The Blinding Knife
Page 152
“Are they going to crush us at the Gates of Sand?” Liv asked.
“No,” the prince said.
“Really? Zymun thought that was the best chance they had of stopping us before we get to the grasslands around Ru.”
“It was. But you need naval support to hold the Gates, and our Ilytian allies crushed the Atashian navy five days ago.”
Liv hadn’t even heard a whisper of that. “Ilytian allies? But the Ilytians don’t believe in anything.”
“They believe in gold.” The Color Prince gave a grim smile. Together, they climbed up an exposed rock promontory. The soldiers standing there snapped salutes. The prince reached the top and did something with his eyes. He expelled a disappointed breath. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“My lord?”
“Close your eyes, Liv. Can you feel it?”
She closed her eyes and tried to feel. She felt the coolness of the morning, smelled the latrines, the campfires, the cooking meat, her own body. She felt the hummingbird weight of light on her skin, light as a wind, passing in soft billows from the rising sun. She heard the sergeants calling out to training men, the clash of sticks on armor, the neighing of horses, the laugh of a woman, the tread of feet. She heard the faintly unnatural hiss of the Color Prince’s breath.
Opening her eyes, she looked over to the man who was shaking the world to its foundations. Shook her head, disappointed in herself.
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow maybe you’ll see it. Go now, and send up Dervani Malargos and Jerrosh Green.”
They were the two best green drafters the Blood Robes had, the teachers for every green who hadn’t yet broken the halo. Liv went down and called for them. They seemed to be waiting, and the two of them went up on the promontory.
Liv watched them as the prince spoke to them, wondering if they would see or feel what she had not, wondering if she was failing in some way.
“Good morning, beautiful. Always with the tests and mysteries, huh?” Zymun said, coming up beside her. He put a possessive arm around her. Sometimes that annoyed her, but she’d been worried yesterday that Zymun was already losing interest in her, so she said nothing.
“I suppose,” she said. “It’s not capricious, though.”
“You think,” Zymun said. He was the only person Liv knew who dared to speak derisively of anything the Color Prince did. At first she’d wondered at that, but a little yellow and superviolet meditation had made it plain: Zymun was jealous. He felt threatened, less of a man around the most powerful man in all the world.
That was the mystery to her.
“So what was it today?” Zymun asked.
“Asked me if I saw something. I didn’t.”
“Looks like they didn’t either,” Zymun said, nodding toward Dervani and Jerrosh. “Those two hate each other, and both want to lead the greens. As if the greens can be led. Idiots and fools.”
The men were bickering, faces turning red, furious. Liv could almost make out the words from here. But she watched the Color Prince instead. From the set of his overlarge shoulders, she could tell he was furious himself, though nothing else betrayed it. He raised one hand, as the people in the camp around seemed torn between watching and not being caught watching.
The two greens stopped abruptly. The Color Prince said something else, and they both dropped to their knees, apologizing. Odd to see a green on its knees.
Its. She’d thought its knees, not his knees. Wasn’t that curious? Another remnant of my childish beliefs, that a person ceases to be a person when he breaks the halo. Our very language has been corrupted to make the murder of drafters palatable.
The Color Prince drew a pistol and shot Jerrosh Green between the eyes.
A spray of blood, atomized, drifted to the ground slower than the chunks of red-gray brain matter liberated from their bony home via lead. Jerrosh Green’s body dropped backward and tumbled down the bare rock of the promontory. The camp was suddenly silent. Pistol still smoking, the prince bound a slender choker with a black jewel on it on Dervani’s neck. He gestured for Dervani to stand.
The drafter stood and left without a word.
“Funny thing is,” Zymun said, “I still can’t tell which of those two is more brainless.”
She looked at Zymun from deep within the grip of superviolet—she hadn’t even noticed drafting it again, but now it was like a friend to her—and realized that the boy wasn’t hard and callous. At least he wasn’t only those. He was terrified. He was imagining his own brain painting the rocks.
He looked at her, and she saw in his eyes that he feared her, too. He was tiring of her, but not out of boredom or for her lack of enthusiasm under the blankets. He didn’t want an equal; he wanted to be worshipped. Zymun was far more dangerous than she had realized. She would need to be rid of him, but carefully, cleverly, so he thought it was his own idea.
“I don’t know how you do it,” she said. She dropped the superviolet. He could sometimes tell by her voice when she was drafting it. “I don’t know how you can see that and not be afraid.” The shudder she let through wasn’t wholly feigned. It also wasn’t the shudder of desire she hoped he thought it was. She turned her eyes to his and moistened her lips and said softly, “Take me back to our tent. Right now.”
Chapter 100
The big guns on the Gargantua’s top deck belched flame and smoke, the sight of hell’s bounty outracing its sound. Two jets of water, fifty paces ahead of the skimmer, announced the miss an instant before the roar of the cannon revealed it had even been fired.
One of the guns on the second deck went off next, and Gavin shouted, “Now!”
Around the skimmer, Kip saw that the Blackguards were grouped into pairs, one at the reeds and one archer. Each team’s archer had a rope in hand, and starting at the outside teams, they pulled.
Before Kip realized what was happening, the skimmer split, each team suddenly freed, one driver and one archer, the sea chariots breaking off from the skimmer smoothly and multiplying their force instantly. Two, four, six, and eight split off, leaving only Gavin and Ironfist and Kip on the now much smaller skimmer in the center.
The water behind them cratered and jetted as Kip heard the roar of the cannon again. Then it seemed the world turned to cannon fire. The Gargantua loomed larger and larger and the eight skimmers cut the waves with perfect grace, none so close to the others that a single cannon shell could hit two of them.
The seas were rough today, so Kip was glad that his father had made supports, both up behind his back so he wouldn’t tumble off the stern and also handles so he could brace himself. Kip saw that the deck of the Gargantua was actually open, contrary to what Gavin had expected, but then, even in the few seconds that Kip was watching, the great wooden screens that were the blindages were brought down by scrambling sailors. Seen in sub-red through Kip’s spectacles, the men glowed as if lit from within, still clearly visible despite the screen.
The skimmer cut hard to port and Kip barely caught himself. He didn’t see any danger, but he decided that even as he was scanning the big ship and trying to keep an eye out for more distant dangers, he should copy his father’s and Ironfist’s stance. Each man had his legs set wide and knees bent, keeping his weight low.
The great rudder of the Gargantua turned hard, and the lumbering great ship, sails full, began to turn. Along the broadside, Kip could see gunports snapping open, on at least three different levels. Not all at once, but as each crew was ready.
“No,” the prince said.
“Really? Zymun thought that was the best chance they had of stopping us before we get to the grasslands around Ru.”
“It was. But you need naval support to hold the Gates, and our Ilytian allies crushed the Atashian navy five days ago.”
Liv hadn’t even heard a whisper of that. “Ilytian allies? But the Ilytians don’t believe in anything.”
“They believe in gold.” The Color Prince gave a grim smile. Together, they climbed up an exposed rock promontory. The soldiers standing there snapped salutes. The prince reached the top and did something with his eyes. He expelled a disappointed breath. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“My lord?”
“Close your eyes, Liv. Can you feel it?”
She closed her eyes and tried to feel. She felt the coolness of the morning, smelled the latrines, the campfires, the cooking meat, her own body. She felt the hummingbird weight of light on her skin, light as a wind, passing in soft billows from the rising sun. She heard the sergeants calling out to training men, the clash of sticks on armor, the neighing of horses, the laugh of a woman, the tread of feet. She heard the faintly unnatural hiss of the Color Prince’s breath.
Opening her eyes, she looked over to the man who was shaking the world to its foundations. Shook her head, disappointed in herself.
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow maybe you’ll see it. Go now, and send up Dervani Malargos and Jerrosh Green.”
They were the two best green drafters the Blood Robes had, the teachers for every green who hadn’t yet broken the halo. Liv went down and called for them. They seemed to be waiting, and the two of them went up on the promontory.
Liv watched them as the prince spoke to them, wondering if they would see or feel what she had not, wondering if she was failing in some way.
“Good morning, beautiful. Always with the tests and mysteries, huh?” Zymun said, coming up beside her. He put a possessive arm around her. Sometimes that annoyed her, but she’d been worried yesterday that Zymun was already losing interest in her, so she said nothing.
“I suppose,” she said. “It’s not capricious, though.”
“You think,” Zymun said. He was the only person Liv knew who dared to speak derisively of anything the Color Prince did. At first she’d wondered at that, but a little yellow and superviolet meditation had made it plain: Zymun was jealous. He felt threatened, less of a man around the most powerful man in all the world.
That was the mystery to her.
“So what was it today?” Zymun asked.
“Asked me if I saw something. I didn’t.”
“Looks like they didn’t either,” Zymun said, nodding toward Dervani and Jerrosh. “Those two hate each other, and both want to lead the greens. As if the greens can be led. Idiots and fools.”
The men were bickering, faces turning red, furious. Liv could almost make out the words from here. But she watched the Color Prince instead. From the set of his overlarge shoulders, she could tell he was furious himself, though nothing else betrayed it. He raised one hand, as the people in the camp around seemed torn between watching and not being caught watching.
The two greens stopped abruptly. The Color Prince said something else, and they both dropped to their knees, apologizing. Odd to see a green on its knees.
Its. She’d thought its knees, not his knees. Wasn’t that curious? Another remnant of my childish beliefs, that a person ceases to be a person when he breaks the halo. Our very language has been corrupted to make the murder of drafters palatable.
The Color Prince drew a pistol and shot Jerrosh Green between the eyes.
A spray of blood, atomized, drifted to the ground slower than the chunks of red-gray brain matter liberated from their bony home via lead. Jerrosh Green’s body dropped backward and tumbled down the bare rock of the promontory. The camp was suddenly silent. Pistol still smoking, the prince bound a slender choker with a black jewel on it on Dervani’s neck. He gestured for Dervani to stand.
The drafter stood and left without a word.
“Funny thing is,” Zymun said, “I still can’t tell which of those two is more brainless.”
She looked at Zymun from deep within the grip of superviolet—she hadn’t even noticed drafting it again, but now it was like a friend to her—and realized that the boy wasn’t hard and callous. At least he wasn’t only those. He was terrified. He was imagining his own brain painting the rocks.
He looked at her, and she saw in his eyes that he feared her, too. He was tiring of her, but not out of boredom or for her lack of enthusiasm under the blankets. He didn’t want an equal; he wanted to be worshipped. Zymun was far more dangerous than she had realized. She would need to be rid of him, but carefully, cleverly, so he thought it was his own idea.
“I don’t know how you do it,” she said. She dropped the superviolet. He could sometimes tell by her voice when she was drafting it. “I don’t know how you can see that and not be afraid.” The shudder she let through wasn’t wholly feigned. It also wasn’t the shudder of desire she hoped he thought it was. She turned her eyes to his and moistened her lips and said softly, “Take me back to our tent. Right now.”
Chapter 100
The big guns on the Gargantua’s top deck belched flame and smoke, the sight of hell’s bounty outracing its sound. Two jets of water, fifty paces ahead of the skimmer, announced the miss an instant before the roar of the cannon revealed it had even been fired.
One of the guns on the second deck went off next, and Gavin shouted, “Now!”
Around the skimmer, Kip saw that the Blackguards were grouped into pairs, one at the reeds and one archer. Each team’s archer had a rope in hand, and starting at the outside teams, they pulled.
Before Kip realized what was happening, the skimmer split, each team suddenly freed, one driver and one archer, the sea chariots breaking off from the skimmer smoothly and multiplying their force instantly. Two, four, six, and eight split off, leaving only Gavin and Ironfist and Kip on the now much smaller skimmer in the center.
The water behind them cratered and jetted as Kip heard the roar of the cannon again. Then it seemed the world turned to cannon fire. The Gargantua loomed larger and larger and the eight skimmers cut the waves with perfect grace, none so close to the others that a single cannon shell could hit two of them.
The seas were rough today, so Kip was glad that his father had made supports, both up behind his back so he wouldn’t tumble off the stern and also handles so he could brace himself. Kip saw that the deck of the Gargantua was actually open, contrary to what Gavin had expected, but then, even in the few seconds that Kip was watching, the great wooden screens that were the blindages were brought down by scrambling sailors. Seen in sub-red through Kip’s spectacles, the men glowed as if lit from within, still clearly visible despite the screen.
The skimmer cut hard to port and Kip barely caught himself. He didn’t see any danger, but he decided that even as he was scanning the big ship and trying to keep an eye out for more distant dangers, he should copy his father’s and Ironfist’s stance. Each man had his legs set wide and knees bent, keeping his weight low.
The great rudder of the Gargantua turned hard, and the lumbering great ship, sails full, began to turn. Along the broadside, Kip could see gunports snapping open, on at least three different levels. Not all at once, but as each crew was ready.
