by Brent Weeks
Karris dove, dropping the rope, and rolled to her feet. She caught the stone.
Akensis hadn’t taken up the slack immediately, and so Jason Jorvis fell parallel to the platform they were on. But he kept his feet planted on the edge. It was an uncommonly smart move. Most people, falling, will panic and flail. Keeping his body tight, he gave himself a chance.
Akensis pulled against the rope to save himself, screaming as the knot tightened on his wrist. He grabbed the rope with both hands, and stood balanced precariously.
For a moment, Karris thought about bringing them in. They were big men, though, heavy and strong. She was still forbidden to draft; it was the only rule. If she pulled them up, they would work together to kill her. With her left side injured, there was no way she could bring them both in. Would the others intervene? And if so, on whose side? How many would die to save these two traitors?
There is a time for Orholam’s gentle gaze, and a time for his glare.
With a yell that was both dirge for her old life and rage that men would betray Orholam himself and swelling pride that she knew all of her pain and training and even her waywardness was being redeemed, Karris delivered the slippery side kick that was the pinnacle of Blackguard perfection. With such a kick, a small woman moving masterfully could launch a man into the air. And she did.
Both men flew off the platform, and plunged to their deaths.
Everyone, silent, stared at Karris.
The windows opened and the disk slid back into its place inside. Karris dropped her stone into the clear bowl and didn’t even watch the solvents do their work to reveal the stone’s color beneath. She knew.
Karris turned and addressed a stunned audience of Colors and the promachos and the highest nobles in what remained of the Seven Satrapies.
“We’re at war,” the new White said. “We’re going to start acting like it.”
Chapter 96
By the time Kip and Teia hit the ground, they saw that the squad was safe—and they’d been joined by none other than Tremblefist.
Kip had never felt more glad to see anyone.
“Which dock?” Tremblefist asked.
“Red, berth five.”
“Good news and bad,” Tremblefist said. “There’s probably two hundred Lightguards between here and there. They’ve got a big house they use as a barracks. And they’ve signaled with mirrors that they want you dead. And everyone on both islands knows exactly where you landed.”
“How do they know that?” Ferkudi asked.
“The big steel cable pointing right to us?” Leo said.
“Oh. Right.”
“You know their codes?” Ben-hadad asked.
“Please tell me that’s all the bad news,” Cruxer said.
“It is.”
“And the good?”
“I don’t like Lightguards.” And then Tremblefist grinned, and somehow, Kip thought they were going to be all right.
“Tremblefist, sir,” Cruxer said. “Before we go: we’re not Blackguards anymore. We’ve been kicked out, exiled.”
Tremblefist looked at him. “Let’s move,” he said.
And move they did. Kip would have died after about two blocks of this pace six months ago, much less a year ago. Ben-hadad couldn’t run with his knee busted up, so Kip and Big Leo—who was injured himself—carried him. And ran.
They ate distance in huge gulps, trading off who was helping carry Ben-hadad. They were aided by the fact that most people were already thronging to the main streets, so the side streets were free of the usual early morning traffic. But then they came across a knot of four running Lightguards.
The squad tore them apart before the Lightguards got off a single shot.
Then they were at the wall. Two blocks of running along the jagged edifice and they came to a small gate, barely big enough for one person to get through. The streets were laid out according to the light beams from the star towers, but the walls were laid out to conform to the shape of Big Jasper. It made for some odd nooks and crannies.
“Throw fire in the air,” Tremblefist said. “Make noise. We want to draw them here.”
Kip donned his red spectacles and threw luxin skyward and lit it. The others threw other colors into the air, too.
On any normal day, it would have drawn a thousand spectators in moments, but today was no normal day. On Sun Day, drafters who specialized in such things came here from all over the Seven Satrapies. Most of those, however, were lining the parade route, hitting up the crowds for thrown coins.
Tremblefist produced a key and opened the little gate. “Breaker, put slow-burning pyrejelly on the lock. Make it look like we burned through.”
Kip did it.
While he was doing so, Tremblefist said, “Narrow path out there, along the cliff face. Used to go down to the water, but the path fell into the sea long ago. It’s a dead end. Any who go that way won’t be on us.”
Then, instead of going through the gate, they sprinted once more along the wall. In another few blocks, they found another gate. Tremblefist produced another key. They ducked through, and he locked it behind them.
After a few hundred paces, this path dead-ended, too, and Tremblefist took them through a gate to get back onto the streets. In only a few minutes, they reached the docks and finally had to slow. The area was crowded with people arriving late for Sun Day and hundreds of merchants offloading and selling every kind of good imaginable—it would quiet at noon, but not until then. More importantly, it looked like no Lightguards were here.
Before they got to the red dock, they saw a luxiat standing, shifting from foot to foot, and Tisis Malargos, beautifully made up and looking like she had been waiting.
“You made it!” she said. “Was that you?” She pointed to sky cable, and Kip just grinned.
But he felt Teia shrinking back.
Tisis looked at Teia, and then at Kip; she didn’t look pleased. “So,” Tisis said. “Are we going to do this?”
“What do we need to do?” Kip asked.
“Sign three copies of the contract and say the words in front of the luxiat. That’s it. He knows he needs to boil it down to the essentials.”
“Give me the contract,” Ben-hadad said. “One of the copies. Quick!”
“You’re not seriously going to read it?” she asked. “Now?”
“Well, no, I’m not. But only because I’m shit at reading. Big Leo, read it to me. Over here.”
“It’s a typical Ruthgari wedding contract,” the luxiat said. But he handed over a copy, and Leo began reading it aloud to Ben-hadad.
“Do we really have time for this?” Winsen asked. He and the others were eyeing the crowd, trying not to look threatening and conspicuous and failing.
“What’s the saying,” Cruxer asked. “ ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’?”
“Hmm,” Teia said.
“Surely this doesn’t count as haste,” Tremblefist said. It was hard to tell whether he was being sarcastic or droll.
“Look, this is my deal,” Kip said.
“Deal?” Big Leo asked, breaking off from his low, murmured reading. “Was part of that deal Andross trying to kill us all?”
It was Aram, Kip thought. Aram had to be working against what Andross wanted. I think. But he said, “My deal isn’t with Andross.” Which was a lie, but Tisis was standing right here. “My deal’s with the only people who can protect me from him: Tisis and the Malargos family.”
“Leo, keep reading!” Ben-hadad said.
“Kip,” Teia said. “Breaker.”
“Oh, shit,” Tremblefist said.
“What?” Kip and Cruxer said at the same time, Kip to Teia and Cruxer to Tremblefist.
“You’re really going to do this?” Teia said.
“This this, or this, getting the hell off the island?” Kip asked.
“Either. Both.”
“It’s the signal,” Tremblefist said to Cruxer. “The Lightguards have control of the cannon emplacement at the mouth of the
harbor. If we try to sail out of here, they’re to sink us.”
“Yes, I am,” Kip told Teia.
There was a moment of hurt, and she smoothed it down, but it didn’t disappear. “I’m staying,” she said. “I’ll help you get away, but I’m staying.”
“Is this because of—” Kip gestured to the cable they’d come down together.
“What do we do?” Cruxer asked.
“What are the parameters of your mission?” Tremblefist asked Cruxer.
Cruxer looked surprised that Tremblefist was giving him command. “Save Breaker,” he said quickly. “Nothing else matters.”
“No, it’s not about that,” Teia said. “You heard… Her. She didn’t release me.” She meant the White. She didn’t want to say it, not even in front of the squad. It was that kind of secret. “I have a mission. A purpose that’s bigger than what I want, and a task that only I can do.”
“What? What task?” Ben-hadad asked, interrupting.
They both stared at him.
“Sorry. By the way, contract’s fine. Bit archaic, ‘enemy of your enemy’ and the like, but.… Sorry!”
“Teia, you don’t have to do this,” Kip said.
“No,” she said. “I don’t have to. But I choose to.” She tugged out the necklace she always wore, a little vial of olive oil. She’d always avoided questions about it. Now she broke the string, dropped the vial, and crushed it under her heel.
“Breaker,” Tremblefist barked.
“Sir,” Kip said, turning away from luxiats and women and—fuck! Did everything always have to happen at once? “Yes, sir?”
Tremblefist locked his gaze. “Thank you.” His mouth twitched a grin. The family resemblance to Ironfist was never more clear. But Tremblefist seemed free, his spirit open and joyful.
“Thank you? For what?” Kip asked.
Tremblefist said, “I’ll clear those cannons. Your ship will be safe. Go in light, Breaker.”
“Quickly, people!” Cruxer said. “I see Lightguards. Lots of them. Thirty seconds. Maybe.”
Kip turned back toward the luxiat, who’d gone pale. Someone put a pen in Kip’s fingers and presented the contracts, braced on a board. Kip signed, signed, signed.
“We have everything?” Tisis asked.
“Yes,” the luxiat said. “Hands.”
“Defensive positions, people!” Cruxer said.
Kip and Tisis presented their hands and the luxiat lifted a pitcher and washed them of metaphorical sin. When he saw that Kip’s hands were smeared with literal blood, he gulped. Kip felt Ferkudi put something on his head and saw that the young man had crafted green luxin crowns for both of them.
“You are here of your own free will?” the luxiat asked.
“Yes,” Kip and Tisis said quickly. Kip realized he’d barely even looked at her since he’d gotten here.
“Have either of you promised yourself to anyone else?”
“No,” Tisis said.
“No,” Kip said, a heartbeat late.
“Touch your right hands and entwine your fingers.”
“Wait!” Ben-hadad said. He waved his hands and almost fell over, having to hop on his good foot to regain his balance. “A Ruthgari wedding can be considered illegitimate and annulled if there’s no fire. Water, wine, and fire to sanctify a marriage. You need them all.”
The whole squad started looking around for a torch. How hard could it be to find a torch in the middle of a thousand merchants?
“Ah, hells,” Kip said. He opened himself to the sun and raised his own left hand, letting power roar through him. Fire gushed out of his hand skyward.
He must have been a bit tense, because it leapt out much farther than he meant, a pillar of fire ten paces high for a moment, before he tamped it down.
“Flesh protuberance,” Ferkudi said.
“Ferkudi!” Cruxer said. “Position! And shut it!”
“Lightbringer indeed,” Big Leo murmured.
“On with it!” Kip said. If the Lightguard hadn’t known where exactly to find him before, they certainly would now.
The luxiat picked up the cup. He’d apparently dropped it when Kip painted the sky with fire. He filled it from a skin with wine. “The wine is Orholam’s gift. The shared cup signifies the joys and sorrows of the life you will share.” He guided them to each drink, the cup held awkwardly in their clasped right hands. “Even the awkwardness you feel is an emblem of your new—”
“Just drink and say the oath,” Cruxer said.
“Kip Guile, Breaker,” Tisis said, needing no prompting from the luxiat, staring Kip in the eyes. “Your life shall be my life, through all the dawns and noons and dusks and nights Orholam grants us. My light is yours. With my body, I thee worship.”
Kip blinked for a moment, because he could tell she meant it. “Tisis Antonia Malargos,” Oh, Orholam, it was like he was outside of his own body. He saw the Lightguards, pushing through the crowd. They were within musket range now. “Your life shall be my life, through all the dawns and noons and dusks and nights Orholam grants us. My light is yours. With my body, I thee worship.”
And it was done. Kip had bound his will to this. It was finished. He was married.
The luxiat said quickly, “May there never be darkness between you. I declare you husband and wife.”
“Go!” Cruxer shouted. “Go, go, go!”
Kip saw Teia squeeze her hood shut, covering all but her glistening eyes, then she turned her back, and the black-and-white disks on her cloak rolled together, eclipse and darkness.
Kip and Tisis ran the other way. Big Leo had slung Ben-hadad over his shoulder and was pounding down the dock already, barely slowed by the weight. Kip followed, but it was as if the world had been drained of sound. They sprinted down a dock, and the Lightguards ran after them. Kip poured red luxin across the width of the dock in a wide swath, even his pounding heart silent in his ears.
The Lightguards pulled up short in front of the red luxin, none of them drafters, none of them willing to die. They fired their muskets, splintering wood around the running squad. Kip turned and drew his pistol, but saw the crowd of innocents behind the Lightguards. If he missed…
He holstered the pistol and ran up the gangplank to the galleass. The Lightguards had found sheets of wood to throw on top of the red luxin, and they charged across. Finally gathering their courage, or thinking Kip was too far away to throw more red luxin, the Lightguards ran the rest of the way down the dock, rapidly closing the distance to the departing ship.
Kip stood on the stern gallery and shot the pistol at the Lightguards. He threw luxin, the squad shouting at him to get down, calling him insane. One word worked its way through: Teia. Kip looked into sub-red and Teia moving among the Lightguards.
She attacked no one. Merely bumped an elbow here just as a musketeer fired, extinguished a slow match there, tangled men in the lines on the deck as they ran about, causing several to fall.
Kip had been throwing death right at her.
Cruxer pulled Kip down and behind cover, berating him for risking himself when there was no longer any reason to do so, but Kip didn’t even hear him. Teia.
Their ship passed the cannon tower guarding the bay, and they saw the Lightguards flashing mirrors at it, signaling, no doubt, to fire. But the cannons were silent. Silent until, suddenly, the entire battery blew up in a concussion that shook the earth and sea.
Explosion layered on explosion. Cannons and muskets and a falling wall. Card after card. But they passed as fast as he saw them.
“Tremblefist, no,” Kip said.
And oddly, at the sound of his own voice, Kip was back. He could hear again, and his eyes lost the intense, singular, war-blind focus. He saw his squad: Cruxer, and Ferkudi, and Ben-hadad, and Big Leo, and Winsen. Teia gone, and in her place Tisis. And he saw himself, madly dealing death to enemies he didn’t have to fight at all. And he saw his two faces: child and warrior, man and leader. Kip, who wanted to sit and cry and be taken care of; and Breaker, wh
o was responsible for taking care of others. Karris said that to take up the latter didn’t mean to deny that the former existed.
Kip took a deep breath, then he popped his neck to the left and the right, and when he turned, he was Breaker.
“Breaker, my lord, what’re our orders?” Cruxer asked.
“This ship is going to Rath, but when it lands, we won’t be on it,” Breaker said.
“What?” Tisis asked.
“Ben-hadad, you’ve been on skimmers and sea chariots. Design one big enough for the squad. Tisis, you have people aboard?”
“Of course. But what are you—”
“Then it’s your choice. You can come with us, or you can take that signed contract to your sister Eirene without me. Our alliance and our wedding stands, but I have no intention of getting trapped in Ruthgar. I will help your family, but I won’t be its hostage. I’ll help your family by defending your satrapy. We’re going to Blood Forest. We’re going to stop the Color Prince. The Mighty are going to war.”
Chapter 97
When no one answered the door at the chirurgeons’ house, Ironfist broke it down. There was no one inside. Neither the chirurgeons, nor the Blackguards, nor Gavin Guile. There was no note, no sign of a struggle.
“They’re gone,” a voice said outside, behind him. “I’ve been waiting for you.” And then Grinwoody stepped into the house.
“Grinwoody,” Ironfist said.
Grinwoody waved a hand. “That’s not necessary, not here, not today.”
“Uncle,” Ironfist said, cracking a grin. The men embraced.
“You understand there was nothing I could do about this,” Grinwoody said. He gestured to the emptiness.
“Is he alive?” Ironfist asked.
“Gavin, yes. The Blackguard who was here protecting him and the chirurgeons, no. Andross will… No, even after all these years, I don’t know what Andross will do with Gavin. Imprison him until he breaks? Kill him when Gavin disrespects him, as he inevitably will? Elevate him for some purpose? I have no idea. Still.” He said it with frustrated admiration, as of an adversary who had fought for so long and so well that they were nearly friends.