Is there anything else you need to know about Mydogg?
There was not.
She rose to her feet, staggered to the sofa, and leaned against it, eyes closed, until the pain of her head became something she thought she could bear. Then come down. This interview has come to the end of its usefulness. They're fighting each other. She watched Gunner shove his father against the glass of the balcony door. They're grappling against the balcony door this moment.
And then, because Brigan was coming and when he did he would be in danger, she brought each of her ankles up to her hands, one at a time – vaguely suspecting that if she did it the other way, reaching hands down to feet, her head would fall off and roll away. She pulled her knives from their holsters. She stumped closer to the struggling men, both too preoccupied to notice her or the knives in her hands. She blotted her bleeding face on her gorgeous purple sleeve, and teetered, and waited.
It wasn't long. She felt Brigan and saw him almost at the same time, saw him yank the balcony door open and Gentian fall out through the opening, saw Gentian surge back in again, but different now, because his mind was gone, he was just a body now, a dagger was in his back, and Brigan was pushing him violently to get him out of the way and to give Gunner a thing to trip over as Brigan descended with his sword.
It was a horrible thing to watch, actually, Brigan killing Gunner. He smashed his sword hilt into Gunner's face, so hard Gunner's face changed shape. He kicked Gunner full onto his back and, his expression smooth and focused, drove his sword into Gunner's heart. That was it, it was so quick, and so brutal, and then he was upon her, worried, helping her to the sofa, finding a cloth for her face, all too fast for her to take control of the horror she was sending out to him.
He felt it, and understood it. His own face closed. His inspection of her injuries changed to something clinical and emotionless.
She caught his sleeve. "It startled me," she whispered. "That's all."
There was shame in his eyes. She held tighter to his sleeve.
"I won't let you be ashamed before me," she said. "Please, Brigan. We're the same. What I do only looks less horrible." And, she added, understanding it only as she said it, even if this part of you frightens me, I have no choice but to like it, for it's a part of you that will keep you safe in the war. I want you to live. I want you to kill those who would kill you.
He didn't say anything. But after a moment he leaned in again to touch the bones of her cheek and chin, gently, no longer avoiding her eyes, and she knew he accepted what she'd said. He cleared his throat. "Your nose is broken," he said. "I can set it for you."
"Yes, all right. Brigan, there's a laundry chute outside, just down the hall. We need to find sheets or something to wrap up the bodies, and you need to carry them to the chute and drop them in. I'll tell Welkley to clear all the servants out of the northernmost laundry room and to get ready to deal with an enormous mess. We have to hurry."
"Yes, good plan," Brigan said. He took tight hold of the back of her head. "Try to keep still." And then he grasped her face and did something that hurt far more than Gunner's blow had, and Fire cried out, and battled him with both her fists.
"All right," he gasped, letting go of her face and catching her arms, though not before she hit him hard in the side of the head. "I'm sorry, Fire. It's done. Sit back and let me handle the bodies. You need to rest, so you can guide us through what's left tonight." He jumped up and disappeared into the bedroom.
"What's left," Fire murmured, still crying slightly from the pain. She leaned on the armrest of the sofa and breathed until the ache of her face receded and stabilised, joining the blunt throbbing rhythm of the misery of her head. Slowly, softly, she pushed her mind to travel all around the palace and the grounds, touching on Murgda, touching on Murgda's and Gentian's people, touching on their allies, latching onto Quislam and his wife. She found Welkley and conveyed her instructions.
Blood was in her mouth, dripping down the back of her throat. Just as the sensation became intolerably disgusting Brigan appeared at her elbow, sheets slung over his shoulder, and plunked a bowl of water and cups and cloths on the table before her. He moved on to the bodies of Gentian and Gunner and set to bundling them up. Fire rinsed out her mouth and ran her mind again through the palace.
For a moment at the edges of her perception she thought that someone felt wrong, out of place. On the grounds? In the green house? Who was it? The feeling disappeared, and she couldn't locate it again, which was frustrating, and unsettling, and thoroughly exhausting. She watched Brigan wrap Gunner's body in a sheet, his own face dark with bruises, his hands and his sleeves covered with Gunner's blood.
"Our army is greatly outnumbered," she said. "Everywhere."
"They've been trained with that expectation in mind," he said flatly. "And thanks to you, we have the element of surprise on both fronts. You've done more tonight than any of us could have hoped. I've already sent messages north to the Third and Fourth and most of the auxiliaries – soon they'll be consolidated on the shore north of the city and Nash will ride to join them. And I've sent an entire battalion to Marble Rise to take charge of the beacons and pick off any messengers heading for the boats. You see how it's laid out? Once the Third and Fourth are in position, we'll light the beacons ourselves. Mydogg's army will make land, suspecting nothing, and we'll attack them, with the sea to their back. And where they outnumber us with men we'll outnumber them with horses – they can't have more than four or five thousand on the boats – and their horses will be in no state to fight after weeks on the sea. It'll help. Maybe make up a bit for our own daftness in not realising that Mydogg might be building a navy with his Pikkian friends."
It was difficult for Fire to wipe blood from her nose without touching it. "Murgda's a problem," she said, gasping at the pain. "Eventually someone's going to notice Gentian and Gunner are missing, and then Murgda will suspect what we've done and what we know."
"It almost doesn't matter, as long as none of her messengers are able to reach those boats."
"Yes, all right, but there are a hundred people at court this minute who'll be willing to make a go at being the one messenger who gets through."
Brigan tore a sheet in half with a massive ripping sound. "Do you think you could get her out of her rooms?"
Fire closed her eyes and touched on Murgda. Any change of heart, Lady Murgda? she thought, trying not to sound as weak as she felt. I'm resting in my bedroom. You're welcome to join me.
Murgda responded with scorn, and with the same recalcitrance she'd displayed before. She had no intention of going anywhere near Lady Fire's rooms.
"I don't think so," Fire said.
"Well then, for now we'll just have to keep her from suspecting for as long as we can, however we can. The longer it takes, the more time we have to set our own wheels into motion. The shape of the war is ours to choose now, Lady."
"We've done Mydogg an enormous favour. I suppose he'll be the commander of Gentian's army now. He'll no longer have to share."
Brigan knotted a last sheet and stood. "I doubt he ever meant to share for long, anyway. Mydogg was always the more real threat. Is the hallway clear? Shall I get on with this?"
A very good reason to get on with it bubbled into Fire's mind. She sighed. "The master of the guard is calling to me. One of Quislam's servants is coming, and – and Quislam's wife, and a number of guards. Yes, go," she said, pushing herself to her feet, dumping her bowl of bloody water into a plant beside the sofa. "Oh! Where's my mind? How are you and I to leave this room?"