Fire - Kristin Cashore [114]
‘Enough,’ Gentian said, his voice suddenly sharp and commanding. Gunner glowered, but made no retort.
‘And how long have you been allied with Mydogg?’ Fire asked, turning innocent eyes to Gentian.
She latched tightly to Gentian’s mind and directed him to speak.
SOME TWENTY MINUTES later she had learned, and conveyed to the siblings, that Mydogg and Gentian had allied themselves largely in response to the lady monster joining the ranks of the king, and that Hart had only told part of the story when he’d said Gentian planned to attack Fort Flood with his force of ten thousand. Really Gentian would attack Fort Flood with fifteen thousand. After they had allied, Mydogg had moved five thousand of his own Pikkian recruits piecemeal to Gentian, through the tunnels.
It had not been easy to play-act delight at that particular piece of news. It meant Brigan would be outnumbered by five thousand at Fort Flood. But perhaps it also meant that the rest of Mydogg’s army, wherever it was hiding, only numbered fifteen thousand or so? Perhaps the other two branches of the King’s Army plus all the auxiliaries could then meet Mydogg on equal ground . . .
‘Our spies tell us you’ve been looking all over the kingdom for Mydogg’s army,’ Gentian said now, interrupting her calculations. He giggled, playing around with a knife he’d pulled from his boot because his son, pacing and snarling, was making him nervous. ‘I can tell you why you haven’t found it. It’s on the sea.’
‘On the sea,’ Fire said, genuinely surprised.
‘Yes,’ Gentian said, ‘Mydogg has twenty thousand strong - ah, I see that number impresses you? He’s always recruiting, that Mydogg. Yes, he’s got twenty thousand strong on the sea, just out of sight of Marble Rise, in a hundred Pikkian boats. And fifty more Pikkian boats, carry nothing but horses. They’re big boat people, you know, the Pikkians. Lady Murgda’s own husband’s a boat type. An explorer, until Mydogg got him interested in the business of war. Sit down, Gunner,’ Gentian said sharply, reaching out to Gunner as he loomed past, slapping Gunner’s arm with the flat of his knife.
Gunner swung on his father abruptly, grappled for the knife, wrested it from Gentian’s grip, and flung it at the far wall. It screeched against stone and thumped onto the rug, bent crooked. Fire kept her face still so he would not know how much he’d frightened her.
‘You’ve lost your mind,’ Gentian said indignantly, staring at his son.
‘You have no mind to lose,’ Gunner snarled. ‘Have we any secrets you haven’t told yet to the king’s monster pet? Go on, tell her the rest, and when you’re done, I’ll break her neck.’
‘Nonsense,’ Gentian said sternly. ‘You’ll do no such thing.’
‘Go on, tell her.’
‘I’ll tell her nothing until you’ve sat down, and apologised, and shown you can behave yourself.’
Gunner made a noise of impatient disgust and came to stand before Fire. He stared at her face, and then quite shamelessly at her breasts.
Gunner is unstable, Fire told Brigan. He’s winged a knife at the wall and broken it.
Can you get more out of them about the boats? Brigan thought back. How many horses?
Before Fire could ask, Gunner touched a finger to her collarbone and Fire dropped her perception of Brigan, of Gentian, of the whole rest of the palace. She put everything into Gunner, into fighting his intent, for she knew his attention and his hand were tending downward and she thought she might lose hold of him entirely if she allowed him a handful of her breast, which was what he wanted, or more accurately, what he wanted to start with.
And she did get his hand to rise, but it rose to her throat, and encircled it, and very slightly squeezed. For a long second Fire could not breathe, she could not find her brain. He was choking her.
‘Mydogg thinks the crown will send reinforcements south to Fort Flood when we attack,’ Gunner said, whispering, and finally letting her go. ‘Maybe even a whole branch of the King’s Army, if not two branches. And when the north is less crowded with the king’s soldiers, Mydogg will send word for the beacons