The Broken Eye (38 page)

They only gave an overview and talked about one color today: blue. The series would be ongoing, and Kip hoped to make it to all of them.

Suddenly, though, the classes all seemed optional. He certainly wasn’t going to go to the basic class with Magister Kadah, but that was the only class he technically had permission to skip. But there was too much else to do with war looming to waste on histories and hagiographies not directly related to the war.

‘Uses of Luxin in Art’? Now? Who were they joking?

Other than the engineers, it didn’t seem anyone else had broken out of their denial that the war was real—and that they might lose.

After that lecture, Kip went to lunch. None of the Blackguard inductees were there. Most were on a staggered schedule to allow them to make it to lectures and still go to practice. Kip saw the reject table where he’d sat just a few months ago. The group was gutted now. Teia and Ben-hadad had left, subsumed into the greater culture of the Blackguard. Kip had barely belonged at all, and the girl with the birthmark, Tiziri, had been sent home because of Kip’s failure, stakes in a game of Nine Kings with Andross Guile. That left only Aras.

The boy was sitting alone. Kip hesitated, and then went toward him.

Aras looked up before Kip could sit. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I was … going to eat,” Kip said. “Can I join—”

“I don’t need your pity.”

“Only people who need pity say that,” Kip said, the words crossing his lips before he could call them back.

“Never speak to me again.”

Kip gave up. He went and sat alone and ate his food in silence.

Not knowing what else to do with himself, Kip went downstairs. He’d still have Blackguard training later today, but he couldn’t bear to sit and do nothing. Hurry up and start training me, Karris.

He found his father’s training room almost exactly as he had left it, except the obstacle course had been rearranged. But Kip was drawn to the pull-up bar.

Before the Battle of Ru, that damned bar had been his daily humiliation. He’d come here alone so the others wouldn’t see how pathetic he was.

He jumped up and did a pull-up easily. Well, that had been a bit of a cheat. He’d had some momentum from jumping. He did another. And four more. Six?

Six!

He dropped to the ground, and for the first time, the burning in his muscles felt like proof of progress, rather than punishment for failure. He wrapped his hands and moved over to the old punching bag, activating the lights with some superviolet. For a half an hour, perhaps an hour, he sank into the simplicity of hitting. Condemnations and memories of mockery rose to the surface like dross in the heat of the exercises, and he hammered them away one by one. Mother’s sneering quips, Ram’s teasing, General Danavis’s disappointment, Aras’s bitterness, punch by punch. He went from hitting the bag with sloppy fury to punching with passionless precision.

The body mechanics were beginning to sink in, too. He was hitting faster, more precisely, and harder, lines of force tracing up from his planted feet, through his hips, his tight abdomen, to uncurl like a whipcrack as he drove his fist into the bag. It felt … glorious.

There was a slight tear in the leather seam high on the bag, and Kip fantasized about punching the bag so hard he tore it open. It didn’t happen, of course, but the fantasy kept him working.

He was just finishing up, unwrapping his hands, when the door cracked open. It was Teia.

“Thought I might find you here,” she said shyly. “You big dope, you’re going to be useless at practice. We’ll probably both have to run.” She grimaced. “Sorry, that came out all wrong.”

Kip grinned. “It’s good to see you, Teia.”

“You, too.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Up on deck, I mean. You’re my partner, and I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’ve been feeling pretty awful about it. And then you came back, and it—it wasn’t really the reunion I’d been hoping for.”

“About that…”

“Kip, I, I need to keep some secrets. Even from you. Can you trust me?”

When Kip thought of Teia, he thought of the petite girl whom he’d mistaken for a boy, months ago. A young slave, uncertain, in over her head. But also a girl who could accurately rank each of the Blackguard hopefuls and estimate that she was the fourth best of them, but somehow didn’t realize quite how excellent that made her against everyone else, or how smart she was to estimate so accurately.

This Teia wasn’t that Teia. Kip realized that while he was growing and changing through all the fights and all the old messages he’d told himself that he was realizing were lies, he had somehow thought that everyone else would stay the same. And it was a fool’s thought.

Teia was little, but that didn’t make her a child. She was being more mature than Kip had probably ever been in his life.

“I heard you saved the raid on Ruic Head,” Kip said.

Teia shrugged.

“Watch Captain Tempus said Commander Ironfist wanted to give you a medal.”

“What?”

“It got overruled by someone higher up, apparently.”

“In something regarding the Blackguards? Who could overrule—oh, don’t tell me.”

“That’s right,” Kip said. “So as long as you’re not working for that old cancer, sure, Teia, I trust you. You’re still on our side, right?”

She laughed, but there was something uncertain in it.

“Teia, you’re not … you’re not working for my grandfather, are you?”

“Kip—Breaker, I can’t tell you
anything
. But I will never betray you. You’re my best friend.”

“I am?”

She looked away awkwardly. Kip could have hit himself. Not the right response.

“I mean, I just thought that being my slave—”

“What?!” Her face flashed to angry.

“Wait wait wait!” He took a breath. “I wanted to be your friend, Teia. I was always afraid that when I—when I won your papers that it meant we couldn’t be friends. And I didn’t know how much of that stuck around. Even afterward, you know. I didn’t know if I’d always remind you of that. You’re my best friend, too.”

She looked mollified but still upset. “I’m more than my slavery, Kip.”

“And I’m more than a Guile, but it’s still there, like it or not.”

She pursed her lips, then nodded. She reached up and put a hand to a necklace she had, and Kip wanted to ask about it, but he could tell it was personal. A present from an old master, perhaps? Her face brightened, though her mouth twisted with chagrin. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. You know, calling you my best friend, like saying—like saying…” She grimaced.

“I didn’t take it wrong,” Kip said, rescuing her.

“You didn’t say it back because I—never mind. Can we go hit something?” She was blushing.

He had the sudden desire to grab her hand, but he didn’t. Why did he feel so awkward and young all of the sudden?

Teia said, “And you have to keep this from the squad.”

“No one will hear we’re friends from me,” Kip said gravely.

“Breaker!”

He grinned, sketched a quick sign of the three and the four, promising. She grinned back.

She moved to speak again, to explain more about not explaining about coming back to the Chromeria bloody, to defend herself somehow, but she let it go, and he credited it to her as maturity. The immature Teia would have checked and double-checked. Or should he think, ‘the slave Teia would have checked and double-checked’? Maybe this is who she always was, only held back by her slavery?

Well, I did one thing right, in my whole life.

“I missed you, Kip.” She grinned, and threw a towel to him.

He caught it, and his smile felt like it was going to break his cheeks.

“You ready to head up?” she asked.

He mopped his face. Good thing about going to Blackguard practice, he supposed—it was fine to go there sweaty.

The door cracked open behind them, and Grinwoody stepped in. Kip’s smile dropped.

“Good afternoon, young master … Guile,” the old slave said. As always, he was dressed carefully, looked wrinkled as an old apple, and had a demeanor as pleasant as a night of diarrhea.

“Grinwoody, you’re looking well!” Kip said with false cheer, deliberately invoking the familiarity of using the slave’s name. How long had Grinwoody been there? Dear Orholam.

“Your grandfather requires you.”

“For Nine Kings?” Kip asked.

“I believe so.”

“I’ve got Blackguard training,” Kip said. “I don’t want to play him now.”

“Your desires are irrelevant. The promachos has summoned you. You will come with me. Immediately.” The old man seemed to enjoy making Kip furious.

The promachos? Dear Orholam, no. So that’s how he had the authority to shut down access to the libraries. Dammit!

“Or what?” Kip said. He just couldn’t help himself, could he?

The Parian slave turned to Teia. “Or your friend here will be expelled.”

“Excuse me?” Teia said.

“You’ve not been addressed, slave. Be silent,” the old slave told her. Asshole.

“I’m not a slave,” Teia snapped.

“My mistake,” Grinwoody said. It clearly hadn’t been a mistake.

Well, that answered one question. Teia wasn’t working for Andross. He wouldn’t threaten one of his own, would he? Or would he, so secure in his belief that Kip wouldn’t let harm come to her?

Was Andross so good that he was comfortable playing against his own cards, knowing someone else would save them?

Kip felt ill, and he felt afraid. He was trying to match wits against this? Andross Guile was godlike in his intellect, and in his ruthlessness. Kip had called Magister Kadah’s bluff, saying she could never expel someone who was nearly a Blackguard. But Andross could expel anyone he wanted. He was now the promachos. It was a calamity.

“I’m not ready,” Kip said.

“He doesn’t require your readiness, he requires your presence.”

Kip cursed under his breath. “I really hate you, Grinwoody,” he said.

Grinwoody gave a thin-lipped grin. “The heart breaks, sir.”

Chapter 35

A few of the galley slaves whooped at the discovery of the key. The others were more wary, more frightened, maybe more cynical. Orholam took the key and ran around the galley, unshackling slaves.

“Grab ten of us to free so we can cut the boarding nets,” Gavin said. “We need the rest of them still on the oars.”

“Free us all!” a slave near the front shouted.

“In time!” Gavin said.

“You’re lying to us! Freedom now or never!” the man shouted back.

Gavin couldn’t believe it. They were going to jeopardize the escape attempt. They had no time for this. “Some of us are going to risk death cutting the ship free. If we don’t get separation from that ship as fast as possible, they’ll just come right back across the nets, or they’ll load the cannons over there and kill us all. If you don’t like it, don’t row. Go ahead, kill us all.”

With that, Gavin dashed toward the stairs. They’d been ripped halfway off in a cannon blast. He grabbed a length of wood that had been torn away, and leapt up to the remaining stairs. Antonius Malargos followed him unquestioningly. The stairs led past the puzzled slaves on the next deck and to a cramped landing.

The hatch was concealed around two half-turns of the stairs, and closed. Gavin, Antonius, and half a dozen slaves stacked up at the door. It was locked.

Gavin threw his shoulder into the hatch. It was an awkward maneuver to attempt, given that it was almost directly above him.

“Orholam have mercy, what do we do now?” Antonius asked.

One of the slaves reached over Antonius’s shoulder and found a latch hidden in the darkness. He slid it open, grinning, nothing but his teeth showing in the darkness. Gavin had hoped that perhaps his monotone vision would help him see better in the dark. So far as he could tell, it didn’t. It was purely handicap. Unlike the wild stories he’d heard about blind men having preternaturally acute hearing or sense of smell, he had no counterbalancing ability.

It was, perhaps, just. When he’d been Prism, he’d had no handicaps. He’d moved from strength to strength. Now he had no strength at all.

“We need blades,” he said. “Anyone have a knife? A sword? Anyone know how the boarding nets are attached? Is it grapnels, or are they tied on this side?”

Gavin prided himself on his memory, but he’d been unconscious when he was brought aboard. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, thinking aloud. “We won’t be able to untie them if they’re under tension. We’ll need to cut them regardless.”

Someone handed up one knife. One.

Gavin handed it back. He had training, and a piece of wood. “Boarding nets first,” he said. “Our only advantage is our numbers. We gain nothing if they get reinforcements. Nets off, get some separation. Kill men to get their blades, and cut those nets. Ready?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He threw the hatch open and jumped onto the deck.

The sudden, harsh light nearly blinded him, and being free of the confines of the ship let a flood of sound wash over him. A musket cracked fifteen paces away, but the pirate was shooting at a marksman in the rigging of the other galley. Gavin ran at him.

The pirate didn’t even see Gavin coming. He swiveled to start reloading, and that move turned his back to Gavin. Gavin’s makeshift club swept into the pirate’s head like an oar cutting the sea. The man went flying in a spray of blood, and Gavin was on him in a second, ripping a knife from his belt.

Then he was up again, running. Speed and surprise were the slaves’ only advantages. One pirate with a sword would be able to cut through half a dozen of the unarmed slaves and end their escape before it began.

There was one more pirate stationed at the nets at the stern of the ship, and this one saw Gavin coming. Through stupidity or shock, the man didn’t shout an alarm, but he did ready his saber.

Gavin barely slowed. He lifted the knife and whipped it forward as if he were throwing it. The man flinched, bringing the point of his saber in as his muscles tightened. Gavin brought the knife down to parry the saber and threw his torso to one side as he closed the distance. Knife and saber slid against each other, the cheap metal throwing sparks. Gavin’s club, wielded left-handed, only struck a glancing blow to the pirate’s forehead.