“Commander? Over to you,” Kip said.
Cruxer pointed to a map of the city as it had been before the siege. It showed the city surrounded on three sides by trees and also filled with trees, more than any other city in the world. He gestured, and a swath of trees around the city walls disappeared.
The maps were put together now by a team of drafters and Derwyn Aleph of the Cwn y Wawr, who was in charge of the scouts, and Tisis, who interviewed the refugees. The maps now allowed them to advance time and see the reports appear as they had come in.
“Two months ago, the Blood Robes cleared the forests around the city for a hundred paces in every direction. They believed that the city was being resupplied through the trees.”
Derwyn said, “Which is nonsense. There were ladders and rope swings concealed in those trees so that single scouts and messengers might move through the sylvan giants quietly, but entire convoys of food? Impossible.”
“Any caves?” Conn Arthur asked.
“Few, and none deep,” Derwyn said. “Not only do you have the tree roots to stop that, but there’s the groundwater to deal with. The river runs partly through the city itself.”
“It is possible there could be caves,” Ben-hadad said. “Purely from an engineering perspective. But I guess it depends what you mean. Do you mean do the inhabitants of the city have any tunnels, or are you asking about sappers?”
“Either, both,” Kip said.
“The city might have made tunnels. If you took your time—and I mean years—you can dig and pump out the water and seal the tunnels with luxin and support them appropriately,” Ben-hadad said. “I mean, you’d be constantly fighting the roots and leaks in the wood and luxin. But it’s possible. The city has been here a long, long time. But to do it and then maintain it would require a permanent corps of drafters. Drafters of average ability? I’d say you’d need thirty or forty, which is expensive and very hard to keep secret. You can hide what one or five drafters do, but when you have forty, people wonder, people gossip, and spies find out.”
Ferkudi said, “Dúnbheo doesn’t have forty drafters. Thirty-eight, tops, in the whole city, and surely most of those would be tasked with defense, right?”
As far as Kip knew, Ferkudi didn’t have any ties to Dúnbheo, nor did he see the scouts’ reports.
“Why do you say that?” Cruxer asked before Kip could.
“Oh,” Ferkudi said, finger lodged up his nose. “You just cross-reference all the activation lists of the lords in the surrounding areas with lists of the Freeing, the Cwn y Wawr, and the Ghosts, take out those we know are dead, and those we guess have joined the White King. That’s why it’s fuzzy. We don’t how many joined the pagans, so we have an upper bound of around sixty-one, but not a lower bound. There’s a bit of unknown with how many drafters in the last ten years have been reported dead before their Freeing who might actually be alive—those records are weak, and don’t show place of birth. Then Satrap Willow Bough came through here three months ago and offered protection and great pay to any drafters who joined him immediately, so I’m also assuming that any refugee drafter would have joined up with him at that point, what with an army on the way to besiege Dúnbheo. But that’s why the number’s a guess. Irritating.” He flicked a booger into the fire. “What?”
They still hadn’t gotten used to how Ferkudi did that every once in a while.
And usually, they couldn’t harness those little moments of genius for things that mattered more than food and boogers.
“So, no escape routes from the inside out,” Kip said. “Outside in seems even more improbable. It would cost too many drafters to make it as quickly as you would want, especially to seize this city. Am I right?”
“It holds great symbolic and religious value to pagans,” Tisis said. “But still… no, I don’t think the White King would think dedicating so many sappers to this was worth it. One of his Lords of the Air might feel differently.”
The White King had split his armies, giving control of them to various commanders he called Lords of the Air. The Mighty thought the one known as Amrit Kamal was in charge of these besiegers, but their intelligence on that wasn’t good. The Lords of the Air would do anything for a victory; they were replaced immediately if they failed.
“Is there any way that any of you can see that we might buy victory without tomorrow’s battle?” Kip asked.
They all scowled at the map for a while.
Then Ben-hadad said, “If we simply go around the city and attack the besiegers’ own supply lines, we might starve out their siege without a fight.”
“Besiege the besiegers?” Conn Arthur said. “But if it takes more than a couple weeks, the White King can bring down part of his forces and besiege us in turn, in which case we lose every advantage we’ve built up to this point.”
“That would weaken the White King’s siege at Green Haven,” Tisis pointed out. “If Satrap Willow Bough used the opportunity to attack—”
“If,” Winsen said.
He was right. Audacity wasn’t the satrap’s strong suit. Kip couldn’t trust him to see and take advantage of what might be only a small opportunity. Nor did he want to put his raiders through setting and undergoing a siege at the same time; it was totally the opposite of what they’d done before.
“If we attacked the Blood Robes briefly and let their messengers through, they might be recalled, again without a fight,” Big Leo said.
“I like this thinking,” Kip said.
“There’s a problem with that,” Tisis said. “If you free the city in a clever way where the Blood Robes simply leave, that’s wonderful, and we’ll have done a good thing. But we’ll get no credit for it. It will just seem like Dúnbheo’s good fortune. We’ll get no new recruits, no funding, and no food except what we take at the point of the spear. You take food then, and they’ll hate us instead.”
She was right. Dammit.
They all chewed on the injustice of that, but no one disputed it was what would probably happen, not even Antonius.
“Curious world, isn’t it?” Kip said. “Seeing your foes driven away inspires more gratitude than cunningly having others draw those same men away. The charging in is all Gavin Guile, the cunning is Andross Guile. One of them is loved, and the other hated. Is that because men are so shortsighted or because we long to see those who hurt us be hurt themselves?”
“Some more one, some more the other, I’d hazard,” Ferkudi said. He had trouble identifying rhetorical questions.
“Also, Andross Guile is an asshole,” Big Leo said.
There is that. Kip grinned grimly. “So I have to let more men die so that their friends will be grateful enough to replenish my ranks of the dead and continue to support us and keep the rest of us alive. In other words, I have to be cunning enough to not be cunning.”
“The most important part of seeking victory is defining it first,” Tisis said.
“Shit,” Kip said. “And I had this really brilliant idea about how to get around the Blood Robes’ partial river blockade, too.”
“I’m sure you did, dear,” Tisis said.
“You know how they’ve set up the weirs to block the city from getting any fish?” Kip said.
“Are we going to use this idea?” Tisis asked gently.
“No,” he grumbled.
“Mmm,” she said. “We wait at your command, my lord. Despite the hour.”
“I’m mean, it was an ingenious idea,” Kip said. “You’d all be very impressed.”
Cruxer theatrically stifled a yawn. As if at a signal, everyone else stretched and rubbed their eyes. Even Conn Arthur blinked sleepily.
“I hate you guys,” Kip said. He waved his hand, and the battle order appeared on the map. “Study your positions, then go. Sleep fast. Conn Arthur, a word.” It was almost scary how well they worked together now. His commanders knew exactly what they needed to do and how and when.
In turn, he gave them a huge amount of autonomy. He’d even taken to rotating com
manders over various elements, partly so that each understood the others’ duties and problems and speed, and partly so that the army wouldn’t splinter into factions. The common soldiers certainly had favorite commanders, but they trusted all of them.
They all soon left, except for Conn Arthur and Tisis, who withdrew subtly.
“Conn Arthur, we need to have that talk.”
“Which talk, my lord?”
“The one neither of us wants to have.”
The muscles in Conn Arthur’s jaw clenched.
Kip had had the other sections of the map brought in and assembled. He’d had to learn to get over his reflexive avoidance of inconveniencing his servants and subordinates. If someone needed to be wakened so Kip could think, even if it was only once in a hundred times that he came up with a stratagem or noticed an error in his plans, that one time in a hundred was worth waking them.
Tisis had directed the placement and organization of the figures on the map. Each refugee reported to her, and she placed forces on the map in various colors for each report. Each was dated, too. The will-casters had put it all into the map so Kip could watch colors blossom across the map a day at a time. His own scouts’ reports bloomed in different colors.
There were hundreds of false reports, exaggerations, and mistakes, but with thousands of reports, those tended to reveal themselves as the noise they were. On the other hand, even low-quality reports, if repeated often enough, gave Kip a place to send his own scouts or raiding parties.
If he did nothing else, this map would likely be Kip’s legacy, his big advance that he’d given the world.
Of course, the map had to be imbued with a bit of will, so it was technically forbidden magic. So maybe even this would disappear.
He put his hands on it and extended his will. Little lights bloomed around his own forces, leagues away most of the time, but shadowing them at all times. “These are reports of a giant grizzly,” Kip said.
“Hmm. I try to keep Tallach away from people, but grizzlies roam. It’s their nature.”
“And doubtless,” Kip said agreeably, “some farmers and shepherds who know that we travel with Tallach have caught a glimpse of something in the woods and reported it as him, hoping for us to reimburse them for lost livestock.”
“Right, right,” Conn Arthur said.
He thought Kip was going to let it go.
And how Kip wanted to.
Kip slowed down the advancement of the map. Lights bloomed simultaneously, tens of leagues apart. One day, then another, and another.
“Odd, isn’t it?” Kip asked. “A series of these reports come from the kind of places I would expect you to send Tallach—abandoned areas with good hunting, mostly, and few humans. Others, sometimes simultaneous with those, come from more populated areas.”
Conn Arthur swallowed, but said nothing.
“What happens, then, if we assign a different color to the ones in rational areas than to the ones way too close to settlements?”
He started the series over again, and suddenly the reports made sense. Still shadowing the Nightbringers, two dots hunted the forests nearby: the red always farther from villages, the blue always closer.
There were still a few false positives from bad reports, but otherwise it explained all the data.
“This is… all guesswork,” Conn Arthur said, but he sounded more sick than defiant.
“Someone’s going to get killed,” Kip said gently.
“I can handle it.”
“So you don’t know,” Kip said.
“Know what?” The quick crease of his forehead told Kip he was telling the truth.
“Someone’s been killed already.”
All the color drained out of the big redhead. “No. Orholam forbid it. I would know if—”
“Not by Lorcan. By Tallach.”
“What? Lorcan?! I told you my brother’s bear is dead. What—”
“Two hunters heard a giant grizzly was eating folks’ pigs. They got liquored up and decided to go hunting. Said they’d be damned if some dark Tyrean—that’s me, I assume—would tell them what to do in their own woods. One survived.”
“Well, maybe that’s their own fault, then, right? We’ve warned the people everywhere to stay clear…”
“Tallach shouldn’t have been in that area at all, Ruadhán, and you know it. Wouldn’t have been there, except that you had to keep him on this side of the river so Lorcan wouldn’t attack him. Am I right?”
Kip could see Conn Arthur trying to build up a rage, but the big man couldn’t do it. “How long have you known?” he asked instead.
“He’s your brother. You love him,” Kip said.
“So…”
“All along. As you’ve known what needs to happen, but knowing in your heart takes time.” Kip put his hand on the big man’s shoulder. “It’s been almost a year.”
“You were giving me time to do the right thing,” Conn Arthur said.
“Mm-hmm.”
“And I never did it.”
“How much of Rónán is left inside that bear?”
“Good days and bad. It’s as bad as when our mother lost the light of reason. Never thought I’d have to go through that hell twice.”
Kip said, “When you have to go through hell, go quickly.”
Tears dripped silently down the big man’s face. “I thought if anyone might be the exception, it would be him. I thought maybe he could beat this.”
“He’s made it this long. That is exceptional,” Kip said. “But we both know, when he goes, he could take out an entire village easy as snapping your fingers. There’s no cure. If it were you—”
“I know! You think I haven’t told myself all that a thousand times? I just can’t do it!”
And he wouldn’t want anyone else to do it, either. He’d never forgive himself for that, or whoever did it.
Kip said nothing for a while. Then he said, “The battle tomorrow’s gonna be tougher than most of us realize. We think of Dúnbheo as a backwater. The White King is a pagan. He thinks of it as the capital of Blood Forest. He’s not going to retreat.”
Conn Arthur’s brow wrinkled.
Kip said, “When you—as Tallach, of course—and I ride out here into full view, I’ll throw up some firebirds and put some signal flares on this ridge just before dawn. When their people see a giant grizzly outfitted for war, it’ll be hard to look anywhere else. If Lorcan can swim the river and land here and come fast through this gully, he’ll be in the underbelly of the camp in minutes. If he can hit the camp, if he can give just a few minutes of chaos—right when the sun dawns—it’d make all the difference. No man wants to face one giant grizzly. Trapped between two?”
“Hell, I wouldn’t want to do that,” Conn Arthur grunted.
“You think he can do that?”
Conn Arthur examined the terrain. “It’s a suicide run.”
“That’s right,” Kip said. He let that sit, didn’t defend it.
“But one that will save many lives if it works,” Conn Arthur said.
“If,” Kip said. “It’s a gamble. He may die for nothing.” He wasn’t going to twist the conn’s arm into this.
Conn Arthur was quiet again. Then he said, “Surely a man who gives his life trying to save his friends is just as much a hero as one who dies actually saving them, right?”
“Better to die trying to do good than make your own brother blow your head off,” Kip said.
Conn Arthur took a deep breath. Then nodded. “Rónán would’ve agreed with that.”
“Then go and speak with him. If all goes well, tomorrow night we celebrate, and the next day we mourn.”
“As it should be,” Conn Arthur said. He had regained some composure, but he was still taking deep, gulping breaths. He left swiftly.
Kip sat down and silently studied the map. Tisis came up beside him, and he rested his hand companionably on her hip.
“You did good there,” she said.
“Did I?” he asked.
>
“How could you even ask that?” she said. “You gave him every chance to come clean on his own, and then when he didn’t, you gave him the chance to give his brother a hero’s death.”
“But why?” Kip said.
“What do you mean?”
“Did I hold back until now because I didn’t want to force him to kill his brother, and lo and behold! here came an opportunity to avoid all that! Or did I, like my grandfather, keep Rónán off the table like a card to play at an opportune moment? Am I a good man, or just a fatter iteration of Andross Guile?”
She let part of that pass, though he saw the tightness in her jaw. “So you did something devious and brilliant and also callous. But it was also kind, and respectful, and life giving. What if, my lord husband, you are a man with not one nature, but two?”
“Two?”
“What if you were not only flesh, but also spirit, and those moments when you bring the two together are not failures, but are your moments of deepest integrity and brilliance?”
“You think I’m brilliant?” Kip asked.
“I can’t believe you still question it,” she said. “But the real question is, do you think you’re good?”
“No,” Kip said without hesitation. “Competent. Crazy stubborn. Cunning sometimes.”
She sighed and looked at the map. “What are you looking for?”
“Clarity,” he said. He thought about getting out the rope spear and working on it quietly for a few minutes or an hour to ease his mind. Young Garret had died in a raid and shattered his heirloom sea demon bone spear. Kip thought he’d figured out a way to make those bone fragments into the spine for the rope spear, which would give it some unique abilities.
But Tisis always got that aggrieved look on her face when he worked on the thing, like he wasn’t paying attention to her or something. He didn’t know what her problem was, but she seemed to hate the thing.
Anyway, it could stay in its bag for now. Enough time to take it out after Tisis went to bed.