you’re going to have to not blink for as long as possible.” With great care and globs of glue, they put the eye caps on. The glue globs took care of the gaps left in the fit.
Karris barely dared breathe, holding as still as possible, forcing herself not to blink. When she finally broke down and had to blink, her lashes caught for a moment in the drying glue, but pulled free.
“Oh, and try not to cry,” the slave said. “Or you’ll be up to your eyeballs in tears. Literally.” She smiled unpleasantly.
Hilarious.
They put more makeup around her eyes after the glue was fully dried.
Then, bracketed by drafters and Mirrormen, Karris was whisked through camp. The sun had set perhaps an hour before, and Karris welcomed the fresh, dry air. Over the smell of her own perfume, she was finally able to smell horses, men, campfires, butchered raw meat, cooking meat, sagebrush, oil. Oil? She looked around and saw a supply wagon nearby. Oh, oiled swords and gunmetal.
With the number of wagons surrounding her own, Karris couldn’t see enough of the army to get a good idea of how many men were marching on Garriston. Even the number of wagons didn’t help her. She didn’t know how heavily or lightly packed they were, and even if she did, the last time she’d traveled with an army, she hadn’t paid any attention to such things. Young, pampered, terrified, and stupid, it hadn’t occurred to her that such simple things might be useful to her someday.
There were a large number of women diffused throughout the army, carrying fresh-cut wood for the fires, standing on the butcher’s wagon, shouting at men to make sure the skinned wild javelinas were dispersed fairly, tending the minor injuries inevitable in moving thousands, taking in weapons and armor that needed repair for the blacksmiths, rejecting those that they deemed reparable by the men trying to get someone else to do it. Most of the women seemed to be in service roles, however, which either meant that King Garadul didn’t think much of women or that most were new recruits. From the wide variety of their dress, Karris guessed they came from all over the social spectrum. That meant they were newer recruits, and willing ones. These people weren’t all servants he’d brought from Kelfing; they were locals. King Garadul had significant support from the Tyrean people.
From the glimpses out into the growing darkness punctuated by fires scattered randomly as stars, it seemed the army sprawled wherever it willed, but Karris was brought quickly to an area where perhaps fifty wagons were circled, leaving only a few avenues between them at the points of the compass where horses would be able to pass, each guarded by ten Mirrormen with matchlocks. In the middle there was an open space for defense, small falconets pointed out everywhere like a porcupine ready to fire its quills, and then a number of large striped pavilions of every color.
A cramp caught Karris as she was ushered to the central pavilion. She hunched, breath taken away. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, and the luxin caps cut into her brows and cheeks painfully. She smoothed her expression and waited until the fury of the cramp passed. She took a slow breath, mastering the pain. Then she gestured to one of her guards, as if she were a queen and ready to enter now, thank you.
The man pulled back the pavilion’s flap, and Karris entered.
It must have been some dress. Because as soon as Karris stepped inside, conversation ceased.
There were perhaps seventy people in the pavilion: slaves, tumblers, jugglers, and musicians surrounding perhaps thirty noblemen and -women seated on cushions around a lower table piled high with delicacies and wine. Everyone was colorfully dressed, so much so that Karris could tell even through the muting of her dark eye caps. King Rask Garadul sat at the head of the table, of course, rings sparkling from fingers wrapped around a wine goblet. He had stopped, midsentence, and was staring at her, openmouthed.
But Karris barely even saw the king, because at his right hand sat a man like none she’d ever seen. She forced herself to continue walking toward the king, hips rolling, skirt swishing, head up, shoulders loose, as if she weren’t unnerved.
The man was a Tainted, a color wight. Karris had only ever seen one, and that one had been in the early stages of his madness. This man wasn’t in the early stages, but