Izemrasen hadn’t had the coin or connections to bring the matter before a magistrate, and he ended up performing on the streets for food, doing acrobatics for coins. How he’d even made the trek through Blood Forest in the hopes that Kip’s army would have some place for him, Kip didn’t know, but the man was bursting with life and purpose now. Kip had never seen anyone more proud to don the uniform.
The scout turned in behind Kip’s skimmer and docked in a slot made especially for it. Kip and Cruxer attached the hooks that bound the small skimmer to their larger one while he took a few deep breaths. Izemrasen’s massive shoulders shone with sweat—he’d come back at the greatest possible speed.
“Two fleets, my lord,” Izemrasen said. “Closing for battle, as far as I can tell. Definitely the Blood Robes on one side and the Chromeria on the other. Maybe a hundred fifty galleons on the Blood Robe side, but a lot of those seem to be trade ships with only a few cannons each. Chromeria’s only got fifty-three galleons, but they’re well-armed. They’re flying banners of all seven satrapies.”
“How far from here?” Cruxer asked.
“Three leagues? Four? I could be off.”
Kip couldn’t blame him. Distances were tricky at sea at the best of times, even with special tools. The scouts had trained to measure distances by their own speed over time, which they were supposed to keep constant—but Izemrasen had come back as quickly as possible.
“And how far from each other?”
“A bit more than a league? I’d guess the fight will start within half an hour, an hour? I don’t really—I don’t know anything about naval battles, my lords. My apologies. I’m still learning my work.”
“As are we all,” Kip said.
“There was something strange, though,” Izemrasen said. “I mean, I don’t know anything about naval warfare firsthand, but I have seen tapestries and paintings and such, and . . .” He tugged his ghotra forward from where the wind had pushed it back despite the hairpins. “The Chromeria’s ships were out in big wings left and right, with multiple ranks and such—like the paintings. But the left wing was leading, a lot. Too much, it seemed to me. Unless there’s some strategy . . . ?”
“That’s . . .” Kip said. “Who’s on the left wing?”
Izemrasen said, “Uh . . . they were too far away for me to pick out their banners for sure, but given the style of ships and the colors, Ruthgar—and . . .” He scrunched his eyes closed, trying to remember. “A snake below it?”
“Coiled or striking?”
“Striking.”
Kip turned. “Commander, please tell me that moron Caul Azmith isn’t in charge of Ruthgar’s fleet.”
Cruxer shrugged. “Last we heard he’d been demoted because of his disastrous leadership at Ox Ford.” Azmith had been commander of the armies—but his family was rich and powerful. Kip knew how those families worked now: he bet they’d bought his way onto a small command with the fleet, where they thought he couldn’t do any harm.
“Orholam’s balls. He broke ranks,” Kip said. “He’s charging, hoping to reclaim his lost glory.”
“May Orholam save those men from their leader,” Cruxer said, brow darkening, making the sign of the three and the four.
“But that wasn’t all,” Izemrasen said. “The White King’s ships were all huddled together, real tight, almost in a ball. Not at all like any tapestry I’ve seen. I mean, I know artists exaggerate and try to make things look pretty, but isn’t being encircled as bad in naval battles as it is in land ones?”
Messengers on small skimmers had pulled in beside Kip’s craft, waiting for orders to relay.
“No bane visible?” Kip asked.
“No, sir. Didn’t even feel anything, and I was paying attention like you said to.”
“Ah, shit,” Kip said. “They’re doing the same damned thing they did at Ru!” Sinking a bane so the drafters don’t feel it, raising it at the last moment—except this time it wasn’t one color; it was all of them. “What kind of idiot falls into the same trap they’ve used on us before?!”
“Caul Azmith,” Cruxer said with quiet fury.
“We have to warn them,” Kip said.
“We’re all drafters,” Cruxer said.
“But we’re the only ones who can get to them in time.”
“We can’t go.”
Kip looked at him. “They’ll all die if we don’t.”
“Breaker, when a man who can’t swim jumps into the sea to save a drowning friend, you end up with two dead men, not zero.”
Kip turned to the messengers. “I’ve new orders. Redistribute the supply ships. Take the empties to circle behind the White King’s fleet after the battle and pick up survivors from the waves. Don’t come in too fast or too close or they’ll be sunk, too, but save as many as they can. I don’t think the White King will double back. Izemrasen, you go get rest. You’re gonna be lightsick as it is. You two on the reeds, go with the messengers. Commander Cruxer and I have it from here.”
The young drafters stepped off the still-moving skimmer onto messengers’ vessels. To another messenger, Kip said, “Tell our fleet to continue on. We’ll catch up by nightfall.”
Cruxer snorted.
“Or, you know, not at all,” Kip said.
“Tisis is going to be pissed,” Cruxer said. She was off checking on something on the other side of the fleet.
“Yep.”
“Because this is a bad idea,” Cruxer said.
“I know,” Kip said.
Cruxer made the sign of the seven again and then took a reed. “You know, Blackguard training has very specific rules about keeping one’s ward from putting himself in mortal peril unnecessarily.” He looked at Kip’s open, expectant face, and sighed. “So I guess it’s a good thing we quit before we got to that part.”
Chapter 64
Turning people into meat sacks was the easy part. The problem was disposing of the bodies. For all that Teia now knew dozens of ways to kill, she wasn’t superhuman. Even in her blacks, holding a spear, and soaking wet, she weighed less than two sevs. She’d done tens of thousands of push-ups and curl ups. She’d run thousands of leagues. She’d swum until her shoulders were small blocks of granite. She’d lifted salt bags until veins bulged from her forearms even at rest, and she’d run relays with the Blackguard trainees until she could run down a gazelle on the open plains.
She could climb and jump and balance and fight and shoot a bow and fire a musket and draft—dear Orholam, at the insistence of her Archer sisters, she could even dance tolerably well now—but when it came to lifting a corpse that was more than double her weight, she was hopeless.
The good news was that she wouldn’t need to drag Aglaia’s body far.
In quick glances, Teia watched the noblewoman have her cosmetics applied by a severe old slave woman who was, despite her age and her own plain features, obviously an artist. It was evening, but Aglaia had come fresh-faced from a steam bath at an unmarked private club in the Embassies District. The old slave applied delicate layers of powders and creams with a sure and speedy hand. Teia used the time to scout the estate again.