The Blinding Knife(248)

“Whatever it is, it’s driving the animals mad, too,” Commander Ironfist said.

“You feel it?” Pots asked.

Most of the Blackguards mumbled agreement.

“I think we better leave,” Commander Ironfist said.

“Kip, you feel it?” Pots asked.

“Absolutely,” Kip said.

“Nerra, you?” Pots asked.

“No.”

“Commander?” Pots asked.

“Maybe a little.”

“Wil, you?” Pots asked.

Wil swallowed. “I feel half mad, to tell you the truth.”

“It’s the greens,” Pots said to Commander Ironfist. “It’s something wrong in green. Lust, loss of self-control, rebellion against authority. The Color Prince has poisoned green.”

“Atirat,” someone mumbled ominously.

“Whatever it is, it’s not only affecting drafters; it’s hitting munds and even animals,” Pots said.

“Mossbeard!” Commander Ironfist called out. “We’re doing what we can to stop it. Your folk may come back yet. All may be restored to you yet.”

Conn Mossbeard looked at them with steel eyes. “Restored? I caught my wife with another man, and when she saw me, she just laughed and kept on. I looked into her eyes and couldn’t tell if it was madness plain and simple or if the madness was letting her do what she’d always wanted.”

Ironfist said nothing.

“Go play at your wars. Go visit your plagues on someone else. It’s always the little man as pays the piper. I killed my wife, sir, the woman who stayed with me through drought and blight and fire and the death of four daughters for twenty-four years. There’s no restoration here.”

They rowed away and Mossbeard went right back to slaughtering the whale he stood on without giving them another look.

“Greens,” Commander Ironfist said without looking at any of them, “you tell me if it gets too bad. If you feel like you’re going to turn on us, tell us. I’m not going to lose anyone today, through madness or death. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Kip said with the rest of them.

They went all the way up the Atashian coast that day, almost as far as Ruic Head, and they sank half a dozen ships. On many of them, the sailors were in disarray, unwilling or unable to follow orders and act as coherent units. It made them easy targets, and they sank them without any trouble.

It was, frankly, frightening how easy it was. With the combination of their speed and the explosive power of the hullwreckers and the fact that the ships they were preying on were distracted and had never seen anything like the sea chariots—much less prepared for them—they sank ship after ship. But their feeling of invincibility was broken when Pots took a ball in the shoulder. They bound him up, and made it all the way to Ruic Head, where a fort towered on top of the red cliffs there, bristling with artillery that could reach far out into the narrow neck of the Ruic Bay. They approached only close enough to look at the fort’s flags—it was still flying the Atashian colors.

Commander Ironfist turned them back toward the fleet, and they made it back an hour before dusk, which was a good thing, because it took them another hour of consulting the sextant and compass and skimming and guessing and consulting the sextant and compass again to find the fleet, which was making good progress toward Ruic Head. Three days out now. Kip and the other greens were relieved to get away from the Atashian coast, though, and he could feel the madness receding as they got farther away.

They talked, and they couldn’t be certain, because measuring feelings of growing dread wasn’t exactly as simple as sliding beads, but they thought that whatever was causing the madness had to be coming from the Color Prince’s camp itself. Or from one of his ships nearby. No one seemed to want to talk about the prospect of fighting a battle when men were as likely to jump off their ships as they were to obey an order. It seemed an invitation to chaos and slaughter.

Gavin didn’t come back that night. Kip wondered if he’d died somewhere, far away and alone.

The next morning, Commander Ironfist headed out again, but this time he wouldn’t let anyone who could draft green come with him. Kip was left alone. He waved to Cruxer and grimaced at his own ill fortune. When he turned to go inside, he found himself staring at Grinwoody.

“Young master,” the slave said. “Luxlord Guile finds himself with a spare hour. He wishes to play Nine Kings with you. Attend me, please.”

It wasn’t, of course, a request.

“And if I won’t come?” Kip asked.

Grinwoody smiled his unpleasant smile. “Long swim home.”





Chapter 104