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“He bears a terrible responsibility; he perpetuated a war against an overwhelming enemy force. He threw away the lives of his men in a hopeless battle.”
“Some would call that heroism.”
“Heroism is a myth you tell idealistic young people—specifically when you want them to go bleed for you. It got one of my sons killed and another taken from me. You can keep your heroism and return to me the lives of those wasted on foolish conflicts.”
At least it seemed to almost be over. Now that the resistance in Herdaz had finally collapsed, hopefully the refugee flood would slow.
Laral watched him with pale green eyes. She was a keen one. How he wished life had gone in another direction, that old Wistiow had held on a few more years. Lirin might call this woman daughter, and might have both Tien and Kaladin beside him now, working as surgeons.
“I won’t turn in the Herdazian general,” Lirin said. “Stop looking at me like that. I hate war, but I won’t condemn your hero.”
“And your son will come fetch him soon?”
“We’ve sent Kal word. That should be enough. Make sure your husband is ready with his distraction.”
She nodded and moved on to offer water to the parshman guards at the town entrance. Lirin got through the next few refugees quickly, then reached a group of cloaked figures. He calmed himself with the quick breathing exercise his master had taught him in the surgery room all those years ago. Although his insides were a storm, Lirin’s hands didn’t shake as he waved forward the cloaked figures.
“I will need to do an examination,” Lirin said softly, “so it doesn’t seem unusual when I pull you out of the line.”
“Begin with me,” said the shortest of the men. The other four shifted their positions, placing themselves carefully around him.
“Don’t look so much like you’re guarding him, you sodden fools,” Lirin hissed. “Here, sit down on the ground. Maybe you’ll seem less like a gang of thugs that way.”
They did as requested, and Lirin pulled over his stool beside the apparent leader. He bore a thin, silvered mustache on his upper lip, and was perhaps in his fifties. His sun-leathered skin was darker than most Herdazians’; he could almost have passed for Azish. His eyes were a deep dark brown.
“You’re him?” Lirin whispered as he put his ear to the man’s chest to check his heartbeat.
“I am,” the man said.
Dieno enne Calah. Dieno “the Mink” in Old Herdazian. Hesina had explained that enne was an honorific that implied greatness.
One might have expected the Mink—as Laral apparently had—to be a brutal warrior forged on the same anvil as men like Dalinar Kholin or Meridas Amaram. Lirin, however, knew that killers came in all kinds of packages. The Mink might be short and missing a tooth, but there was a power to his lean build, and Lirin spotted not a few scars in his examination. Those around the wrists, in fact … those were the scars manacles made on the skin of slaves.
“Thank you,” Dieno whispered, “for offering us refuge.”
“It wasn’t my choice,” Lirin said.
“Still, you ensure that the resistance will escape to live on. Heralds bless you, surgeon.”
Lirin dug out a bandage, then began wrapping a wound on the man’s arm that hadn’t been seen to properly. “The Heralds bless us with a quick end to this conflict.”
“Yes, with the invaders sent running all the way back to Damnation from which they were spawned.”
Lirin continued his work.
“You … disagree, surgeon?”
“Your resistance has failed, General,” Lirin said, pulling the bandage tight. “Your kingdom has fallen like my own. Further conflict will only leave more men dead.”
“Surely you don’t intend to obey these monsters.”
“I obey the person who holds the sword to my neck, General,” Lirin said. “Same as I always have.”
He finished his work, then gave the general’s four companions cursory examinations. No women. How would the general read messages sent to him?
Lirin made a show of discovering a wound on one man’s leg, and—with a little coaching—the man limped on it properly, then let out a painful howl. A poke of a needle made painspren claw up from the ground, shaped like little orange hands.
“That will need surgery,” Lirin said loudly. “Or you might lose the leg. No, no complaints. We’re going to see to that right away.”
He had Aric fetch a litter. Positioning the other four soldiers—the general included—as bearers for that litter gave Lirin an excuse to pull them all out of line.
Now they just needed the distraction. It came in the form of Toralin Roshone: Laral’s husband, former citylord. He stumbled out of the fog-shrouded town, wobbling and walking unsteadily.
Lirin waved to the Mink and his soldiers, slowly leading them toward the inspection post. “You aren’t armed, are you?” he hissed under his breath.
“We left obvious weapons behind,” the Mink replied, “but it will be my face—and not our arms—that betrays us.”
“We’ve prepared for that.” Pray to the Almighty it works.
As Lirin drew near, he could better make out Roshone. The former citylord’s cheeks hung in deflated jowls, still reflecting the weight he’d lost following his son’s death seven years ago. Roshone had been ordered to shave his beard, perhaps because he’d been fond of it, and he no longer wore his proud warrior’s takama. That had been replaced by the kneepads and short trousers of a crem scraper.
He carried a stool under one arm and muttered in a slurred voice, his wooden peg of a foot scraping stone as he walked. Lirin honestly couldn’t tell if Roshone had gotten drunk for the display, or if he was faking. The man drew attention either way. The parshmen manning the inspection post nudged one another, and one hummed to an upbeat rhythm—something they often did when amused.
Roshone picked a building nearby and set down his stool, then—to the delight of the watching parshmen—tried stepping up on it, but missed and stumbled, teetering on his peg, nearly falling.
They loved watching him. Every one of these newly born singers had been owned by one wealthy lighteyes or another. Watching a former citylord reduced to a stumbling drunk who spent his days doing the most menial of jobs? To them it was more captivating than any storyteller’s performance.
Lirin stepped up to the guard post. “This one needs immediate surgery,” he said, gesturing to the man in the litter. “If I don’t get to him now, he might lose a limb. My wife will have the rest of the refugees sit and wait for my return.”
Of the three parshmen assigned as inspectors, only Dor bothered to check the “wounded” man’s face against the drawings. The Mink was top of the list of dangerous refugees, but Dor didn’t spare a glance for the litter bearers. Lirin had noticed the oddity a few days earlier: when he used refugees from the line as labor, the inspectors often fixated solely on the person in the litter.
He’d hoped that with Roshone to provide entertainment, the parshmen would be even more lax. Still, Lirin felt himself sweating as Dor hesitated on one of the pictures. Lirin’s letter—returned with the scout who had arrived begging for asylum—had warned the Mink to bring only low-level guards who wouldn’t be on the lists. Could it—
