The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,165

you believed was doomed.”

Bram looked at Kip, and something in him collapsed.

He nodded.

“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen,” Kip said. “You’re going to sign this paper. You’re going to tell my wife everything you know”—Kip forestalled the man’s stuttering objection—“which may be more than you think. You’ll stay with Conn Arthur’ s—pardon me—Satrap Arthur’s forces for the next month. Enough time to prove it’s your signature, and to make the terms binding. Then you’ll be allowed to escape if you wish. In the meantime, I will send two elite units of Night Mares at speed to your family’s holdings. They’ll attempt to save everyone they can. I do that not because you’re innocent but because they are. Your family will keep their holdings, but you will withdraw from public life and sign a full confession, which we will keep secret. If you cause more trouble, you’ll be executed as the traitor you are. Deal?”

Conn Arthur came up front and center, as the ambassador’s throat bobbed and his eyes blinked furiously.

“Deal,” Bram said.

Before the word had faded from the air, Tisis had pushed an inkwet quill in his hand and a parchment before him.

“What does it say?” he asked, his eyes imploring Kip.

“Does it matter?” Kip asked.

He signed it and affixed his seal.

Conn Arthur—no, High Lord Satrap Ruadhán Arthur, legitimately now—launched into a speech. He hated speeches, and hadn’t known that Kip was about to make him a satrap, either, until the moment Sibéal had forced him to wear the laurel crown, so maybe it was no wonder he’d let the applause go on longer than he would have otherwise.

“Ten years ago,” Satrap Arthur said, “there was a bump in the silver mines at Laurion—you know the term? It’s a major collapse underground—and whenever it happens, everyone comes running to try to dig out those poor bastards who are trapped inside.”

Kip’s brow furrowed. He’d just used this little story this morning on Conn Arthur himself as he was convincing him to lead most of the army to Green Haven.

“To rescue their friends, the miners had to squeeze into areas that were so tight you couldn’t swing a pick. So they cut half the handles off. You ever work with a tool with half the handle? Makes it exhausting, right? But it was all they could do. No choice. They had to take turns of just a few minutes. But each did what he or she could. They pulled together, and they did the job. They saved whoever could be saved. Now, on an ordinary day, you’d call a pickax with half a handle broken. You’d either throw it out or wait until it was repaired before you’d use it for work. But on that day, that broken tool was the only thing that could save lives.

“This job ain’t what I want. But we got no time. So we don’t get the choice of having the fight on the terms we’d like. We only get to choose if we’re going to go help and save those who can be saved, or if we’re going to give up. There’s some days I feel broken, like I should be thrown out. Maybe you do, too. Guess what? I don’t need you to be whole. I need you to be here. I need you to be willing to do what you can. Because in this fight, in this satrapy, you’re exactly, exactly what I need. So will you serve?”

They shouted.

“Will you join me?”

Now they shouted again, louder. For a guy who said he didn’t know how to give a speech, Satrap Arthur wasn’t mucking it up too badly. He drew his sword.

“Will you fight?!” Arthur demanded, and he thrust the sword at the sky.

Weapons raised, they roared together, and Tallach roared with them, and it was a sound that shook the heavens.

A minute later, General Antonius took the platform, and began splitting the joyful army, the men bragging to one another about how they were going to plant their regimental flags in various unlikely or even anatomically impossible places of the Blood Robes’ anatomy. Attending to all the logistics were Tisis and Ferkudi, feeding General Antonius all the necessary details. The Great River was utterly blocked, so Kip would be heading overland with less than two thousand of his most elite Nightbringer raiders, with two horses for everyone, the fastest of the wagons, and the best gear possible. But they wouldn’t be taking any Night Mares, except for whatever of the Cwn