out of the lines and even quite a few full Blackguards were craning their necks. Commander Ironfist snapped his fingers and glowered at Kip, and Cruxer, who very quickly took them off and handed them back to Kip, resuming his at-attention posture. “Sorry, Commander,” he said quietly.
Kip put his glasses on.
“I’m afraid that’s not the only wonder we’re going to see today,” Commander Ironfist said. “I can’t leave any of you greens behind, but I’d like to. Truth is, you might be more of a danger to your fellows back here.”
He let that sink in, and Kip didn’t like it. Nor did any of the other greens he could see. For that matter, the Blackguards who weren’t greens didn’t seem particularly enamored of the thought either.
“You’ve all felt it. Even I can feel it now, and I’m no green. Our scouting tells us that there’s a bane somewhere, probably in the crook of the coast. Those of you who haven’t heard of that may have heard it called a lightbane. It’s a temple to the false gods, loci damnata, in this case Atirat. A bane corrupts light itself, and drafters more strongly than most. The good news is that if the power is wild like this, it means there’s no false god in place yet. Questions? I know you’ve got ’em, so make it quick.”
One of the full Blackguards, a broad-shouldered, lean warrior with wild hair, coal skin, and intense blue eyes named Tempus said, “The luxiats says Lucidonius made it so there wouldn’t be bane anymore. It shouldn’t be possible.”
Ironfist nodded to him. “We have no idea what the heretics have done to make it possible. Today we may find out, Orholam help us.”
“Effects on drafting?” an Ilytian who barely came up to Kip’s shoulder asked.
“Green should be much easier to draft large amounts of, but may be much harder to control. It may be different closer in. In addition, none of us have dealt with color wights on the scale we will today. There are stories about the bane perfecting wights. Don’t know if it’s true, but if I’ve heard it, so will have a lot of green wights.
