The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,164

all go, we’ll arrive only in time to pick over the bones of the dead. And the weapon will be destroyed. If we all go, we might as well not go at all. Second, if we all go, we abandon Green Haven. Even without the Wight King’s best men, the city will fall before we could possibly return. That is, if we all go.”

Kip let it sink in. These were a people of loud emotions. It made them easy to give a speech to.

“I’m not willing,” Kip said, “to abandon anyone to the Blood Robes’ mercy. But to save Green Haven and Big Jasper—to finally, once and for all stop the Blood Robes—we have to do something we don’t want to do. We have to split our forces. Only I can wield the weapon at the Chromeria. To move fast enough to get there in time, I can only take a small force with me. You say you believe in me”—“We do!” a man shouted; Kip flashed a smile—“and the first thing I’m going to do is test your belief by leaving. You could think I’m abandoning you. I wouldn’t blame you. But we each have a path laid out for us, and we have to serve as best we know. I’m charging you—most of you—with saving your brothers and sisters at Green Haven. It won’t be easy, but I wouldn’t leave you without giving you the best chance I know to be victorious.

“May I reintroduce you to your old general and your new satrap—Satrap Ruadhán Arthur!”

Ambassador Bram Red Leaf squeaked.

Kip hadn’t exactly cleared that with him first.

The moment stretched, and Kip gestured broadly, almost bowing, directing their attention to the carpet in front of the platform as if they could expect their new leader to walk out onto it at any moment.

He heard a voice from below—Sibéal Siofra—saying, “You will wear it, damn you!”

Kip muttered, “Any time now, Arthur. Timing is kind of import—”

The carpet exploded upward in a mass of muscle and fur and sharp teeth as Conn Arthur’s giant grizzly Tallach leapt out of the hole the carpet had been concealing. Thank Orholam that Tallach didn’t also snarl. Kip had specifically instructed that none of the muskets be charged this morning and that none of the archers have their quivers or any arrows at hand. Some magically appeared anyway—but no one loosed an arrow in their shock.

Tallach stood on his hind legs, and from this special harness that allowed him to stand upright with the great bear, Conn Arthur suddenly appeared, standing at the bear’s head. He was dressed as they were accustomed to seeing him—as a warrior, the chief of the will-casters, first of the Night Mares—with only a crown of laurels to denote his new position as Satrap of Blood Forest.

The acclaim was thunderous. Conn Arthur’ s—and Tallach’ s—absence had been felt keenly. This people loved him. If Kip was the Lightbringer, he belonged to all the satrapies—but Conn Arthur was theirs alone. He was Blood Forest, magnified, larger than life, from his red-hair-carpeted skin to his massively chiseled muscles to his giant grizzly to his huge emotions, both joy and grief and rage.

But Ambassador Red Leaf had almost recovered. Kip walked over to stand next to him, yielding the stage.

“This is not at all what we agreed,” the ambassador began. Kip could tell he was working himself up to real rage. “You were to—”

“I know who you serve,” Kip said.

“What are you—”

“My only question is why,” Kip said quietly so they might not be overheard, “why did you turn traitor?”

“This is outrageous!” Bram hissed. He didn’t shout it.

“Your lands are where Koios has been keeping his army, aren’t they?” Kip said. “But it’s not just land to you. It’s people, isn’t it? Your sister hasn’t appeared in the capital in months. Nor your parents. Your son. All of them were last seen in lands that have gone dark. Hostages?”

“Nonsense. They fled long before there was any threat. They’re in Varris Hollow and Glen Everry.”

“So you admit there is a threat,” Kip said. “Those lands are reputed to be empty.”

Bram gawped.

Tallach had dropped to all fours and walked to the side of the stage, where Conn Arthur swung down easily. Still the applause continued.

“I think,” Kip said, “that you aren’t a traitor. Not exactly. I think you had to decide between loyalties, and you decided your loyalty to those you love came before your loyalty to a satrap you don’t even respect and a cause