Ironfist rolled and saw Cruxer rising up to one knee to draw a pistol from some kind of holster at his hip.
Lying on the ground, Ironfist pulled his own pistol from his bag, but he was too slow.
The holster gave Cruxer the advantage. He finished his draw and pulled his trigger as Ironfist’s gun was still coming on target.
And nothing happened. Wet from the rain in its open holster, the frizzen didn’t spark. Cruxer was cocking the jaw again when Ironfist fired. Powder roared in a burning-white flash that blossomed into a black cloud between them.
But Cruxer didn’t stop. Ironfist had missed. Cruxer cocked his pistol and aimed deliberately.
Ironfist threw himself down again as Cruxer fired.
The concussion deafened Ironfist, but Cruxer missed.
At least as far as Ironfist could tell. Battle was like that. Sometimes you could be dead ten seconds before you realized it.
Ironfist stood, blood gushing from his arm and side. He felt suddenly faint.
He collapsed at Cruxer’s feet.
Tossing his pistol aside, he fumbled toward his bag. He wanted his protégé to know the white luxin was real. He wanted Cruxer to know it was all real. Maybe, maybe Cruxer could save Gavin. Maybe Iron-fist’s lies hadn’t doomed them all.
But with one foot, Cruxer flipped Ironfist over onto his back. He must’ve thought Ironfist was going for another weapon.
Ironfist looked up into the judgment that stood over him.
Then Cruxer tottered. His face twisted with irritation.
Then he collapsed beside Ironfist.
The young warrior gasped bloody foam a few times, a bullet hole in his chest sucking air as his lungs filled with blood.
Ironfist hadn’t missed.
Cruxer made no gestures. Said no final words. And Ironfist couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.
“I tried . . . Oh God,” Ironfist said. “I tried.”
But there was no absolution here.
He pushed himself up to his knees, fumbling to show Cruxer the white luxin—to show his dying eyes that it was true, it was all true. But Ironfist stumbled, couldn’t stand. Suddenly weak, he fell face-down again.
There was a lot of blood. His blood.
It was all going dark. He wasn’t going to make it.
I’m dying, he thought.
He was frightened.
Chapter 91
Karris lay on her face, her body surrendered to the ministrations of Rhoda’s magical hands. It was good to be reminded that the body could be a temple of joy. That there was dancing, and hugging, and pleasing touches, and that life was not only war and death and unconscionable choices.
She wished she could lie abed with Gavin one last time, holding each other and speaking softly, or making love, either would be her choice of how she would spend this evening that would end in a night of blood, a failure that would echo into history. But the world is a broken place. As far as second bests went, a massage from Rhoda was better than most got.
A knock intruded on the pleasure of Rhoda scraping the warm oil from Karris’s limbs with a strigil. “Lord Kip Guile, at your pleasure, High Lady,” the Blackguard Stump said.
Rhoda packed hot towels all around Karris’s limbs and torso. It was a natural break in the massage, as the heat worked in to Karris’s body. Karris sighed, and dismissed Rhoda. “Send him in,” she said.
Kip walked in. He’d obviously never been here, because he seemed surprised to see the massage table, and more surprised to see Karris on it, undressed—though she was covered.
Then there was a tiny expression of anger. If she hadn’t been looking for it, Karris would have missed it. It said, ‘You’re getting a massage, now? What a bitch.’
Good. Karris wanted him angry. Time and distance and high office tends to put blocks up between you and other people. She didn’t have time for horseshit. And she deserved his rage.
“I treated you terribly before you left,” she said.
It was as if she’d written out the painful memory on a parchment, rolled it up, and swatted him across the nose with it like an unsuspecting dog. But he covered it quickly.
“Ah, you mean when my little joke failed so spectacularly?” Kip said. “My apologies again. I didn’t understand the gravity of that subject, and dealt with my awkwardness . . . well, awkwardly.”
She didn’t cut him off. “Kip, when a person in his midteens acts immaturely, that’s entirely forgivable and even appropriate. When a person in her fourth decade does, it’s neither.
“Kip, a long time ago, I abandoned my son, and the guilt of that has never left me. So when you showed up and were so . . . you . . . I felt Orea Pullawr had manipulated me; that she thought the loss of one son could be made up by substituting another—as if I’d misplaced a pair of boots and she bought me a better pair. I was angry at myself and at others I’d trusted and at the world. I wasn’t angry at you. Actually, it was the opposite. I was angry because Orea’s plan was working so well, and I couldn’t imagine how unnatural I must be to allow a child who was not my own to fill the ache I had for the one I gave up.”
Kip said nothing, but she saw she had his total attention.
“I’ve realized a few things since then. First, that last part was horseshit. A parent’s love isn’t a barrel of water to be rationed among those dying of thirst, where more for one means less for another. A parent’s love is a new channel cut through the self to the divine essence, a river that cannot be exhausted or even fathomed, only experienced. You know how Garriston used to have irrigation canals everywhere?”
“I saw where they used to be,” Kip said. “All filled with sand and scrub now.”
“That wasteland was what my life was when I first got to know you, Kip. Opening a new irrigation canal threatened what was working for me. Not working well, granted. But I knew the rules there. I’d adjusted to desert life. I treated you terribly because I was scared. If you’d been here since then, I could have apologized sooner, and . . . well, that’s past now. The second revelation was . . . I don’t like your brother.”
“Half brother,” Kip interjected.
She turned her head so she was facing away from him. She said, “And he doesn’t even seem like that much. He has few of your talents and fewer still of your virtues. I don’t even know if I can love him even in the abstract, and I’ve been trying.” Her throat closed off. She swallowed, but she couldn’t go on.
“And yet you summoned me, not him,” Kip said flatly. “I heard about Ironfist’s ultimatum. Everyone has. He wants a dead Guile. And here I am. I can’t believe he’s really doing this.”
“He’s not taking visitors. The Tafok Amagez wouldn’t even knock on his door.”
“Thanks for trying. I guess,” Kip said.
“Ironfist said he wouldn’t consider Zymun, Kip.”
“He did?” Kip asked. “Oh. The rumor left that part out. Well. That’s too bad.”
Karris snorted. That was putting it mildly. “Andross’s first choice, naturally, was to eliminate the threat at its source. Kill Ironfist, or detain him and forge orders—something. But before we could make plans, we were told that if Ironfist is harmed or doesn’t give the order in person, his men will sail away immediately. His ships have orders to fire on anyone who tries to approach. Ironfist knows how convincing Andross can be, so he’s simply not letting there be communication at all.”