Gavin hated poets. He and Ironfist had gathered food and weapons and taken a scull out into open waters.

“You going to suit up?” Gavin asked, pulling on armor.

“I’ve skimmed with you before,” Ironfist said.

“And?”

“I prefer not to strap on weights when I may have to swim.”

Ah yes, not everyone could swim in full armor. Benefit of being me.

“Rough weather today,” Ironfist said.

That was all he said, but Gavin could tell he wasn’t looking forward to going at extremely high speed over large waves. No wonder he didn’t want his armor.

But in another minute, they were off across the waves. As before, Ironfist made an excellent partner on the skimmer, and their combined effort made them move quickly enough that Gavin was able to use the foils to lift the skimmer mostly free of the water. That was good, because the chop was rough today, up to two paces high. With the skimmer’s foils just right, Gavin was able to keep the boat mostly level. If they’d been right on the surface, it would have been a horrendous trip, impossible, really.

After a few hours, though, they escaped the poor weather.

They found the Atashian coast, and Gavin skimmed west until he saw a bay that he recognized. Between the incredible speed at which they’d traveled and the impossibility of taking accurate navigational readings while in the middle of the chop, they’d ended up thirty leagues off course. That much error for a normal ship could mean an extra day at sea. Not for them.

They’d overshot the Color Prince’s army, going too far south. Ironfist drafted a binocle, and they saw several Ilytian ships. Traders, supplying the army. Civilians, but civilians possibly carrying guns and powder that would wreak havoc on the peaceful innocents of Ru.

Gavin looked at Ironfist. Ironfist shook his head.

He was right. Scout first. Fight later.

They skimmed through the emerald waters off Idoss, giving it a wide berth. People in towers with spyglasses with fine lenses would see them long before they could gather any intelligence. They passed more ships, almost all of them heading west, supplying the army, too, no doubt.

It wasn’t good. A few Ilytian ships could simply be enterprising traders who knew they could make a quick profit. But seeing dozens of galleys from Idoss, coccas from Ruthgar (meaningless because many merchants owned those), and caravels from Garriston meant that whatever government the advancing army had left behind was actually doing its best to support the invasion. That meant reasonably good governance. As Gavin knew, the first sign of trouble is when those cities you’ve subdued stop sending you supplies. If Garriston had been turned into a city that could export goods in only a few months, that meant that the Color Prince was doing a better job governing it when he wasn’t there than the rapacious Ruthgari governor had done when he was there. Not good news.

They spent the rest of the day scouting, not daring to head too near Ruic Head, where the fort would doubtless have good spotters, but taking note of exactly how many ships they passed, and the places where they might have missed ships. The biggest thing they learned simply from the positions of the ships was that Gavin had been right. The army was perhaps six days’ march from Ru. That meant the ships coming to help from the Chromeria would arrive only a day before the Color Prince’s army. If the weather cooperated.

Not enough time. It took men time to move barrels of powder into place in a city under siege. It took them time to figure where the best shooting angles were, and to train to remember the angles in the heat and panic of battle. It took time for men to establish infirmaries and barracks in the most logical places, and to determine which units would work with which, and for officers to figure out which of their ally’s officers were morons. Coordination, logistics, backup plans, strongpoints, which places must be defended at all costs and which could be yielded and retaken at grievous cost to the enemy—all these took time. It wasn’t enough to put a few thousand men in a city, and that was what Gavin was afraid his father was going to do.

Andross Guile, for all his intelligence, was a politician and a drafter, not a general. Gavin couldn’t hate him for it. It was how he saw himself, too. Men like Corvan Danavis had different strengths, and Gavin had learned to trust him more than himself. At the Battle of Ivor’s Ridge, he’d seen a platoon, cut down to half strength, isolated and hard pressed on his army’s left flank. If they’d crumpled, the line would have shattered, and they’d been outnumbered at least three to one.

Dazen had called off the charge he’d been planning, in order to go reinforce them.

General Danavis had stopped him. “I know those men,” he’d said. “They’ll hold. Now go.”

Dazen did, and had won the battle. Without his charge into the center, the center would have broken. He hadn’t even seen it, hadn’t known how bad the center was until he arrived there with two hundred horse and fifty mounted drafters. Corvan had, and he’d been right about the platoon on the flank, too. If Dazen had done what he thought instead, they’d have lost. He might have escaped after that battle, but his army would have been destroyed.

Andross Guile, on the other hand, would never trust anyone more than himself.

Gavin and Ironfist returned after sunset, sculling the last leagues to hide the skimmer. They didn’t return to the Chromeria, though. Instead, they met the first ships of the invasion force.

Ironfist went off to check where his Blackguards were berthed, while Gavin went to find the generals. He briefed them on everything he’d found and ignored their questions about how he’d learned the exact locations of enemy ships, in real time, halfway across the sea.

Worse, he could tell that the fools didn’t believe him.

Gavin made sure a secretary wrote it all down. “Just keep two sets of plans,” Gavin said. “In one, do whatever you were already planning to do with what limited intelligence you have.” Gavin meant it both ways, of course. “In the other, plan as if everything I say is true. Soon enough, you’ll know which to use.”

He left them then, and went to the cabin some noble had been evicted from as soon as the men on the ship saw Gavin arrive. Tomorrow, he would go back out and sink as many ships as possible. It was a damned thing, war. He didn’t like killing merchants, and he liked killing the slaves forced to row their ships even less, but that which strengthens your enemy must be denied him.

Orholam, if you existed, if you walked the earth as a man, what would you do?

There was a knock at the door. Orholam was fast some days.

It was Kip. “Kip?” Gavin said, surprised.

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t mean I’d forgotten who you were,” Gavin said.

“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. Of course not.”

Gavin smiled, though he was exhausted, and beckoned the boy in.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” Kip said. “The runts—I mean the Blackguard inductees—”

“I know what they call inductees, Kip,” Gavin said. He smiled. It took a long time to gain respect among the Blackguard. Scrubs, runts, wobs, nunks—they had plenty of derogatory names that didn’t stop until the last vows. Even then, the first year for a full Blackguard was usually hell.

“Yes, sir, of course.” Kip blushed. “The commander said war’s coming, and there’s no way to prepare for war like being close enough to smell its breath, sir. We’re to help move supplies and civilians. We’ll be off the front lines, but not quite safe, he said.”