The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  “That avoidance doubtless cost you both in money and in the respect of your people, but you’re cunning: you wanted to keep an option open, just in case there was a time to jump onto my side. But now things have changed.”

  Surprisingly, Daragh kept quiet. He wanted to see how accurate Kip’s read of him and his situation was.

  That suited Kip. He would set the ground rules of this game, and skip past some of the introductory positioning. Except that he had to be careful not to go too far too fast: one of the things he needed not to do was to reach the crisis of this meeting too quickly.

  “You’ve been at this a long time. You know exactly what it costs to keep your men fed. Everyone you’d ordinarily prey upon has fled, and you’ve still not attacked the easy pickings under my protection? Even as, in recent days, your forces have swelled far beyond what you can support through banditry in the best of times. That means you’re making your big move. Perhaps you’ve realized there’s not much security in retirement for a bandit. Or perhaps you’re not thinking about the growing stiffness in your joints each morning or the pain in your aging back. You want to come back in from the cold, you want lands, you want to stop running, stop watching your back and become a lord—for him or for us. Maybe you don’t even care. So you’ve taken the Wight King’s coin and brought as many men here as you can afford to try to extract as much from us as you can.

  “It’s an obvious ploy,” Kip said, though he’d thought himself pretty clever when he figured it out. “But regardless, you bring a not-inconsiderable number of men here, tested in killing if not actually in fighting against those who fight back. So come, let’s make like horse traders. What do you want? I’ve much else to do today.”

  If Daragh the Coward was aghast at Kip’s open assertion that he served the White King, he didn’t show it. “My dear b—Lord Guile,” he said as if catching himself. “I’m surprised. I come to a room full of people like you all, gracious lords and ladies that you are. But we’re all Foresters, are we not? We’re not so removed from the earth beneath our toes and the wind in our hair. I see the curiosity in every eye, and yet we’ve not even taken the time for proper introductions.”

  “How’s that?” Kip said. The man was stalling, trying to reframe the discussion.

  “You haven’t asked me about my scars,” Daragh said. “I—”

  “No! No! Of course not!” Kip interrupted as if aghast at the idea.

  “So you do know—”

  “No, why would I? And I don’t need to know. I was taught better than to draw attention to the disabilities of my guests. I’d never! It’s uncouth to comment on things a man can’t fix: say, a cleft lip, or a lame foot, or even a… a regrettable clumsiness at shaving.”

  The room erupted in shocked laughter.

  The laughter hit Daragh the Coward so hard that Kip felt momentarily sorry for him. No one likes to be mocked, but mock a noble and he’s still a noble. Mock a shopkeeper, she still owns her shop. But a bandit leader lives on his reputation. Turning this man’s fearsome scars into an object of ridicule?

  That could be fatal.

  “But might I suggest”—Kip paused, as if he’d bumbled into rudeness and wanted to extricate himself—“perhaps… just let the beard grow out?”

  Murder shot through Daragh the Coward’s eyes. He shot a glance at stony Cruxer and then Big Leo, whose expressions said, ‘Don’t even think about it.’ Clearly in the camps he’d lived in for nearly two decades, when one mocked another man, the possibility of personal violence was always on the table. He was unaccustomed to dealing with insults when that was gone.

  “I bring five thousand men and you—” Daragh said, raising his voice.

  “Five thousand?! Five?!” Kip interrupted. And here was where, if Tisis or Antonius was wrong, he was going to get his ass handed to him. “You have three thousand four hundred men; three hundred more who are casualties, well enough to walk but not to fight; and a thousand more camp followers. And that’s counting the cavalry you were hoping to conceal twelve leagues from here in Little Wash. What kind of counting is this? The Count Who Can’t Count indeed! Did you really never progress beyond using your fingers and toes?” Kip ticked off numbers on his fingers. “‘Three, four, five… oh fuck it, many!’? Or do you expect to negotiate with me while you lie?”

  “I assure you our strength is felt far beyond our numbers,” Daragh said. “Three hundred fifty drafters ride with us—three hundred forty-eight, for those of you who hold an abacus in one hand while you jerk your cock with the other.”

  The room went quiet again.

  “Well, then, finally. Now we can begin,” Kip said quietly, suddenly deathly calm. “Would you rather have a sign-up bonus of twenty denarii per soldier and fifty per cavalryman who brings his own horse and one hundred for every drafter, or would you like one-seventh of all our eventual loot, which will include anything we seize that was formerly the satrap’s?”

  Daragh the Coward blinked, blinked. Then the weasel came to the fore. “The sign-up, paid up front.”

  “Half up front,” Kip countered. “Half after freeing Green Haven.”

  “Done.” Daragh extended his hand to clasp on it.

  Kip didn’t move. “So, as it turns out, you’re a bit of an abacus man yourself,” he said, sneering. “Get out. You’re small-time. Do you think a tattered peacock strutting in the mud impresses eagles?”

  “So no deal?” Daragh asked, baffled.

  Kip laughed derisively. “No, no deal.”

  Orholam damn it. Three hundred–some drafters? That was a real prize. And it was completely possible that Daragh had that many. A drafter was more likely than anyone to flee slavery or indenture, and the most likely to escape successfully.

  But Daragh the Coward didn’t leave.

  He couldn’t.

  The reason for that was right there in his reputation. ‘No scars on his back.’ He’d surely put up with his men’s complaining about his not raiding Kip’s undefended lands. Daragh couldn’t leave without at least an insulting offer on the table for him to reject.

  Being sent away, like he hadn’t been taken seriously by a boy half his age? A boy who’d mocked him?

  That would be death to his reputation.

  If the man weren’t an inveterate murderer and rapist and many other things Kip knew but wished he didn’t, Kip would have felt bad for treating him so unfairly.

  Sold by Ilytian slavers to a rural Ruthgari lord far up the Great River, young Daragh had had the great misfortune of his master being murdered. The locals were intent on following an old custom: if a man was murdered, all of his slaves were killed for not stopping it.

  The theory was that a man couldn’t be murdered without his slaves being aware of the plot, or at least deciding not to step in to save him. Besides, who was more likely to murder you than your slaves themselves? One way to dissuade slaves from turning on their masters was to give all the slaves in a household the greatest possible incentive to protect their master, especially from each other.

  The Chromeria had eventually succeeded in outlawing such communal punishment, but outside the bubbles of direct influence they exerted in the cities and on the Jaspers, such slave massacres were rarely reported, rarely investigated, and rarely punished.

  Daragh had escaped—some said it was the last time he’d ever run from a fight, thus his title. Then he’d crossed the Great River into Blood Forest and taken up banditry.

  What else could an escaped slave do?

  Having not grown up with slavery, Kip was still unsettled by the entire institution, and his discomfiture had only grown, the more familiar he’d become with it. His own first experiences with slavery, even with as uncomfortable as they’d been, hadn’t been representative.

  Speaking with Marissia, a slave to Gavin Guile? Marissia had more power and wealth than most nobles. Similarly, though technically slaves, in certain areas the Blackguards had authority above most lords’, also often retired with wealth, and commande
d far more respect than most drafters.

  The Chromeria had slowly eroded the extent of slavery, believing it as intrinsically prone to abuse but also as ineradicable as lending at interest or prostitution. How else could debtors be forced to honor contracts when they might have no way to pay other than their own labor? What else could be done with enemies during war?

  Would it please Orholam more if His people massacred all captured enemies? Were they supposed to build giant cages for the captured until hostilities ceased?

  What if the hostilities lasted decades? Who would feed their foes for so long? Would they feed them still if war led to famine, as it so often did? Who would stand guard over these men? What kind of horrors must happen in such cages? Aside from being economically impossible, was it really humane to sequester men away from society and family? Man is a social animal. Even slaves were allowed human connections, the company of peers, perhaps the love of a woman or a man, and the hope of children—if often blighted hopes. What would long-term prisoners have?

  So the Chromeria compromised. The biggest concession they’d won was that children of slaves were now born free.

  With slaves’ children born free, the only sources of new slaves were suddenly criminals, war, and piracy. Unsurprisingly, more things were made illegal, especially for poor young men and young women; piracy increased dramatically, and small wars were started on pretexts to allow raids for slave labor—which had, indeed, fed the fires of the unending Blood Wars.

  When Gavin had violently ended the Blood Wars, he’d demanded that all the slaves taken by each side be allowed to return home.

  In two war-torn and impoverished lands, it had sounded impossible. Ludicrous.

  It had been the kind of administrative nightmare that Andross Guile adored. He and Felia Guile had woven diplomatic magic with the opportunity, giving Blood Forester lords lands in Ruthgar and Ruthgari lords lands in Blood Forest so as to stitch their interests back together. Certain exceptions were carved out (and bought) that enriched Andross. But he was more interested in using his clout to rebalance the powers in both satrapies so that troublesome elements were weakened but not too gravely insulted or reduced to where they had nothing to lose. Some great families found themselves vastly diminished—but their close allies stood too much to gain from Andross’s reforms to join a revolt.

  And no one wanted to fight Gavin Guile. So it worked.

  All the slaves were returned unharmed, which made Gavin Guile greatly loved here. It also made slavery generally hated and also very expensive, as there was no supply of fresh slaves except at great expense from Ilytian ‘traders’ whose often-forged documents might invite more trouble than even a skilled slave could be worth.

  It might have all meant that Kip was living during the last generation in Blood Forest to know slaves—if he weren’t taking slaves himself.

  Slavery was as evil as war, and both would continue to create broken men like Daragh until the end of time. In making war, Kip was surely responsible for making more such men.

  O Lord of Lights, must my choices always be, by doing nothing, to allow evil to prevail, or to choose a lesser evil? Can I not do some good in my brief hour fretting upon this stage?

  Daragh finished delivering the pitch Kip hadn’t been listening to. Daragh stood with his legs wide, shoulders back, and his voice boomed with the intimation of shared victories, triumphs, and vengeance against their mutual foes.

  “That’s a good speech,” Kip said. “Golly, what a deal!”

  He said nothing more. He tilted his head, studying the angular scars on Daragh’s cheeks and on his chest. Under them, it seemed, he could almost make out some older, looping scars. Script?

  “So we have an agreement?” Daragh asked, eyes bright.

  Kip said nothing. Come on, father, show the strength of your blood in me now. I don’t think I can pull this off.

  “You have some kind of counterproposal?” Daragh asked finally, flushing.

  “This,” Kip said, sighing, “is not about me. This is about what you choose, or really, what you and your men choose.

  “You can choose to walk out and leave. When—well, let’s be honest—if I reestablish order in this satrapy, you’ll be outlaws, bandits again. Without, ever again, having any hope of pardon.” He smiled amicably. “I assume that the reason you’re all here is that you’d prefer not to do that. But, brief and harsh as it may be, your current life is still open to you. You’re free to leave if you don’t like the next choices. Because if you choose to join me, you also get to choose how.

  “First option: You and your men become auxiliaries to my army. You’ll keep your command structure and separate units. You’ll be paid and fed and entitled to an equal share of the loot we capture, but you’ll be responsible for your own arms and armature and infirmary care. For most of you, that means you’ll go into battle lightly armored or not at all. I won’t send you to willful slaughter, but you’ll be used as auxiliaries have always been used: in the front, to break the enemy charges, where we can also make sure you don’t run away. In the eyes of the Foresters and the rest of my army, you’ll be more like… allies. Not compatriots or friends. Not countrymen.

  “If you choose that option, after the war, all legal claims against you within Blood Forest will be pardoned. If you’re guilty of other things in other satrapies, you’re on your own for that, but we won’t hand you over to anyone.”

  “That’s a shit deal.” Daragh sneered.

  “You’re rapists and murderers,” Kip said. “Did you expect roses and a victory parade, or a hope at a new life and loot?”

  “I expected—”

  “The other option you can choose,” Kip interrupted, “is that you be integrated into the army. Become Nightbringers. Your commanders will be given command of units of similar size to what they currently lead and become officers, without being required to pay for commissions. For ninety days, they will have an officer or noncommissioned officer assigned to them who will show them the ropes, interpret our signals, and translate unfamiliar orders and so forth. After ninety days, they sink or swim on their own.

  “That gives your men time to learn, time to bond with their new units, and time for us all to get through this campaign. It’ll give them time to decide if they want to live as honest men.”

  The bandit king’s face creased with worry as he sensed the longing welling up in the men accompanying him. “And what about me? I’m the boss.” Daragh grinned. “You going to put me in charge of your whole army?”

  “I should love to have a man of your martial prowess command… half of my army,” Kip said. “Your charisma’s infectious and your audacity without measure. Your skills are unquestioned.”

  That caused a disapproving buzz through everyone gathered. Half the army?! Scandalous! Ridiculous. Offensive beyond words.

  “Half the army isn’t enough,” Daragh said, seeing that he had to move fast before the pressure could mount against Kip, but bartering, audacious.

  But Kip saw him fill with sudden hope, the acquisitive hunger of the raider he was.

  “No, it’s not,” Kip said.

  “But it’s close,” the man said, regaining his grin, judging the mood of the room easily, as he’d judged the moods of his free raiders so often before, seeing he had to provide a win for Kip. “I confess my mastery of cavalry lags behind my direction of foot soldiers. I should think we’ll be most successful if I merely take over the infantry for now. For the good of the whole army.”

  Kip shook his head sadly. “I said, ‘I should love to have a man of your martial prowess…’”

  Give the bandit this, he had a keen sense of danger. The room went deathly calm, as if the air smelled of ozone, the earth straining up to reach the heavens for a lightning strike.

  “We came under a flag of truce!” Daragh the Coward snarled. “You swore a troth!”

  “And I keep my troth,” Kip said quietly. He didn’t need to speak loudly.

  No one moved for the
ir weapons. But you couldn’t fully disarm drafters, although meeting in this room, with only white and black tones on all the walls, and all Kip’s men wearing only the same, did everything possible to minimize that risk. As did dragging out the meeting so long—which Kip had done for this purpose: most drafters couldn’t hold luxin packed inside their own bodies for very long, if they even knew how to pack it all. It slowly leaked away, so Kip had been disarming them, simply by going slowly.

  “As you said,” Kip went on, “you’re the boss. You, Daragh the Coward, led these men into murder and theft and dishonor. Albeit with great difficulty, I can forgive their crimes and require others to do the same. But the blood of the innocent cries out for an answer. Your men’s sins fall on you. You could have stopped the worst of it. You could have minimized the evil your men committed, even though you are bandits. Instead, you allowed, you incited, and you took part in all the worst that they did. You led your men to ever greater depravity.

  “Nonetheless, you came under a flag of truce. I gave my troth. So. If you and your men leave now, as I promised, I will not kill any of you, nor—unless attacked—will I pursue you until after my army has defended Green Haven. No trickery. But if your men wish to have the new start I’ve offered—if they wish to live henceforth as honest, pardoned men, they will need to bring you, Daragh, either dead or in chains, to the foot of the stairs of the Palace of the Divines.”

  Kip looked at the hard-faced men around Daragh, ignoring him completely. “You have until tomorrow morning. It will take time to integrate you into the army.”

  “You can’t do that!” Daragh shouted. “These are my men. They will do what I say! You can’t buy them from me!”