by Brent Weeks
Kip walked back to his spot, already tired, and was surprised to see Commander Ironfist himself waiting for him at the rail.
Oh, thank Orholam. Now that Gavin was back, the commander was going to march in and say, “Breaker is a special case. He’s in, regardless,” and Kip wouldn’t have to go through the humiliation of getting his ass beat by fighters who weren’t even going to be in the Blackguard.
As usual, the scrubs leaned in toward him, but the commander gave flat looks to a few and they all melted back. Kip came to stand before him. The commander’s jaw was set and he looked so quietly intense that Kip swallowed.
“You think it’s different because he’s back?” the commander asked, clearly referring to Gavin, but not so much as gesturing toward the tower. Others would be watching. “It’s not. You’re still on your own,” Ironfist said. Then he left.
Kip licked his lips. “Yes, sir.”
And Kip was up next. He looked at the lineup. Some good luck, anyway, right? A tiny bit. He could skip over Barrel and Balder and take on Yugerten at fifteenth place. If anything, Yugerten should have been nineteenth or twentieth. Kip had a good chance, right? Sure.
Taking his challenge token, Kip brought it to Yugerten and set it on the rail in front of the boy, who didn’t look surprised at all.
Kip took his time getting out to the circle, trying to catch his breath. He saw Teia scowling, thinking.
“We got a lot of fights today, Breaker. Get a move on,” Trainer Fisk said.
Yugerten was tall but gangly and awkward, a monochrome blue. The boys took their spots, weighing each other. Then the lights went out-and back on, blue and green.
Kip drafted green as quickly as he could, and Yugerten seemed content to stand back and draft, too. But when Kip shot out a green ball, Yugerten dodged and straightened a moment later, having drafted a pair of t-batons. Kip had never fought with those weapons, but it was clear Yugerten had. With the handles in hand, he swung the batons in a quick circle and brought them to rest along his forearms.
Then the boy came at Kip fast, in order not to give him time to draft anything else.
Kip kicked at his leg, but Yugerten blocked, cracking a t-baton across Kip’s shin, hobbling him. He stepped and punched for Kip’s stomach. The other end of the baton extended beyond his fist, and it stabbed Kip’s stomach hard.
Heaving forward, Kip deflected the follow-up punch and it only grazed his jaw rather than tearing his head off, and Yugerten lost one of the t-batons.
He let it go and punched Kip again. Kip tried to keep his balance and failed; he fell and Yugerten was on top of him in a moment, sitting on his chest, using his remaining baton to choke him.
Kip got one hand in front of his neck, but Yugerten was using both of his hands and all his weight to press down. Kip kept hoping the blue would shatter. Blue wasn’t supposed to be good for this, but it didn’t. He punched with his free hand, caught a shoulder. Punched, glanced off Yugerten’s forehead. Punched, weaker.
The world was turning dark, stars blooming in Kip’s vision. He couldn’t breathe. He was staring into the spotlight He flooded blue luxin around the entirety of Yugerten’s t-baton. He found the seals on the baton and opened them. The baton dissolved suddenly in a small cloud of chalk and resin.
Without the thing he’d been putting all of his weight on, Yugerten pitched forward, straight into Kip’s forehead, and instantly went limp.
Kip rolled the boy off of him and stood.
When Yugerten was revived, there was applause. He’d just been knocked out, but he’d be fine. Kip walked over and grabbed the boy’s challenge token. Still bronze, fifteenth place. This one depicted a man with crossed swords sheathed behind his back, unlimbering both.
Aram was at fourteenth, and was one of the best boys in the class. Tala, a yellow/green bichrome named after the hero of the False Prism’s War, was at thirteen. She wasn’t the greatest fighter, but she was an excellent drafter. Kip hoped she made it in.
That meant Kip had to go for number twelve, Erato, one of Aram’s friends. Erato was actually the worst fighter out of Aram’s friends, quick but unimaginative, so it was strange that she was the highest-ranked.
Kip paled, looked at the places again. If he and Teia had ranked everyone in the class correctly in their conversations, this was all wrong.
“You going to stand there all day, or are you going to challenge someone?” Aram asked. “Please pick me.”
Fighting Aram was suicide, even if Kip did want to wipe that smirk off the boy’s face. No. Kip wasn’t seeing it. He needed a new perspective. The light in between the fights was full-spectrum-and so was Kip, right? He tightened his eyes and drafted superviolet. Superviolet was supposed to be alien, aloof, apart-and arrogant.
Oh shit. Kip forgot that the first time you draft a color, it exerts a lot more control over you. He walked up to Erato and slapped his challenge token down. “Trade you my bronze for your gold,” he said.
Erato laughed at him.
“Colors?” Trainer Fisk asked.
“Green and yellow,” Erato said.
“None,” Kip said.
“What’d you say?” the trainer asked.
“I don’t need any colors to throw out this trash.”
“Ooh-hoo!” Erato said, her eyes gleaming.
“You get a bonus if you’re the one who knocks me out?” Kip asked.
Her face went blank, stricken, for half a moment. Then she said, “What are you talking about?”
“Do you have any idea how much smarter I am than you?” Kip asked.
All emotions but hatred drained out of her face. “I’m going to enjoy this, Breaker.”
They took their places in the middle of the large circle. It was twenty paces across. Stepping out for more than five seconds would result in disqualification. Neither of them had spectacles. They would get pure light from the great colored crystals above the huge underground chamber.
Trainer Fisk examined each of them in turn to make sure they hadn’t already drafted, being more careful now that they were in the fights that mattered. “Eyes, palms.” Satisfied, he stepped back and gestured that the crystals above be covered. He put their fingers on the hellstone, but didn’t press hard enough-as he hadn’t before.
Taking a deep breath, Kip rolled his shoulders, shook his head, loosening up. He took his spot across from her in the darkness.
“And… go!” Trainer Fisk shouted.
The shutters over the crystals dropped open.
Kip charged. He didn’t try to draft the green or the yellow light streaming over him. Instead, he threw one hand forward and shot out the superviolet luxin he’d already drafted, poking Erato in both eyes.
She staggered backward, crying out, holding her eyes, plans blown.
Then Kip, sprinting, jumped straight at her, spearing her stomach with his head. She went down hard, air whooshing out of her lungs.
Landing on top of her, Kip scrambled to his feet and picked up the prostrate girl by the waist of her trousers and her collar, ran her to the edge of the circle, and heaved her out of it.
Kip heard gasps in the crowd, and a few claps. Trainer Fisk counted out the five as Erato struggled to get to her feet and failed, then called it. “Breaker wins! Take Erato to the infirmary. Breaker, you have one minute until your next fight.” He came closer and lowered his voice. “So you can use superviolet now?”
“A little, sir.”
“You know you’re not supposed to pack luxin.”
“Someone taught me to use every advantage and surprise I have.” That someone, of course, was looking at him.
“You got it past me, but it won’t happen again, Breaker. Smart not to declare your polychromacy, but you won’t always get lucky and have opponents use your colors. Hope you’ve got other tricks.”
“Always, sir,” Kip said. Inside, he thought, Me, too. He shook out the last of the superviolet. The arrogance there hadn’t cost him-but it should have. No colors? How stupid was
he?
Trainer Fisk said, “Also, never do that spearing thing again. You’ll break your damn neck.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Breaker, come here,” Cruxer shouted. He stood at the edge of the circle.
Kip came over.
“You’re not safe yet, you know that, right?”
“I know. I’ve got to win one more.”
“You have a plan?” Cruxer asked.
“Might not be a good one,” Kip said. “I…” He trailed off. He looked again at the placement. He was number twelve now. He had to finish the day at fourteen or better to stay in, but after he fought, everyone below him got to fight next. So if he won one more fight, he was safe, but if he lost this fight, the next fighter would be Balder. From his spot at eighteenth, he would challenge sixteenth, Yugerten, rather than take on his friend Aram at fifteenth. Yugerten had already failed out, so no problem there. Then Balder would take on Tala at fourteen. She was a great drafter, but she wasn’t that fast, not yet. He’d take her out easily, clearing the path.
From there, he could either challenge Kip or skip right past him and challenge eleven.
Maybe he’d even climb higher, but that didn’t matter. The only people who could climb after Balder went were the lower-ranked Aram and Barrel.
All of Barrel’s fights could be against people who’d already lost. And he, too, could skip right past Kip.
Then Aram would go, again only having to fight people who’d already lost until he got past Kip.
If Erato hadn’t bungled and lost to Kip, all four friends would still make it into the Blackguard training.
The more Kip looked at it, the more brilliant it seemed. Aram, Balder, and Barrel all belonged in the top ten. Even Erato was close. One or two of them might easily get unlucky and come to the final testing lower than they deserved, but all of them?
“Kip, you look like you just swallowed a lemon,” Cruxer said.
And all of them, despite finishing low, were in places from which they could still make it into the Blackguard-and without ever being pitted against each other, or against Kip. If they’d made a pact to keep him out and had grouped themselves thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth to make a ceiling beyond which he couldn’t rise, the collusion would have been obvious. But this, this was subtle.
Hell, they’d guaranteed that twentieth and nineteenth places would both challenge Kip, so if he’d been a good boy and lost, they wouldn’t even have had to fight him at all in order to knock him out of contention, and even if he won against nineteen and twenty, he’d be fatigued and easier to beat.
“It’s a conspiracy,” Kip said quietly. “And they don’t even have to touch me.”
“What?” Cruxer asked.
“Cruxer, can I win against nine, or eleven?” Teia was at ten; he wasn’t going to take her on.
“Anything can happen.”
“How about against Aram?” Kip asked.
“No.”
“What happened to ‘anything can happen’?”
“Not anything,” Cruxer said.
“Kip, time’s up,” the trainer said. “Who are you challenging?”
For one mad moment, the green in Kip wanted him to challenge Aram-even though Aram was two spots below him.
That was stupidity. Kip could still be wrong. Or others might lose. It didn’t have to be the way he’d foreseen.
“Kip, challenge me,” Teia said, her tone flat.
He knew instantly what she meant. She’d let him win. He’d get in. It’s who you know, not how good you are. Kip wanted to get in with his whole heart. They were going to bury him. But if he got in by cheating, it would taint everything he ever achieved. He would be no better than Aram and his friends.
And if Kip and Teia got caught cheating-which the trainers always looked for when partners sparred-both of them would get bounced. For him, it would be embarrassing. For Teia, it would be a total disaster.
Yet she’d offered. She was a friend. A real friend. Better than he deserved.
Kip stepped forward and challenged number eleven, Rig.
“Kip!” Teia said.
He ignored her, didn’t look toward her at all even after he got into the ring. He asked for superviolet and blue for his colors. Rig had red and orange, but Kip knew he was finished. Red and orange weren’t helpful in the kind of training fights the Blackguard did, because there was no safe way to light an opponent on fire. The training was naturally biased against Rig, which meant that he could only be ranked so highly because he was a great physical fighter.
It wasn’t until Kip stepped into the ring that he realized an even worse blunder than picking Rig. He should have declared all colors. He had nothing to lose now. The whole point of not declaring the colors was so he could use them on his last fight, and in his rash idiocy and false heroism, he’d blown it. Teia had been trying to tell him-and he’d thought she was going to praise him for his nobility or something.
The whistle blew, and it went just as Kip expected. Rig would dart in and disrupt Kip every time Kip tried to draft, and soon he closed and they grappled. Rig slipped behind Kip, keeping his face down and batting aside every attack Kip tried with blue luxin until Kip was empty. Then Kip did the only thing he could think of: he filled Rig’s mouth and nose with superviolet while imprisoning his hands.
But the boy didn’t panic, didn’t move: he snapped the superviolet with his tongue and teeth and choked Kip out.
And just like that, Kip’s future was out of his own hands. He was twelfth out of fourteen. Rig helped him stand up. “Nice try there, Breaker. Best of luck making it in.”
But Kip knew he’d already lost.
Chapter 91
Tap. Tap.
Hurtled into the pitch blackness of the chamber, Kip still somehow knew exactly where everything was.
I memorized the room. That was it.
Tap. Tap. Tap. And in. Boom.
Kip? Something about Kip? Why did that pass through my mind? I cock my head to the side. Odd. Doubtless, the whelp is asleep on the deck, recovering.
I take my gloves off and try to suppress the rage that floods me at the sight of my hands.
Damn them. Damn them all.
Thin threads of red luxin glimmer in the darkness, veins of fire through the dross of my skin. I push back my hood.
Where is the boy hiding it? I’d had his room searched, hired pickpockets to jostle his tubby body. Nothing.
Rage crests and I ball my fists, clamping my eyes shut. I can feel the room growing brighter, hotter. I’m going to make it to Sun Day. To hell with it.
I’m going to go now and find him. I’ll beat the boy to death, injured as he is, if I have to. Maybe it is madness.
My hand is on the door before I remember my gloves and cloak. I pull on the gloves and snarl at the brief reflection of a man limned in red fire in the mirror. I pull the hood down and step into the hall.
“Captain!”
Chapter 92
Kip went to stand by Teia and Cruxer. At their prodding, he explained his conspiracy theory, and then, together, they watched it play out, exactly as he’d foreseen. Balder fought and beat Yugurten, then he fought and beat Tala, and for a moment Kip thought the boy would challenge him-and give him another chance-but instead, sneering, the boy challenged eleven and won.
That eleventh fight took a lot out of Balder, though, and he got smashed against nine. They reordered, and with Balder now at eleventh, Kip was moved down to thirteenth place.
Then Barrel was up. He fought as Kip had expected, too, skipping Aram and taking on fighters who were already out, and then skipping Kip, who spat at his feet. Barrel made it to twelfth, and lost to ninth.
Kip shuffled down to fourteenth. Aram challenged three up from himself, fifteenth, which was Erato. She was already out no matter what, so she conceded without fighting.
All Aram had to do was win one more fight, and if he did, Kip was out. He came up to the bar and looked over the prospects, standing almost dir
ectly in front of Kip.
“You coward,” Kip said. “You’re not smart enough to figure this out. Who did it? How much did they pay you to do this?”
A flash of fury came over Aram’s face, quickly smoothed away.
“You cheater,” Kip said. “What did you think, that you’re some modern-day Ayrad? Ayrad didn’t take money for what he did. He didn’t use a team. You’re shit compared to him. You’re going to skip me. Me. The one you were hired to block. You think you’re the best in the class, you think you’re better than Cruxer, but you’re afraid to take me on.”
“I’ve got a lot of fights to win today, Kip. I don’t need to tire myself on unnecessary-”
“So fighting me will tire you out? Thought you were amazing. Didn’t Ayrad fight everyone in the class on his way up? And you won’t even fight one fatty at fourteenth place. You’re a legend all right, Aram. Aram the Unready, we’ll call you. Aram the A-rammed.” Kip had no idea what the latter meant, he just made it up. “Aram the-”
Aram slammed down his token in front of Kip. “I’m going to kill you,” he said. He strode off into the middle of the circle.
Cruxer was at Kip’s side an instant later. “Brilliant, now, Kip, after the back kick, Aram likes to throw a roundhouse punch, either stomach or face. He gets a lot of power into that thing, but if you can sidestep and come in, he’ll be wide open.”
“I’ve seen it,” Kip said. “I’m just not fast enough to take advantage of it.”
“Time!” Trainer Fisk announced. “Come forward.”
“Anything else?” Kip asked Cruxer. “Please.”
“He’s a fast drafter, too,” Cruxer said weakly. “Watch out for that… You’re lucky, though, right, Breaker?”
“Very.”
“Breaker, forward or out!” the trainer shouted.
“That’s something then,” Cruxer said.
“I didn’t say it was good luck.”
Kip turned to walk into the center of the circle. Then he saw the worst thing in the world. A ripple of recognition passed through the assembled Blackguards and trainees as someone came to the front rows to watch. Gavin. Gavin was here. Prism Gavin Guile himself had come to see his son test.