The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(79)

Kestrel had paused, fingers on the worn map.

“She can’t know for certain,” Arin said.

“Here’s what I would do if I were him,” she said. “I’d be in the front ranks, where I’d keep most of my cavalry—the officers. New recruits would be behind the supply wagons, which I’d keep in the middle. Infantry in the back, with a few trusted officers just in case. I’d choose officers who wouldn’t complain about being in the rearguard with the lower ranks. They’d be experienced. They’d be good. But there’d be few. Archers and crossbows flanking the regiment, ready to target the hills. He’ll know there’s a risk of a skirmish. It’d make sense, if we were readying for a siege at Errilith, to send small groups to harass their progress north. He’d expect the supplies to be targeted. If we destroy the wagons, we cut the legs out from under him. It’s not that an attack would be a complete surprise. It’s the force of our attack, and our ability to use a weapon he can’t contend with, that give us our best advantages.”

“So we give him what he expects,” Arin said. “A small company of ours can attack the front lines, draw the general’s attention while our larger force prepares to bucket the rearguard. The general should pull his defenses forward. We might even separate them from the center. Their officers wear metal armor. Volleys from the guns will be more effective on the center and rear. The gunners should drop as many soldiers as possible around the wagons—and, gods help us, the cannons.”

“A small company attacking the Valorians’ front ranks,” Roshar mused. “How delightfully suicidal. Perfect for you, Arin.”

“But,” said Kestrel.

They both looked at her, and she could tell from the set of Arin’s jaw that Roshar had said only what Arin already planned to do anyway. Arin’s eyes were overcast. They had a distant, difficult regard that sent a chill down her spine. It made her wonder whether Arin’s god was real after all. If he was there right now inside Arin, whispering to him.

“You command this force,” Kestrel told Roshar. “It should be you. Arin can attack the rearguard.”

With a smirk, Roshar said, “No, that pleasant task is mine. You, little ghost, stay with the guns.”

Kestrel’s fingers tightened. “You’re placing me in the safest position.”

“I’m placing you where you won’t be seen by your father.”

She thought of the general seeing her. She thought of him not seeing her. Both thoughts were paralyzing.

“You’re not so different from one of those guns,” Roshar said. “A secret weapon. The general must know you’ve escaped the work camp, must guess where you went—if you survived the tundra. But will he think you’re here, with this army? He might, eventually. He might recognize your hand in these dealings whether he sees you or not. But I would rather—and I’m sure Arin would very much rather—that he have no confirmation of your presence.”

She started to protest.

“You swore an oath to me,” Roshar said cheerfully. “A Valorian honors her word.”

Seeing that his last words made her pale with fury, he grinned and left.

“You want me with the guns, too,” Kestrel told Arin.

“Roshar’s not wrong.”

“He’s choosing according to his own best interests.”

His brow furrowed. “Positioning you with the guns gains him little, personally.”

“What about your position against the general’s forward ranks?”

“Sometimes Roshar plays the selfish prince so that no one expects anything better of him. It’s not who he is. He’s choosing well. For me, he’s chosen what I would have chosen for myself. I want the front lines.”

Kestrel remembered Arin’s words now as she waited in the trees with the gunners, who’d been placed under her command. She remembered how she’d wanted to explain to him that it had rattled her to try to slip into her father’s mind, to know that the general’s mind and her own felt upsettingly similar. She’d wanted to put her fear inside a white box and give it to Arin.

You, too, she would tell him. I fear for you. I fear for me if I lost you.

War is no place for fear, said the memory of her father’s voice.

“Take care,” she’d told Arin.

He’d smiled.

And now he was below, out of sight, beyond the curve of the empty road.

The sun poured down. The gunners had loaded their weapons. Kestrel watched the road, dagger ready.

Cicadas. The flit of birdwings.

Maybe her father had recognized that the coded letter was false.

Maybe he wouldn’t take the bait.

A breath of wind. Hours passed, slow as the sweat traveling down Kestrel’s back.

Her limbs ached from being in the same position. She felt a strange energy slip over her and the gunners, an elastic tension that went tight at the smallest sound, then slackened in the heat, the waiting.

Dream, wait, startle, wait, dream.

The gunners, like her, crouched among ferns and saplings. Guns angled down. Small eastern crossbows were at the ready. A sirrin tree dripped orange sap, its spindly branches low and sticky.

Kestrel watched the road.

The rapid toc toc toc of a bird’s beak against bark. The brush of leaves. Then—faintly, stronger . . . the rhythm of thousands of boots on the paved road.