The Burning White by Brent Weeks Page B

all.
    “There’s a reason his bandits haven’t attacked us directly all this time,” Kip said.
    “Depends how you define ‘us,’ ” Tisis said.
    The bandits literally lived by enslaving and pillaging, with raping thrown in for good measure and murder as their primary tool. That Daragh the Coward hadn’t attacked Kip’s
forces
per se was incidental to her: their victims were Foresters, and that by itself made them Tisis’s people.
    “I’m trying to see it—for the moment—as he does,” Kip said. He’d explained this already. In Daragh’s mind, he had avoided attacking Kip’s people, even as Kip had passed through territory he considered his own. That didn’t happen by accident, not with men like this. So to him, that should mean he and Kip could still work something out.
    Tisis would rather fight. Regardless. To her Koios was an invader, but Daragh the Coward was a traitor, which was worse. She might not forgive Kip if he fought the invader but forgave the traitor.
    Which made her right morally but wrong strategically.
    That was tomorrow’s problem.
    They came to the small encampment suddenly, set in a hollow hidden by a hill. General Antonius Malargos greeted them outside the longhouse.
    The year of being in authority had transformed Antonius. He’d been the gawky young red drafter, terminally the little-brother figure to his cousin Tisis—whom he still adored. He was still lean, but there was a focus to him now, a strength that knew itself and hadn’t given up its striving to grow more. His people loved him because he loved them, and because he was bold. That he had the Malargos good looks didn’t hurt, either. He had an intuitive grasp of tactics, and would throw himself headlong wherever he sensed weakness.
    This was, after all, the young man who’d leaped from his own ship as it was being captured by pirates to steal the pirates’ own ship—and in so doing saved Kip’s father.
    Oddest of all for a man so bold, Antonius accepted instruction from those he respected.
    He himself had no sense at all of strategy; his eyes glazed during those discussions, but he was young yet. Logistics were beyond him completely, but he could have others attached to him to help with those—though it would always have to be someone with a steel spine, because Antonius had little patience for those who said things couldn’t be done.
    Kip liked him a lot.
    “My people here will keep quiet,” Antonius said.
    He had only ten men here. Even at that, Kip wasn’t certain he was right. Antonius’s total faith in his people inspired deep loyalty in return. But Kip knew that the same person might show different kinds of loyalty in different kinds of fights.
    And this was not a fight Kip or anyone wanted.
    “They know what has to be done with deserters,” Antonius said. Either because he was just that obvious, or to put some backbone in them. So maybe he wasn’t that certain of how quiet they would keep, after all.
    Ferkudi took up a position outside the door. Cruxer stepped inside first. Kip followed, bracing himself for what he might have to do.
    In the shadows of this longhouse with no fire burning at its center, stood a pygmy woman, dirty, her eyes exhausted red: Sibéal Siofra. Next to her, chained to great stakes driven into the ground, smeared with ash and grease such as hunters employ to melt into the forest, but also dirty and disheveled from hard days and nights, knelt an enormous bear of a man, his every jutting muscle covered with red hair, the bereaved deserter and Kip’s former second-in-command, Conn Ruadhán Arthur.
    “My lord,” Sibéal said, “there’s no need for the chains. The conn here got into some booze while foraging. Just lost track of time. Got lost on his way back. But we’re back now and reporting for duty. With all apologies for our absence.”
    She was floating the possibility for the lash, not the noose.
    But Conn Arthur snorted, shaking his head. “You spent days dragging my ass