Fire

Chapter Twenty-Five

Both Gentian and Gu

A shield with Quislam's colours was propped against a footstool. Fire saw that the carpet was a patchwork of squares in rust, brown, and red; the curtains red; the sofa and chairs brown. At least they wouldn't have to worry about bloodstains. She soaked in the feeling of these two men, and knew immediately where the trouble would lie in this room. Of course it would not be with Gentian, so charming and so blitheringly happy to see her, so easy for even her torpid mind to invade that she would have wondered how such a man could ever have risen to a place of power, had the answer not stood scowling before her in the form of Gu

He was a bit like Nash used to be: unpredictable, confusing, too much for her to control, but not entirely under his own control either. He began to prowl back and forth along the wall, his eyes always on her. And though he was not a big man or imposing, something tight and smooth in his movements caused Fire to see suddenly why the others had been worried. He was a calculating creature with a capacity for strong, fast viciousness.

"Won't you sit down, Gu

"And what can we do for you, darling child?" Gentian said, slightly drunk and bouncing in his seat with happiness.

How she wished she could go slowly. But her time in this room was borrowed from Lord Quislam.

"I want to join your side," she said. "I want your protection."

"You're not to be trusted, looking like that," Gu

Gentian chided his son. "Gu

"Mydogg does not care what we do, as long as it's to his advantage," Gu

"Enough," Gentian said, his voice suddenly sharp and commanding. Gu

"And how long have you been allied with Mydogg?" Fire asked, turning i

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 pla

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, Gu

Gu

"You've lost your mind," Gentian said indignantly, staring at his son.

"You have no mind to lose," Gu

"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."

Gu

Gu