Karris was ashamed that her first reaction wasn’t joy that her old friend was alive, or that he was free, or that he was in charge.

Ironfist hadn’t claimed the title satrap. He hadn’t become Nuqaba.

Ironfist is calling himself king.

Chapter 72

“I can’t decide if I’m going to be moved to tears or throw up,” Cruxer said.

“There’s a good reason for that,” Tisis said.

The procession into the city wasn’t what Kip had expected. He wasn’t sure what that had been; it wasn’t as if he’d fantasized about being a conqueror. But as his army snaked in through the streets toward the Palace of the Divines, they saw that the city was in a horrific state. It was far worse than they’d been led to believe.

Which made sense, Kip realized. A besieged city had every reason to hide how bad things were.

Gaunt men and women holding sickly children and limp babies cheered as if to make up with enthusiasm for lacking any tangible way to show their appreciation. But there was a troubling undercurrent here, too. A look on some faces like that of a beaten dog cowering under a raised fist.

“They’re afraid of us,” Kip said suddenly. It was what Tisis had been hinting.

“What?” Cruxer asked in disbelief.

“If you let a strange army into your city, how do you stop them from doing whatever they want?” Tisis asked.

Kip looked around, sickened. Sad excuses for little banners of welcome waved from open windows and balconies. Instead of the famed living wood that the city was famous for, most of the buildings were built of the white granite that was so plentiful in the area. Everywhere, though, Kip saw the Foresters’ art, from carvings of intricate zoomorphic dogs and tygre wolves to the more typical infinite knots, plaits, braids, spirals, and step-and-key patterns for love, for husband and wife and children and clan, for eternal life, for the relations of nature and man and their gods, for life above and life below and for life and death and renewal.

Despite its power at the time, this civilization had converted with little or no force. Lucidonius’s teachings had made sense to these people, as if his ideas filled in the gaps that had left them puzzled, and contradicted only those things in their own practices that had left them uneasy. They had already revered the number seven: not only did they see it in their colors, but they arranged the world into what they called the seven creations: man, mammal, fish, reptile, bird, insect, and plant.

But all the grandeur of the city now was tarnished, a mock. Starving people had not the energy to clean their homes and streets or even themselves. Rubbish heaps had been plundered and the detritus left scattered about, not least on the faces of these walking skeletons in their rags.

“The city wasn’t under siege that long,” Kip said. “It shouldn’t be this bad. Are those burn marks on the walls? Were there riots here?”

“My spies haven’t reported yet,” Tisis said. “I don’t know what happened.”

Kip looked back at his lackluster parade: men and women literally bloodied, the grime and sweat and soot of the battlefield still on them, some limping, some still bleeding after refusing medical care because they didn’t want to disappoint their leader or leave their friends… all marching to impress whom? A starving crowd? The city leaders?

These people didn’t need to be impressed. They needed to be fed.

“What are we doing?” Kip said. “A military procession to the heart of the city? Why? Because that’s what people do? None of the people here have ever done it or ever seen it. There’s a place for spectacle, but it’s not here.”

Kip threw a flare into the sky to signal a stop.

It takes some time for an entire army to stop, though, and while the appropriate people got in their places for further orders, Sibéal Siofra said, “I know what you’re going to do, and while I admire the heart behind it, Lord Guile, it’s not a good idea. Think about the logistics—”

“I’ve thought of them,” Kip said. But he didn’t explain.

“What’s he going to do?” Ferkudi tried to whisper.

“He’s going to give away our food,” Cruxer said.

“He’s not going to give our food away,” Ben-hadad said. “Because that would be idiotic.”

“I’m giving our food away,” Kip told Ferkudi.

“Kip,” Ben-hadad said, “if you give away our food, the army stops. Period. We go nowhere, we do nothing, people start leaving within a couple days. If the army stops, the Blood Robes can kill as many Foresters as they want, including everyone in this city. In the long run, it’s not a mercy to—”

“Give away the food!” Kip commanded. “All of it. Section commanders, carry out the original plan, but begin now, and take all of our food rather than what we’d apportioned before.”

Sibéal huffed and Ben-hadad lifted his heavy spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Tell me you’ve got a plan,” Ben-hadad said. “Please.”

“Drafters, cavalry, and the Mighty with me,” Kip said. “I want our camp followers in here mending and washing clothes and cleaning streets. Anything that needs to be done and can be done in two days, do it. Looting or assault will earn hanging. Remind them to go in teams. Even killings in self-defense will be considered murder if there aren’t two corroborating witnesses.” Last thing Kip needed was some young assholes to antagonize the whole city.

The army didn’t dissolve at once, of course. But commanders began booming out orders, filling in their people on what they were about to do, and messengers exploded from the column like hornets from an upended nest.

Kip gave the signal, and the column began moving again, but now, as it got deeper into the city, sections broke off, each with its own wagons of provisions. It took a lot of work to give away something properly.

Gradually the signs of the city’s impoverishment cleared until they reached the great gate into the part of the city called the Sanctum of the Divines. Here there were undeniable scorch marks from at least one earlier riot. The great gate was now open, though.

Here, as at the wall, the posts of the gate were trees. But these weren’t sabino cypresses. They were atasifusta, though sadly no longer living. Kip hadn’t known that there were any left standing in the world. Atasifusta were the only known plant that converted sunlight into something a lot like red luxin. Except it was a more potent red luxin than man had ever drafted. A single stick of the stuff would burn for many days without being consumed. Its usefulness had doomed it to extinction. Families still passed down single sticks of the stuff. A few shavings made a perfect fire starter, or the whole stick could be set alight to help light damp wood, and then extinguished with no appreciable loss to its mass. It had found worse uses in war, the sawdust being a precursor to black powder.