“There is hope,” Kip said. “A slender one. I’ve learned that the Chro-meria has a weapon that can defeat the bane. But the Chromeria doesn’t know it. It doesn’t know how to use it. And only one man can.”
There were cries of ‘Luíseach!’ and ‘Lightbringer!’
Kip bowed his head. They’d hadn’t been slow on that one at all.
Then he lifted his head. “I don’t know if I’m the Lightbringer, but I know this: if I’m not, many thousands of innocents will die on the Jaspers, and the empire will fall, and the Wight King will come here next. We have one best chance to stop him—and that’s this chance, now. I don’t know if I’m the Lightbringer, but I know Orholam won’t abandon us now. I don’t know that I’m the Lightbringer—but I believe!”
As they roared, and as the cries went up again, Kip’s entire form was bathed in light. It pulsed, and their awe was redoubled.
Kip hadn’t done that.
Dammit, wife, he thought. That was what that lotion she’d insisted on him using this morning was. A Prism-on-Sun-Day trick, Kip knew. He’d heard of it, though he’d never seen it himself. Still, old tricks endure because they work.
He wondered idly how much that balm had cost, and how many soldiers he could’ve fed or given better armor for that doubtless-princely sum.
Kip let them roar for a moment, then lowered his hands. He glanced back at her; she was smiling innocently, but she gave a small signal to a superviolet drafter and his shine went down to a low burn.
“That leaves us with two problems,” Kip said. It still took them a moment to quiet, so he repeated. “Two problems: First, we have little time. Too little. Most of you know how slowly a full army moves versus an elite corps. If we all go, we’ll arrive only in time to pick over the bones of the dead. And the weapon will be destroyed. If we all go, we might as well not go at all. Second, if we all go, we abandon Green Haven. Even without the Wight King’s best men, the city will fall before we could possibly return. That is, if we all go.”
Kip let it sink in. These were a people of loud emotions. It made them easy to give a speech to.
“I’m not willing,” Kip said, “to abandon anyone to the Blood Robes’ mercy. But to save Green Haven and Big Jasper—to finally, once and for all stop the Blood Robes—we have to do something we don’t want to do. We have to split our forces. Only I can wield the weapon at the Chromeria. To move fast enough to get there in time, I can only take a small force with me. You say you believe in me”—“We do!” a man shouted; Kip flashed a smile—“and the first thing I’m going to do is test your belief by leaving. You could think I’m abandoning you. I wouldn’t blame you. But we each have a path laid out for us, and we have to serve as best we know. I’m charging you—most of you—with saving your brothers and sisters at Green Haven. It won’t be easy, but I wouldn’t leave you without giving you the best chance I know to be victorious.
“May I reintroduce you to your old general and your new satrap—Satrap Ruadhán Arthur!”
Ambassador Bram Red Leaf squeaked.
Kip hadn’t exactly cleared that with him first.
The moment stretched, and Kip gestured broadly, almost bowing, directing their attention to the carpet in front of the platform as if they could expect their new leader to walk out onto it at any moment.
He heard a voice from below—Sibéal Siofra—saying, “You will wear it, damn you!”
Kip muttered, “Any time now, Arthur. Timing is kind of import—”
The carpet exploded upward in a mass of muscle and fur and sharp teeth as Conn Arthur’s giant grizzly Tallach leapt out of the hole the carpet had been concealing. Thank Orholam that Tallach didn’t also snarl. Kip had specifically instructed that none of the muskets be charged this morning and that none of the archers have their quivers or any arrows at hand. Some magically appeared anyway—but no one loosed an arrow in their shock.
Tallach stood on his hind legs, and from this special harness that allowed him to stand upright with the great bear, Conn Arthur suddenly appeared, standing at the bear’s head. He was dressed as they were accustomed to seeing him—as a warrior, the chief of the will-casters, first of the Night Mares—with only a crown of laurels to denote his new position as Satrap of Blood Forest.
The acclaim was thunderous. Conn Arthur’ s—and Tallach’ s—absence had been felt keenly. This people loved him. If Kip was the Lightbringer, he belonged to all the satrapies—but Conn Arthur was theirs alone. He was Blood Forest, magnified, larger than life, from his red-hair-carpeted skin to his massively chiseled muscles to his giant grizzly to his huge emotions, both joy and grief and rage.
But Ambassador Red Leaf had almost recovered. Kip walked over to stand next to him, yielding the stage.
“This is not at all what we agreed,” the ambassador began. Kip could tell he was working himself up to real rage. “You were to—”
“I know who you serve,” Kip said.
“What are you—”
“My only question is why,” Kip said quietly so they might not be overheard, “why did you turn traitor?”
“This is outrageous!” Bram hissed. He didn’t shout it.
“Your lands are where Koios has been keeping his army, aren’t they?” Kip said. “But it’s not just land to you. It’s people, isn’t it? Your sister hasn’t appeared in the capital in months. Nor your parents. Your son. All of them were last seen in lands that have gone dark. Hostages?”
“Nonsense. They fled long before there was any threat. They’re in Varris Hollow and Glen Everry.”
“So you admit there is a threat,” Kip said. “Those lands are reputed to be empty.”
Bram gawped.
Tallach had dropped to all fours and walked to the side of the stage, where Conn Arthur swung down easily. Still the applause continued.
“I think,” Kip said, “that you aren’t a traitor. Not exactly. I think you had to decide between loyalties, and you decided your loyalty to those you love came before your loyalty to a satrap you don’t even respect and a cause you believed was doomed.”
Bram looked at Kip, and something in him collapsed.
He nodded.
“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen,” Kip said. “You’re going to sign this paper. You’re going to tell my wife everything you know”—Kip forestalled the man’s stuttering objection—“which may be more than you think. You’ll stay with Conn Arthur’ s—pardon me—Satrap Arthur’s forces for the next month. Enough time to prove it’s your signature, and to make the terms binding. Then you’ll be allowed to escape if you wish. In the meantime, I will send two elite units of Night Mares at speed to your family’s holdings. They’ll attempt to save everyone they can. I do that not because you’re innocent but because they are. Your family will keep their holdings, but you will withdraw from public life and sign a full confession, which we will keep secret. If you cause more trouble, you’ll be executed as the traitor you are. Deal?”
Conn Arthur came up front and center, as the ambassador’s throat bobbed and his eyes blinked furiously.