The Blood Mirror

They all soon left, except for Conn Arthur and Tisis, who withdrew subtly.

“Conn Arthur, we need to have that talk.”

“Which talk, my lord?”

“The one neither of us wants to have.”

The muscles in Conn Arthur’s jaw clenched.

Kip had had the other sections of the map brought in and assembled. He’d had to learn to get over his reflexive avoidance of inconveniencing his servants and subordinates. If someone needed to be wakened so Kip could think, even if it was only once in a hundred times that he came up with a stratagem or noticed an error in his plans, that one time in a hundred was worth waking them.

Tisis had directed the placement and organization of the figures on the map. Each refugee reported to her, and she placed forces on the map in various colors for each report. Each was dated, too. The will-casters had put it all into the map so Kip could watch colors blossom across the map a day at a time. His own scouts’ reports bloomed in different colors.

There were hundreds of false reports, exaggerations, and mistakes, but with thousands of reports, those tended to reveal themselves as the noise they were. On the other hand, even low-quality reports, if repeated often enough, gave Kip a place to send his own scouts or raiding parties.

If he did nothing else, this map would likely be Kip’s legacy, his big advance that he’d given the world.

Of course, the map had to be imbued with a bit of will, so it was technically forbidden magic. So maybe even this would disappear.

He put his hands on it and extended his will. Little lights bloomed around his own forces, leagues away most of the time, but shadowing them at all times. “These are reports of a giant grizzly,” Kip said.

“Hmm. I try to keep Tallach away from people, but grizzlies roam. It’s their nature.”

“And doubtless,” Kip said agreeably, “some farmers and shepherds who know that we travel with Tallach have caught a glimpse of something in the woods and reported it as him, hoping for us to reimburse them for lost livestock.”

“Right, right,” Conn Arthur said.

He thought Kip was going to let it go.

And how Kip wanted to.

Kip slowed down the advancement of the map. Lights bloomed simultaneously, tens of leagues apart. One day, then another, and another.

“Odd, isn’t it?” Kip asked. “A series of these reports come from the kind of places I would expect you to send Tallach—abandoned areas with good hunting, mostly, and few humans. Others, sometimes simultaneous with those, come from more populated areas.”

Conn Arthur swallowed, but said nothing.

“What happens, then, if we assign a different color to the ones in rational areas than to the ones way too close to settlements?”

He started the series over again, and suddenly the reports made sense. Still shadowing the Nightbringers, two dots hunted the forests nearby: the red always farther from villages, the blue always closer.

There were still a few false positives from bad reports, but otherwise it explained all the data.

“This is… all guesswork,” Conn Arthur said, but he sounded more sick than defiant.

“Someone’s going to get killed,” Kip said gently.

“I can handle it.”

“So you don’t know,” Kip said.

“Know what?” The quick crease of his forehead told Kip he was telling the truth.

“Someone’s been killed already.”

All the color drained out of the big redhead. “No. Orholam forbid it. I would know if—”

“Not by Lorcan. By Tallach.”

“What? Lorcan?! I told you my brother’s bear is dead. What—”

“Two hunters heard a giant grizzly was eating folks’ pigs. They got liquored up and decided to go hunting. Said they’d be damned if some dark Tyrean—that’s me, I assume—would tell them what to do in their own woods. One survived.”

“Well, maybe that’s their own fault, then, right? We’ve warned the people everywhere to stay clear…”

“Tallach shouldn’t have been in that area at all, Ruadhán, and you know it. Wouldn’t have been there, except that you had to keep him on this side of the river so Lorcan wouldn’t attack him. Am I right?”

Kip could see Conn Arthur trying to build up a rage, but the big man couldn’t do it. “How long have you known?” he asked instead.

“He’s your brother. You love him,” Kip said.

“So…”

“All along. As you’ve known what needs to happen, but knowing in your heart takes time.” Kip put his hand on the big man’s shoulder. “It’s been almost a year.”

“You were giving me time to do the right thing,” Conn Arthur said.

“Mm-hmm.”

“And I never did it.”

“How much of Rónán is left inside that bear?”

“Good days and bad. It’s as bad as when our mother lost the light of reason. Never thought I’d have to go through that hell twice.”

Kip said, “When you have to go through hell, go quickly.”

Tears dripped silently down the big man’s face. “I thought if anyone might be the exception, it would be him. I thought maybe he could beat this.”

“He’s made it this long. That is exceptional,” Kip said. “But we both know, when he goes, he could take out an entire village easy as snapping your fingers. There’s no cure. If it were you—”

“I know! You think I haven’t told myself all that a thousand times? I just can’t do it!”

And he wouldn’t want anyone else to do it, either. He’d never forgive himself for that, or whoever did it.

Kip said nothing for a while. Then he said, “The battle tomorrow’s gonna be tougher than most of us realize. We think of Dúnbheo as a backwater. The White King is a pagan. He thinks of it as the capital of Blood Forest. He’s not going to retreat.”

Conn Arthur’s brow wrinkled.

Kip said, “When you—as Tallach, of course—and I ride out here into full view, I’ll throw up some firebirds and put some signal flares on this ridge just before dawn. When their people see a giant grizzly outfitted for war, it’ll be hard to look anywhere else. If Lorcan can swim the river and land here and come fast through this gully, he’ll be in the underbelly of the camp in minutes. If he can hit the camp, if he can give just a few minutes of chaos—right when the sun dawns—it’d make all the difference. No man wants to face one giant grizzly. Trapped between two?”