The Broken Eye (24 page)

So watching Commander Ironfist move through an obstacle course with two full-length swords was an education in itself. The commander was shirtless, wearing only his tight black trousers and the boiled-rubber-tree-sap-soled boots full Blackguards were issued: sticky, and nearly silent. Watching him explode from a full standstill was like watching a lion pounce—a ripple of muscles, a flash of flesh, and he was off, near full speed in barely four steps.

He hurdled an obstacle that came up higher than Teia’s chest, ran straight at a wall that had only a circular hole a pace across on it and leapt—diving, swords stabbing through, shoulders barely clearing the narrow opening, body not even nicking the edges. He rolled to his feet smoothly, blades flourishing.

He ran at another wall, barely losing speed, and ran up it. His momentum seemed to flow into the wall, all of it completely at his legs, his hands and swords coming into his chest, waist cocking. He leapt off the wall, twisting, the blades flashing out to hit a dummy on either side, each of them held in a box ten feet off the ground, everything below their necks protected.

The momentum of swinging both swords left-to-right meant Ironfist landed sideways. He tumbled, taking the fall, and popped back up to his feet. He looked irritated. Teia saw the problem. Without maintaining his speed, Ironfist had no way of leaping the chasm that was the next obstacle, at least not without stopping and backing up and losing precious time.

He saw Teia, of course, but he saw that she had no pressing business, so he said nothing. He went back to his starting spot and repeated it again.

This time, as he ran up the wall, he slapped the swords against the wall, each wrapped in blue luxin, released them, twisted his body, grabbed them with the opposite hands, and leapt straight from the wall, slashing in from both sides, cutting through the dummies, and landing flat. He charged the chasm, not losing any speed, and jumped it, skipping off a platform that was too small to stop on and then regaining speed, leaping for a rope that hung over the next chasm.

He lost a sword on that maneuver, but he spun down to the ground and laughed.

“The Prism’s own obstacle course. Of course, he cheats outrageously with luxin at every turn. He challenged me to beat his time before he left. I think I may just.”

As he approached, Teia was suddenly aware again of the sheer size and physicality of the commander. Her glance at his naked, scarred chest seemed to make him aware of his own half-dressed state. Oddly, he seemed embarrassed, the old habits of Parian modesty not totally overcome even after many years in the Blackguard. He grabbed his tunic and pulled it on.

“Here to train?” he asked Teia. “I can get you started on drills.”

Teia stared at him, somehow unable to speak. She thought of telling him everything. But Murder Sharp could be standing in this very room.

“Turned in your papers, did you?” he asked. He’d seen her coin sticks.

“Oh. Yes.”

“Are you going to leave?”

“Can I really?” Teia asked. It still seemed impossible.

“If you turn in the money to the Blackguard, you’re free. You’ll be able to make more money as a mercenary if you stay in and leave right before final vows, but some leave at your place. If you’ve grown up as a slave, sometimes the thought of real freedom is too sweet to put off for even one more day. Others just talk about it. I’ve known Blackguards who talked for fifteen years about buying their commission back—fifteen years
after
final vows, you understand—and traveling the world. Treg was in his last year before retirement and was still talking about buying that commission back.” Ironfist grinned, but then the grin faded. “He didn’t make it back from Garriston.”

“I want to be a Blackguard more than anything in my life, but…” Teia’s nerve failed her.

Commander Ironfist said nothing, just folded his beefy arms and waited. It was a patient silence, though, not demanding. Here was a man so busy he rarely slept more than five hours a night, but when he dealt with his Blackguards—even the nunks—he had a way of being present, unhurried. Teia had never really noticed how generous he was with his precious time, but now that she was experiencing it, she realized how often she’d seen it before, and she added it to the long list of things she admired about the commander. But …

I’m not a slave. Not anymore. And I won’t be made a victim. I won’t sit and let it happen, even if by moving I die. “I’m being blackmailed,” Teia said.

“What’d they get you for?”

She was so startled by his total lack of surprise that she simply said, “Theft.”

“How?”

“I’ve been trained as a pickpocket for years. It wasn’t really my choice, you understand? My master? With my paryl vision, I can see where coins and scroll cases and the like are hidden. Half the time, I’ve been stealing from trainers who worked for Aglaia Crassos—who I just learned was my real mistress all along. But I just figured out today that they were smarter than I’d given them credit for.”

“Uh-hmm.” Commander Ironfist’s face was as placid as a lake at dawn. He gave no indication of what he was thinking. She was afraid some monster might burst from placidity though, so she sped up.

“They bet I’d get into the Blackguard, and they knew that once I was free, they wouldn’t have any hold on me, so everything I’ve been stealing has been stuff that is recognizable. They’ve probably got it all stowed somewhere in a place that they can tie to me.”

“So that’s how you knew how to disguise yourself at Ruic Head,” Ironfist said. “How good are you?”

“At lifting things?” Teia asked. She hadn’t thought this would be his first question. “Better than I am at fighting.” Not that she liked the fact.

“What would you say if I told you I work for Aglaia Crassos, too?” he asked.

Her heart dropped. She looked at the door for an escape. The commander calmly stepped between her and it.

“No,” she whispered. Begged. “No, please.”

There was no way she could make it. No way she could fight off Commander Ironfist if he wanted to stop her anyway. It was madness to even think to oppose him.

But what was her other option? To just give up?

Her only hope was paryl, and even that was a thin hope. During the battle at Ruic Head, she’d done something with paryl that made everyone within sight think they were being burned to a crisp, but it had actually done nothing. If she could remember exactly how she’d done that, maybe it would be enough.

“Relax,” Ironfist said. “I don’t. I’m just surprised that it didn’t occur to you. Usually those being blackmailed become paranoid.”

A breath whooshed out of her. “Sir, I’m so deep in my own problems that I can’t even imagine how bad my life would be if she’d gotten to you.”

“Can you describe the items to me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In writing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do so. I’ll take care of it. If.”

“Sir?”

“If this is all of it. You understand?”

All of it? Confessing to stealing trinkets was one thing, but what about Teia’s own brush with murder? Would they believe her? What was more plausible: that Teia had botched a theft and panicked and stabbed a man, or that she had crossed some cabal of invisible assassins?

Even if they believed her, somehow Master Sharp would find out. She would wake to find him in her room again. And he would know. The thought turned her knees to jelly.

“Is this all of it?” Commander Ironfist asked.

“Yes, sir,” Teia said.

“Then let’s go talk to the White.”

Talk to the White?! Oh, no. No no no. Even the best liars could have a bad day. Teia couldn’t afford for that to be today.

Chapter 22

Time was measured out with such perfect regularity that time lost meaning. Gavin’s every day had a similar rhythm.
Pull. Twist. Push. Twist. Pull.
Up, down, life circumscribed in ovals of work and rest and transition from one to the other. Scrape off the inefficient edges of every moment. Breathe in, breathe out, try to make the motion of the one to the other as painless as possible. Wake, sleep, and spend no time in between. Up before dawn, eating gruel, more gruel at lunch, sometimes with a slice of fruit to fend off scurvy, beans most nights, meat when they’d been particularly good. The ship stopped at a port only once a week, though they stopped at other times, too, for freshwater and for the sailors to have a chance to hunt. But most days were a blur, the round of pumping blood, or of the whip striking, falling, being raised, hesitating in the air for one instant, striking again.

Up before dawn, eating gruel. A chance at the waste bucket. Then rowing. Gruel, then a chance at the wash bucket.

The tempo ate leagues, a perfect balance between speed and exertion. If some emergency came upon them—or if they were to be an emergency that came upon someone else—the slaves needed to have the push to escape doom or to bring it. But that didn’t mean they rowed slowly, not with this crew, not with this captain, not with this accursed overseer Leonus.

It was measured, and it was the same when they hit bad weather, the light Angari ship bobbing like a cork on top of the waves, vomit and water washing past the slaves’ hardened feet. As the weather grew so bad that other ships stayed in port, wintering, they never slowed. These men had shot the Everdark Gates. A storm was a frivolity to them; they had only contempt for it.

Gavin could hear the drums in his sleep. His breath as he lay under his bench came in the same intervals it did when rowing. His hands healed, formed new calluses, ripped open, bled again, fresh agony every morning.

Leonus was a fool, but the slaves knew their business, and not even his mismanagement could impede them much.

Up before dawn, eating gruel, the other slaves rubbing liniment into aching knees and backs and hands, staving off the day when they were no more use on an oar. Leonus strangled one man whose oarmates finally called him out after a spat. He hadn’t been pulling his weight in weeks, maybe months. One word, and he was murdered in front of their eyes. A warning to the rest of them, Gavin supposed. Gavin gathered that the usual way was to whip the offender to make sure he wasn’t faking, and drop him off at the next stop, and sell him for a pittance to some other crew desperate enough to take on an old, broken slave. Other slaves became beggars, some few lucky ones taken in to the luxiats’ houses of mercy.

Gavin didn’t know how long it had been since he’d been taken. He didn’t know where they were. They’d seized five ships, and doubled back, hunting or letting Mongalt Shales catch up, any number of times. They could be off the coast of Paria or Ilyta or Atash for all Gavin knew. His beard had grown out. His hair, like all the other slaves’, had been shaved short with a razor so it wouldn’t catch on things. A pirate haircut was no thing of beauty, but these Angari were at least miraculously free of lice. Clean people. Considered themselves advanced.

One night, after a particularly good week when they’d seized two rich galleys, Gunner was rewarding the slaves. Double measures of strongwine and letting slaves come up on deck at night, albeit chained, and in small groups.

Gavin was chained to Orholam. They sat on deck, the strongwine keeping them warm. They had it so rarely that on an empty stomach, it had quite a kick.

Idly, Gavin stared at the stars, trying to figure where they were from the constellations. Off the Ruthgari coast, perhaps?

“Do you know why they call me Orholam?” the old man asked.

“Because you’re kind and kind of useless,” Gavin said, grinning.

But Orholam wasn’t grinning.

“Please, no blasphemy, young Guile. Not with me. Not tonight.” He paused. “I was a prophet of Elelyōn in a little village on the Parian coast between the Everdark Gates. We were isolated there, of course. No ships in or out, all our trade having to wend through the mountain passes, even our names for Orholam odd to other Parians’ ears.

“In my youth, my village was raided by an Angari ship that had somehow made it through the east Gate. The village was burned, my mother killed in front of my eyes, my father killed in disgrace that doesn’t bear repeating, my young brothers and sisters either taken for slaves or killed, I knew not which. I escaped. I lived through the winter night inside the corpse of one of our oxen they had slaughtered for fun. They didn’t even carry the meat back with them. Young men, laughing. I had been serving as a prophet under Demistocles. You’re not familiar? Then I will be brief. Orholam began to speak to me even as a child. Under Demistocles’s tutelage, I learned to discern when it was the Most High’s voice, and when it was my own desires. I grew arrogant. I called down miracles, and they happened. You think your chromaturgy is a wonder? It is mere science. Men moving bricks. But my power? Orholam’s power, unleashed from the heavens themselves? Like lightning compared to candle. But—and this I will grant you—the latitude you drafters are given is much wider. You do so much yourselves. But to us all, drafter and prophet alike, Orholam giveth and Orholam taketh away. We call him the Lord of Light, but we forget that he is lord.”

A sermon. From a man they called Orholam. Just what Gavin needed. At least it was different, and a good wine kick in the head can make even religion bearable.

“One day, a year to the day after I’d lost all those I loved, the Most High told me to heal an Angari widow. Leprous. In the hardness of my heart and the stiffness of my neck, I turned away instead.

“The next morning, Elelyōn told me to go prophesy to the Angari. I fled instead. Not because I was afraid I would die shooting the Everdark Gates, but because I knew I wouldn’t. I knew he is merciful. I was afraid that if I told them to repent, they would, and I wanted nothing of mercy for them. I wanted them to burn. Men, women, children, eunuchs and servants and slaves, foreigners visiting their shores, rabble and king, soldier and merchant. I wished fire for them all.” His aspect took on a fierceness Gavin had seen before, though not on this man’s kind face. It was a visage etched by the acid thirst for vengeance.

Then it was followed by sorrow deeper than words. “I wished the very name of the Angari to burn and be known no more. I ran as far as I could get the other way, and ended up seized by river pirates at the head of the Great River. I was sold and sold again until I was marched overland and eventually sold to the Angari. As if it could be anyone else. I have served for fifteen years, and for ten of it, I lived in hatred. I have been ever a slow learner, but Orholam is patient.