Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“Go ahead,” Gwenna said, her voice a pathetic croak. Maybe the Flea was a part of the whole ’Kent-kissing conspiracy and maybe he wasn’t. Either way, she couldn’t see that it mattered all that much what she told him. Wasn’t as though she had any idea what the fuck was going on, and if you didn’t know what was going on, you weren’t likely to give away anything all that vital. “Ask your questions,” she said wearily.

The questions were repetitive but straightforward. Why did they flee the Islands? How many men died in the mountains? What happened to the monks? On and on and on, while the noose around her neck chafed with each breath, each movement. The Flea didn’t do much talking of his own, and his face didn’t give much away. He frowned at the possible implication of Daveen Shaleel in the plot, and again when Gwenna told him what she knew about the connection between Balendin and il Tornja. There were dozens of questions that didn’t seem relevant at all-What color was Adiv’s blindfold? What had the Urghul fed them? Gwenna answered those, too. It was a strange sort of relief, after so many weeks of confusion, not to have to figure anything out, to let someone else do the thinking, to tell what she knew without trying to fit the broken pieces together.

“So,” she said, when the Flea fell silent at last, “you going to kill me?”

He considered her for a while before responding. “I hope not, Gwenna.” He looked tired. “I hope not.”

* * *

Evidently, the stories squared. At least, that was how Gwenna interpreted her sudden freedom. After spending the better part of an hour tied to the tree, trying pointlessly to slip out of the Flea’s knots, she had watched helplessly as the Wing leader returned, nodded, then slit the ropes with a few quick cuts. Annick was similarly freed, although things didn’t look as rosy for Pyrre. Gwenna had no love for the woman, but it came as a shock to see her hauled into the small clearing trussed tighter than a pig for the slaughter, Newt’s knife at her throat. The Kettral had treated her more roughly than they had Gwenna or Annick. Bruises purpled her face, her nose looked broken, and her left eye had swollen shut. Despite the injuries, she managed a wink at Gwenna when Newt deposited her on the uneven ground.

Sigrid hacked up something that might have been a laugh or a cough. Even after the fight in the Urghul camp, even after spending the end of the night strapped in to the bird’s talons, the woman looked as though she had stepped directly into the forest from some aristocrat’s ball. Gwenna’s blacks were mud-caked, blood-soaked, and torn ragged. The other Kettral looked just about the same, even the Flea. Sigrid’s clothes, on the other hand, might have come straight from the laundress, cloth so immaculately dark it looked like velvet. Only her arms, crisscrossed with dried blood and scar, suggested the violence she had just seen and wrought. She opened her mouth again in a guttural stutter, then pointed at Pyrre.

Newt nodded thoughtfully as he picked at some scab beneath his scraggly beard.

“What?” the Flea asked.

“My lovely and esteemed companion suggests,” Newt replied, “that we plant a knife in the Skullsworn’s eye for what she did to Finn.”

The Flea studied Pyrre for a moment, face unreadable, then turned back to Newt. “And you?”

The Aphorist shrugged. “Killing is easier than unkilling.”

“Does that mean kill her, or don’t kill her?” the Wing leader asked patiently.

“It means what it means,” Newt replied. “I have no vote.”

“I will abstain from voting as well,” Pyrre said, twisting her head around to face the Flea. “Though I appreciate the democratic process, I am ready to meet my god.” Her voice was as battered as her body, the words little more than dried husks.

“You can’t kill her,” Gwenna blurted, amazed to hear herself speak.

The Flea turned to her, eyebrow raised, but Sigrid coughed up another series of broken sounds before he could respond.

“Sigrid also suggests,” Newt interpreted, “taking Gwenna’s tongue. As a cautionary measure. My companion observes that the girl can do her work without a tongue and will prove considerably less trying.”

It sounded like a joke. Gwenna hoped it was a ’Kent-kissing joke, but Sigrid’s smile held all the mirth of a bloody knife.

“I’m not taking tongues,” the Flea said flatly, as though he had to deal with the suggestion weekly. “I’m deciding what to do with the Skullsworn, then we’re getting in the air. I’ll remind everyone that there’s an Urghul army riding for Annur right now, and, unless il Tornja has better intelligence than I’d realized, it’s going to hit him like a hammer to the back of the head.”

“That’s justice,” Annick said curtly. “Il Tornja killed the Emperor. He’s a traitor.”

“Sounds like he is,” the Flea agreed, “but he’s also the kenarang . We all have jobs, and it’s his job to stop the Urghul. If Long Fist’s army gets past the frontier, it’ll be all over except for the screaming, at least in Raalte and the northern atrepies. Doesn’t matter who’s loyal and who’s not when everyone’s dead.”

“But Valyn’s gone to kill il Tornja,” Gwenna said, shaking her head.

The Flea grimaced, wiped a hand down over his forehead. “Let’s hope he fails.”

“So,” Gwenna said, shaking her head, “you believe us, but you want to let il Tornja live?”

“Until he defeats Long Fist, yes.”

Gwenna’s head throbbed. She’d been up all night fighting, running, flying, feeling, most of the time, half a heartbeat away from a knife in the neck. It was a relief to be free, finally. A relief not to be dead. She was ready to fly some more, or ride some more, or even to fight some more, but the thing she just couldn’t take was talking anymore, especially when all the talk led nowhere, twisting back on itself until she wasn’t even sure which end was up.

“Valyn can kill il Tornja,” she said, sick with frustration, “and someone else can fucking defeat Long Fist. Doesn’t Annur have five ’Kent-kissing generals?”

“Ten,” the Flea replied, “if you include their seconds, but they’re children next to il Tornja. I swear, that bastard is smarter than Hendran and twice as ruthless. If Long Fist breaks past the border, we’ll need il Tornja if we ever hope to bottle him up again. As Newt says, ‘Killing is easier than unkilling.’”

“So what’s the play?” Annick asked. She was staring into the trees to the northeast, as though she could see all the way to the approaching mass of Urghul. If her recent captivity bothered her, she didn’t show it. Always the mission, with Annick, and to Hull with normal human things like emotions. “What do we do?”

The Flea spread his hands. “Not a whole great pile of choices that I can see. Long Fist’s already crossed north of the confluence, which means he just needs to get across the Black. There are no garrisons out here because even if he gets across it, he’s still on the wrong side of the Thousand Lakes.”

“So he’s screwed, right?” Gwenna asked. “Even without the garrisons, given the terrain, he’s totally buggered.”

Sigrid made a disgusted sound and walked off across the meadow toward the bird.

Newt watched her for a while, whistling tunelessly between his crooked teeth, then turned back to Gwenna. “A net,” he said, “is not a wall.”

“What he means,” the Flea said, “is that the lakes are just lakes. Lakes and bogs. There’s a lot of them, and it’d be a bitch trying to move an army through, especially an army on horseback, but that’s not to say it can’t be done if you have the right maps and a few dozen good scouts.”