The Blinding Knife

Chapter 54

The thirty-five scrubs stood in neat lines, hands folded behind their backs, listening intently. Trainer Fisk usually handled their drills and conditioning, but today they were to be addressed again by Commander Ironfist. Two students had left after speaking with their sponsors about the impending war, but only two. Teia was proud of that; she was also keenly aware that being proud of ignoramuses who had no idea what they were getting into was probably silly.

Commander Ironfist walked to the front of the class, his head freshly shaven and oiled. His Blackguard garb, cotton fibers infused with luxin to make a stretchy second skin, showed the massive V of shoulders to waist, the gold piping down his sleeves emphasized arms as big around as some of his students’ waists, the thick butt of a man who could run down a horse, and legs like towers of the Chromeria itself. He was astonishingly beautiful. The man’s muscles had veins bigger than Teia’s muscles. And all loose, easy, relaxed.

Teia knew that the relaxed, loose composure of a warrior meant speed. Trainer Fisk was shorter and thicker than Commander Ironfist, but literally muscle-bound. His heavy muscles actually slowed his motion-compared with Ironfist. Compared to Teia, of course, the trainer was fast as a loosed crossbow bolt.

“Your training is the best in the Seven Satrapies,” Commander Ironfist began. No preliminaries, it wasn’t his way. “Your training is necessary and good and effective. But your training-even here, even among the best-can hamstring you. When we practice punches, we pull them short, because if we don’t, we’d lose you all to injuries. But when you pull punches ten thousand times, it’s hard not to on the ten thousand and first punch: the punch that you throw at a real attacker.

“Our necessary safeguards can make you bad fighters. Blackguards can’t be bad fighters. Your class will be called on to fight and perhaps to die, perhaps soon, and if you don’t know how to kill your opponents first, a lot of you will die. Your class may have fourteen pass. May. Not will. So your class’s training is going to be different. Accelerated. Harder. We will not allow you to be second-rate. There is no substitute for experience, so experience you will get. This experience will cost some of you injuries that will put you out of contention for those fourteen slots. We’ve never done this before because it’s dangerous and it isn’t fair. But we’re out of time, so we’re doing what we have to. For some of you, the tests will be easy. For some they will be boring. For others, they will be literal fights to the death. These experiences will not be safe, will not be controlled. They may be too hard. You may be crippled or die. If you can’t accept this, you may leave. Now.”

No one left.

“Failure on these tests will not automatically bar you from advancement. But it will matter. You fail, you drop three spots. Blackguards deal with what we get, not what we want. Here are the rules: You and your partner will be taken to a point in Big Jasper in one of the worst neighborhoods. You’ll be given a handful of coins publicly, and then you must get those coins to the Great Fountain. You are forbidden to bring weapons or draft. To pass, you must bring back six of the eight danars you’re given. However many you bring back, you and your partner get to keep. If you don’t make it in three hours, we’ll come looking for you. But don’t expect any help. You’re alone out there.”

They drew straws for the order and an odd thing happened. The first team to draw drew number one, the second team number two, the third team number three. Trainer Fisk scowled and mixed the straws again. But the fourth drawers drew number four, the fifth number five. He mixed again, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. He frowned, but said nothing, and they dismissed it as a weird coincidence.

Adrasteia and Kip got a straw that put them in the last third. Not an auspicious beginning. Then they walked across town, led by Trainer Fisk and several of the older Blackguard trainees. Commander Ironfist didn’t accompany them. He had duties elsewhere.

The first pair to go was the mountain Parian girl, Gracia. She was lean as a willow and taller than most of the boys. Her partner was another Parian, still tall and lean, but not so dark as Gracia, and a lot uglier, Goss. He was one of the best fighters, but he had a habit of picking- scabs, nose, earwax-and eating it. He was within a hair’s breadth of earning the obvious nickname.

A sizable crowd had gathered to see what these Blackguards were doing in a bad neighborhood, and not all of the faces were friendly. Most were wary, but curious.

Trainer Fisk bade Gracia and Goss come forward, publicly handed them the eight danars, counting out the coins, then bound a red handkerchief around each one’s forehead. “Bring these safely to the Great Fountain. No one in the Blackguard and no one in the Chromeria is going to help you. If you lose these coins, it’s on your own head. You’re not allowed to use weapons. You’re not allowed to draft.”

Murmurs went through the crowd watching them. It wasn’t a fortune, but for an unskilled laborer it was as much as they could make in two weeks. And these children had it. And the watchers knew where the children were taking it, so they could guess what routes they’d take. And Trainer Fisk had just announced that the children wouldn’t be protected from on high.

Gracia and Goss were smart, though. Smarter than Teia would have credited. They ran.

If they went by a direct route, they would travel faster than the news could. In fact, depending on how long Fisk made the teams wait in between attempts, the same strategy might work for the first few teams. Anyone hoping to ambush the Blackguards coming through would have to hear the news and then have to take the time to gather their gang to do so.

After five minutes, Trainer Fisk announced it all again, bound the red handkerchiefs around the brows of the second team, and handed them their money. They ran, too.

The crowd of the curious continued to grow, but Kip was watching the edges of the crowd to see who was leaving, and Teia followed his gaze. She saw several young men go different ways, each looking furtively back toward the circle, as if afraid that their payday would leave.

The scrubs were talking among themselves, trying to figure out strategies. If Teia was doing the arithmetic right, she and Kip had almost two hours before it would be their turn. When she thought about how many thugs could be gathered in that time, her mouth went dry. They would come for money like sharks came for blood.

She was still thinking about it when she noticed that Kip had walked away.

“Where are you going?” Teia asked.

“Where all of you should be going,” Kip said.

“What?” she asked.

Every scrub’s eyes were on Kip, and no few of the crowd’s, now that he had been called out. “Scouting,” Kip said.

The scrubs looked at Trainer Fisk. He shrugged. “No rules but the rules you were given,” he said, bored.

Kip was brilliant. He’d seen it in a second: don’t obey what the rules mean, obey what the rules say. That was the test as much as getting the coins through safely.

Within another ten seconds, all the scrubs scattered, except those who were up next. Ferkudi and Daelos went from looking excited to be going so early to looking stricken, keenly aware of their sudden relative ignorance.

Teia and Kip made a slow circuit of the nearby streets. They didn’t speak.

After a while, they heard the sounds of a fight one block over. Teia ran toward the fight. Kip followed close after, though he was slower than she was.

“We don’t even have the money yet, you morons!” a wide girl whose name Teia didn’t know was shouting at some bloody-nosed tough on the ground in front of her. “Do you see the red kerchief?”

The girl’s partner, Rud, a squat coastal Parian who wore the ghotra, didn’t look angry or triumphant. He looked scared. He was bleeding from a deep gash in his shoulder.

“I should kill you!” the scrub girl shouted.

The tough scrambled back on all fours, then turned and ran.

Teia said, “We need to get you back to Trainer Fisk, Rud. Right away.”

He nodded, and together the four of them walked briskly the four blocks back to the square. Rud leaned on his partner and then on Kip, too, as his blood loss made him nearly faint. Teia walked ahead of them, on the lookout for threats.

On catching sight of them, Trainer Fisk ran to meet them. The Blackguard scrubs were only steps behind him. They took Rud, made him lie down, and instantly began tending to the cut.

Teia heard someone say, “Bite down on this, Rud. This is going to hurt.”

Then there was a quick flash of fire, and the stench of burned flesh and tea leaves and tobacco as they cauterized the cut with red luxin. Rud drummed his heels against the dirt and made a high-pitched whimper that trailed off quickly into deep, fast breaths.

One of the best boys in the class, Jun, came back into the square, pressing through the crowd. The next team was just about to leave, two skinny brothers who were in the bottom third of the scrubs.

Jun kept his voice down, but Teia heard him tell the brothers, “Don’t take Low Street. There’s a roadblock there. Twenty thugs, some of them armed. They already got Pip and Valor.”

Oh, lovely, that was where Teia was hoping to go. Well, that left only “Corbine Street’s blocked, too,” Jun’s partner Ular said.

Jun said, “The alleys through Weasel Rock looked clear, but they’re so narrow, two men could hold them.”

After making sure Rud was okay, and checking the wound, Trainer Fisk made his announcements again and handed the money to the Oros brothers.

“I’ve got a plan,” Teia said.

“Huh?” Kip said. “What is it?”

She made a noncommittal noise. “You’ll see.”

“Teia? Teia, you’re my partner. That means I’m your partner, too. You should tell me the plan.”

She grinned. “And spoil it for you?”

He glowered. “Fine, then. You have any food while I wait? I’m hungry.”

“No!”

“No, really, I am hungry. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

“Don’t be thick,” she said.

Kip held his hands up to himself as if measuring his thickness. He sighed. “Can’t help myself.”

She cracked a grin despite herself. “Give me your coins, when we start.”

“So I can’t buy a sweet roll?”

“No!”

“Yes, sir,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“It’s a good plan,” she said, suddenly defensive, suddenly aware of who she was teasing. You’re a slave, Teia.

“Mm.”

“It’ll work,” Teia said. “Promise.”

“Betcha anything it won’t.”

“What’ll you give me if it does?” Teia challenged.

“A kiss,” Kip said. Then his eyes got round. Like he couldn’t believe what he’d just said.

Teia felt totally frozen. Was he making fun of her? Wait, a kiss if she was right?

Kip saw the look on her face. He said, “I… um…”

“Kip, Teia, you’re up!” Trainer Fisk said. “Rud getting hurt put us behind schedule. Let’s go.”

Trainer Fisk ran through the announcement again, but Teia barely heard it. She handed her coins to Kip, not looking him in the eye. Trainer Fisk bound the red kerchiefs around their brows, and then Kip took off.

Despite his bulk, Kip seemed to have no trouble keeping up with her as she snaked through the crowd. She went down one block and then turned into a cooper’s shop, then through a smithy’s yard connected to it, and then ducked into another shop.

Teia was already at the counter when Kip joined her. “At the Great Fountain within two hours?” she said.

“Our man’s headed up that way in half an hour, so that’s no problem,” the grizzled old man behind the counter said.

Teia put the coins on the counter. “Delivery either to Kip here or Trainer Fisk, or Commander Ironfist?”

Kip tugged at Teia’s sleeve. “What are you doing?”

“It was your idea that got me going. Now shut up.”

She gave brief descriptions of Trainer Fisk and Commander Ironfist. Then she paid the courier fee-one danar-and asked, “Do you have a back door?”

The old man waved toward it.

“Thank you,” Teia said. She took the red kerchief off, and motioned for Kip to do the same. It wasn’t exactly a disguise, but with the Blackguard scrubs garb, she wasn’t going to be able to get both of them into disguises. “Kip, take off your kerchief.”

“Huh?”

“Off. Unless you want to get jumped.”

Kip took off his kerchief, getting it.

“Hold on,” Teia said.

“What?”

She licked her lips. “This was your idea, understand?”

“My… what? You know, I usually feel smarter than this.”

“I want you to act like all this was your idea.”

“Why?”

“Just do!”

He stood there, as mobile as a sack of paving stones, nonplussed.

She grimaced. “It’s part of my strategy to make it into the Blackguard.”

“Giving other people credit for what you do right? Ingenious.”

“Look at me,” she said. “I’m not tall, not muscular, not a bichrome. I’m fast, but I’m a girl and a subchromat. I want everyone to underestimate me, Kip. If they think I’m smart, they’ll take me seriously. If they take me seriously, I won’t make it in.” She gripped the little vial on her necklace unconsciously. “Without my mind, I’m not good enough to make it in. Please.”

He raised his hands. “I’ll help you however I can. You’re sure?”

“A thousand times yes.”

He followed her lead. They walked to the Great Fountain via Corbine Street. They passed one group of young men who gave them hard stares, but by now the gangs had heard about the scrubs with money wearing the red kerchief, and because the scrubs’ training clothes didn’t have any pockets and Teia’s and Kip’s hands were open, it was clear that they didn’t have anything.

The men, some of them bloodied from encounters with the other scrubs, let them through without saying a word.

When they got to the Great Fountain, though, only Commander Ironfist was there.

“You can show me your money,” the commander said. He looked pointedly at their lack of red kerchiefs.

“Where are the others?” Kip asked instead. Teia watched him nervously. So rude! — and to Commander Ironfist!

The commander leveled his gaze on Kip and said nothing.

Kip looked away, glowered, but said nothing either.

Anything Teia said would just bring her between Rock and Hard Case, so she kept her peace. What did her father like to say? “She who gets in the middle of a pissing match will only get wet.”

Then she realized Kip was doing it for her. He wasn’t being obstinate, he was pretending to be obstinate to deflect any questions. He was alienating himself from Commander Ironfist-for Teia’s sake. It almost made the brittle, fearful part of her soften. She knew how much Kip thought of the commander.

The Great Fountain capped the artesian well that provided much of Big Jasper’s freshwater. Large underground pipes took water to four other public areas of the city and each of the embassies, and the Chromeria had its own well, but for the poorer residents, the Great Fountain was their sole source of water. Most made the trek at least once a day, if not multiple times.

The fountain itself was crowned by a glass statue of Karris Shadowblinder, the second Prism. She’d been Lucidonius’s widow. Face upturned toward heaven, toward Orholam’s eye, instead of standing, she was suspended by the twin jets of luxin pouring out of her hands toward the ground. Wearing only a shift, she had the lean body and the broad muscular shoulders of a fighter. Teia had always liked that about the statue. No soft lady of leisure, she. Like the drafters who would follow her, Karris the First’s body had been shaped by the pure physical work of hurling luxin as much as she had shaped history by using it.

At all hours of the day, at least one of the Thousand Stars cast its light on the glass statue, illuminating it more brightly than the sun alone could. And several would illuminate it with the last and first rays of every day, making it a beacon in the darkness.

Around the merry splashing of the fountains’ multiple jets, the seven-pointed star took water out to seven jets, allowing for lines to form easily and move efficiently.

At this time of day, there were only a few people in short lines, filling their buckets, setting them on yokes that they lay across their shoulders-or over their heads, in the case of the Atashians-and heading home. A number of shops lined the circle around the Great Fountain, and all of them were prosperous. No stalls were allowed here, nor beggars, which meant that both moved to clog the streets leading to the circle.

Teia sat on one of the benches at the fountain’s edge. She wanted to touch the water, but she didn’t. Jasperites were fiercely particular about their water. Some overzealous chirurgeon had given them notions that you would get sick if you so much as drank a cup of water from the same trough where you’d washed your hands. No arguing with people’s superstitions, Teia supposed.

She hadn’t been daydreaming for five minutes when she heard yelling. Triumphant vaunting. The rest of the scrubs. They were carrying Cruxer on their shoulders, almost the whole class-minus her and Kip.

The boys put Cruxer down in front of Commander Ironfist.

Cruxer beamed, but tried to put on a serious face.

Teia studied them. At least a dozen of them had obviously been in a fight. Clothes disheveled, a chipped tooth in a grinning mouth there, a bloody nose here, an eye swelling shut on one of the prettiest girls in the class, Lucia, a number of them favoring sore hands, bleeding knuckles.

Cruxer waved a hand forward. The class lined up before Commander Ironfist, and now Trainer Fisk who rode in on a horse and dismounted to stand beside his superior. Each team came forward and presented Commander Ironfist with their coins.

It wasn’t everyone. Eight teams had failed, and they glumly walked off to one side, empty-handed.

Teia searched the crowd and finally found Kip. He looked nervous. Great.

“Cruxer, report,” Trainer Fisk said.

“Sir, after my partner Lucia and I brought our coins here, we went back and rallied the others. Together, we broke the gang’s blockade and brought our coins through.” He swallowed. “You did, um, say that the only rules were the rules you’d said.”

“So you took what I’d designed to be an individual test and turned it into a corporate one,” Commander Ironfist said flatly.

“It was too danger-”

“Yes or no.”

“Yes, sir,” Cruxer said. He swallowed again, but didn’t look away.

Ironfist said, “Well done, Cruxer. This is exactly what I was hoping for.”

A cheer broke out and Cruxer seemed to deflate with relief.

When the scrubs quieted again, Ironfist said, “You stood together and you accomplished a job you couldn’t have otherwise. For the Blackguard, the job is all that matters. To the evernight with your pride. You accomplish your job in the most efficient way possible, and the safest way possible. We don’t do this for valor or for glory, we do our job. Now, anyone else, or are we finished?”

The courier rode up then. She was a skinny Tyrean woman, wearing a sword and a brace of pistols. “Pardon me, my lords. Commander Ironfist?”

“I am he,” the commander rumbled.

“This package is for you, from a Kip and Adrasteia.” The courier handed over a bag and then left. The commander opened it, poured the coins out into his hand.

Murmurs. Not altogether appreciative.

“Kip,” Commander Ironfist said. “I assume this was your idea?”

“Yes, sir,” Kip said. Teia could practically hear Kip gulping from here. She said nothing, hoping the commander would ignore her. It simultaneously elated her that her gambit was working and broke her heart that Commander Ironfist assumed it had been Kip’s idea.

“You took your coins to a courier, and then just walked through?”

“Yes, sir,” Kip said.

Teia knew Ironfist’s face would tell her nothing, so she looked at the faces of the other scrubs. Chagrin, consternation, irritation. They had needed to fight to get through. Or run like hell. Kip had cheated. Kip had cheated. They didn’t even see her.

Of course, they had cheated, too, but their cheating had still involved fighting. Their cheating had been honorable. Surely Kip and Teia would be punished.

Commander Ironfist raised a hand, palm down. “Everything has a price. You lot chose to pay the price in flesh. Kip chose to pay in coin. Some of you got off without getting hurt, but some of you did. Our bodies are our coin. Our bodies, ultimately, are all that we Blackguards have. You chose to risk your bodies. Kip and Teia used their minds instead. If instead of coins, I’d given you the White to protect, which would have been better? Running a gauntlet and valiantly risking her death, or sneaking her through in some way no one expected? Kip, Teia, you did well. You each move up two places. Cruxer, Lucia, you each move up two places-of course, you’re in the top spot, Cruxer, so you stay where you are. So we’ll make it so that this week you can’t be challenged out of first. Next week, you’re back in the mix. Those of you who came back with no coins, you each move down two places. Tonight, we go out to a nice inn together-those of you who brought coins through can spend it all, but I expect you to also take care of those who don’t get any coins. We’re a unit. We’re the best. We look after each other.”

And so they did. They ate and drank-Commander Ironfist paying for their meals, the scrubs buying each other drinks until they all got tipsy and Trainer Fisk cut them off. They regaled each other with tales of their own heroics and reenacted epic fights, perhaps a little exaggerated. Eventually, both the commander and trainer excused themselves, no doubt to do more work.

At first there was some carping against Kip and Teia taking the easy way out, but when Cruxer came over and praised them as doing a smarter thing than even he had done, the complaining was ended, the rift was mended, and they became one class again, with Kip and maybe even Teia held in higher regard than before.

Teia barely spoke all night, but she soaked it up. It was light and life to her. She’d never felt part of something before, and she would pay anything to keep this. When she found herself stroking her necklace, she realized that for the first time, she was touching it with hope in her heart. Hope that she might actually throw the damned thing into the fire, and to hell with Aglaia Crassos.

Later, she was finally coaxed into drinking a single huge glass of ale. She felt like she was floating the rest of the night, drunk on companionship, drunk on belonging, maybe just drunk.

The scrubs walked home in a raucous pack, and no one even shushed them. But as they passed over the Lily’s Stem, Kip and Teia walking at the back of the pack with Cruxer and his partner, Lucia, Teia remembered something.

“Hey, you know that Blackguards are forbidden to have relationships with each other, right?” Teia was talking to Kip, but Cruxer and Lucia shot startled, guilty looks at her.

Kip looked terrifically scandalized. “Um, yes? Sure. Of course.”

“Then you should know that this isn’t that,” Teia said, still feeling warm inside. “This is just because of our ridiculous bet.”

Kip shrank into himself. “Um, you really don’t have-”

Teia put her hands on both sides of Kip’s face and kissed him full on the lips. When she released him, he looked so poleaxed that she burst out laughing.

“Ooh, I want to make a ridiculous bet,” Lucia said.

“No!” Kip said, jolted out of his stupor, hands rising defensively.

“Not with you, Kip!” Lucia said, laughing.

Kip put his hands over his face. “Let me die now, please.”

Cruxer threw his arm around Kip’s shoulders as the rest of the youths began to slow down and turn around to see what was so funny. “They do it to us all, Kip. They do it to us all.”