The Black Prism
Page 99“Bastards,” Gavin grunted.
“And cowards and opportunists.” Corvan shrugged. “What do you intend to do about it?”
“I intend to hold this city.”
“And how do you hope to do that?” Corvan asked.
“Put someone in charge who’s an experienced hand at lost causes,” Gavin said.
A pause, then Corvan raised his hands. “Oh, no. You can’t. It’s impossible. Lord Prism, I’m the enemy general!”
“And since when don’t the conquered sometimes join the victor’s army?” Gavin asked.
“Not as generals. Not right away.”
“It’s been sixteen years. You’re a special case,” Gavin said. “Corvan Danavis, held in high esteem by both sides of the False Prism’s War. The man who ended the war honorably. A man of unimpeachable integrity and intelligence. It has been a long time, why could people not believe that we had put it all behind us?”
“Because I’m the one who put that scar on your temple, and you were none too happy about it. And Gavin’s men killed my wife.”
Gavin’s brow wrinkled. “There is that.”
It was true. Gavin had seen good leadership and practiced it enough to know his own abilities. He also knew his weaknesses. “With equal armies and terrain and me without magic, who would win between us, Corvan?”
Corvan shrugged. “If you had a good cadre of support staff, and your field commanders would tell you the truth, I think—”
“Corvan, I’m the Prism. Men don’t tell me the truth. I ask them, can you do this? And they say yes, no matter what. They want to think the righteousness of obeying the Prism himself will magically help them overcome any obstacle. When I ask for objections to my most flawed plans, I get silence. It took months and several disasters to get our armies even halfway past that back in the war. We don’t have that time now.” It took a certain kind of mind to understand exactly how each branch of his forces would react, what kind of combat situations they could handle and what ones they would buckle under. Gavin was good at that. He was good at judging enemy commanders, especially those he’d met, and figuring out what they might do.
But making snap judgments about the disposition of enemy forces from fragmentary scouts’ reports and getting thousands of men in various branches into position was something else entirely. Splitting your forces and getting them to take different paths to an objective, each under its own commander, and having them arrive simultaneously—that was a skill very few men had. Instilling discipline in men to continue maneuvering during the battle itself, for men to disengage right now when they could kill their opponent with just one more thrust, and to get men to communicate so lines could open just a second before a cavalry charge came through the ranks themselves—that was almost impossible. Gavin was good at men and magic. Corvan understood numbers and time and tactics. And sixteen years ago, he’d certainly been Gavin’s master in the art of deception. Together, they’d been unstoppable.
“Of course, Rask did massacre my village.” Corvan said it dispassionately. He wasn’t working through his fury at losing everyone he knew; he was working through the story people would tell: I thought the Prism and General Danavis hated each other! They do, but the Prism needed a general, and Danavis’s village was just butchered by King Garadul, he wants revenge.
It worked. It would seem odd, but not incredible. It had been sixteen years.
“So we’re both using each other,” Gavin said. “I need your tactical genius, you need my army to effect your revenge. I could check in on you openly, making it clear I didn’t quite trust you.”
“I could grumble about slights in front of the men. Nothing to undermine their confidence, but enough to make it clear I wasn’t comfortable with you.”
“It could work.”
“It could,” Corvan said. He turned from looking at the bay. “Deception comes quickly to you these days.”
“Unless I can serve you better as your enemy, Lord Prism.”
“I’ve got enough of those. But fair enough. Now I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?” Corvan asked, dubious.
“I can’t be seen giving you something you enjoy, so you’ll have to go downstairs without me. The room directly below this one.” They stepped back toward the counsel room, but Gavin stopped. “How is she?”
Corvan knew who he was talking about and what he really meant. “Karris once seemed like a wilting flower, bowing to her father’s every command. And she became a Blackguard, the White’s left hand. If anyone can make it, she will.”
Gavin took a deep breath and, masks of seriousness and distrust replaced, they stepped into the counsel room. Commander Ironfist had already returned. He stood by the main doors in the loose, casual readiness of a man who spent much of his life guarding, waiting, watching. He was accustomed to inactivity and prepared for violence.
“Commander,” Gavin said. “Corvan Danavis and I find ourselves with a common enemy. He has agreed to help us coordinate Garriston’s defenses. Please notify the men that they will be overseen by General Danavis, effective immediately. The general will answer only to me. General, you can take it from there?”
Corvan looked like a man who’d swallowed vinegary wine and he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding the fact. “Yes, my Lord Prism.”
Gavin waved his hand in dismissal. Abrupt, slightly imperious. Let Commander Ironfist take it as Gavin asserting his dominance. Corvan’s jaw tightened, but he bowed and left.
Go, my friend, and may finding your daughter repay a tiny measure of the misery you’ve endured because of me.
“Will is what makes the Chromeria scary, even for us,” Liv said. The sun was just touching the horizon outside, and room slaves entered as if on cue and began lighting lamps and a fire.
“Who is this Will, and how do we stop him?” Kip asked.
“Kip.” Liv tilted her head down. “Focus.”
“Sorry, go ahead.” She was ignoring the room slaves, so Kip tried to do so as well.
“Will is just what you think it is. You impose your will on the world. You will magic to happen. Will can cover over the gaps in flawed drafting. That’s especially important for flailers.”
“Flailers?”
“All men drafters and the half of the women drafters who aren’t superchromats,” Liv said. She paused. “Well, most men, huh?”
The term was a bit nasty, really. A little bit, We’re better than you are, you helpless hacks. You try, we succeed. But that was how the Chromeria worked, wasn’t it? Everything was about power and dominance. “Right,” Kip said, “flailers. Those sad sacks. Pitiful.” Even if Kip found himself in the elite group, it didn’t mean he had to like how the others were demeaned.
Liv flushed and shot back, “Look, Kip, you don’t have to like it, but you have to deal with it. And you’ll probably do better if you don’t have a chip on your shoulder about everything. It’s not like back home. Because guess what? We don’t have a home now. The Chromeria is all we get, and we’ve got it good. So grow up.”