Kip and the Mighty leapt over their mossy boulder and bolted toward the boats. Before they even reached the scout boat, Winsen had scrambled aboard with the dexterity of an acrobat. A third sentry, who had been seated below, rose to see why his comrades had disappeared, only to find Winsen’s knife rammed into his kidney and a hand over his mouth.
Letting go of his knife for one moment while he still held the dying man tight against himself with his left hand, Winsen waved them on—no other opposition here—so they ran directly to where the barges were moored.
A campfire was being lit not far from the planks leading to the barge, and half a dozen men were standing around or helping clean up camp, or cleaning muskets or repairing armor or preparing food.
They didn’t see the Mighty zigzagging toward them, breaking the sight line with what trees they could, but mostly closing the distance as quickly as possible. Cruxer easily outpaced the rest of them until he stopped suddenly, tossing a small ball the size of his fist in a high arc. It landed just beyond the fire with a sound like shattering glass as the blue luxin Kip had drafted broke open. The men at the fire turned instinctively to see what it was—and the flashbomb’s yellow luxin exploded into brilliant, blinding light.
Kip was looking at the Mighty when the flashbomb geysered its light, and the light etched every one of them in his memory. Long-legged, supple Cruxer was hurdling a fallen tree with the grace and ease of a stag while carrying a long slender spear. Big Leo ran with all the stealth of an avalanche, and just as much frightening speed. The man managed to sprint while carrying a tower shield, and his short black beard was split by his ferocious, eager smile. Big, dopey Ferkudi sprinted with each hand streaming luxin like smoke, green in his left, blue in his right. It was usually a sign of poor drafting—all that luxin lost—but it was scary as hell. Ferkudi’s face showed an expression closest to regret. Ferk wasn’t a born killer.
Or maybe it just pained him to be thinking so hard.
At twenty paces out, Kip threw his hands forward and hurled all his weight into shooting two brightwater missiles. He’d taken what he could draft competently and brought it together. Namely, he could now make solid yellow into unbreakable blades, and he could shoot the Great Big Green Bouncy Balls of Doom, which were good for knocking people over, but not much else. On the other hand, throwing an orb of yellow blades or a ball of yellow spikes was pretty much impossible without cutting yourself to pieces. So he encased yellow blades in a green ball and shot that from his right hand, and yellow spikes inside a green ball and shot that from his left.
They worked differently. The orb of spikes caught a man in the armpit as he staggered, covering his blinded eyes. The green luxin bent and then broke apart, and the spikes stuck into him, caving in his ribs and sticking. The orb of blades hit another man in the face, the green luxin flexing in, a blade slashing a cheek, and then it bounced off him, caroming into the neck of another man, and then off into the woods.
The transference of momentum had brought Kip to a halt, so as he prepared his next attack, the Mighty thundered past him.
Cruxer went for two men on the periphery who hadn’t been blinded. One was a blue wight, just beginning his transformation, who still had the face of a man but wore no tunic, his chest a rippling crystalline wonder better than skin, impervious to the elements.
But not impervious to steel.
Cruxer buried the spear through the wight’s chest and spun, instantly, snapping off his dual-bladed spear at its blue luxin haft on purpose, like a bee leaving its stinger in its victim. The other leaf-blade of Cruxer’s spear slashed through a green wight’s arm and into his chest and out again, so light and thin and fast it barely slowed. The spear spun up into a javeliner’s hold, flinging blood in a circle, and then Cruxer hurled it into the back of a man rushing for the camp’s cone-stack of muskets.
An arrow pierced the same man before he even hit the ground, and Kip saw that Winsen had taken up an overwatch position behind them with his bow. Fifty or sixty paces was an easy shot for the little archer, and he was picking off anyone who seemed like they might be getting away or about to raise an alarm.
Before Kip, newly rearmed, could make it to the campfire to join Ferkudi and Big Leo, the battle here was suddenly over. There was a splash from one of the barges and a yelp from the other.
A man had fallen into the water at the nearest barge, and on the other, a soldier was staring at Winsen’s arrow buried in his thigh. Another arrow streaked through the air above him as he stooped to look at the curious marvel. But Winsen’s next arrow dove through his stomach.
Bless Winsen, his distance had helped him not get the tunnel vision Kip had.
But Ferkudi had never paused. Running across the web of planking and lines, Ferkudi got to the arrow-pierced man just after he fell out of sight behind a low gunwale.
A splash of blood answered Ferkudi’s descending mace.
Then he turned and looked back at them, unseeing for a moment.
Ferkudi must have been gritting his teeth when he brained the soldier, because blood had shot across his face, and across his white teeth. There was nothing young or dopey in Ferkudi’s expression now. Two images were superimposed on his face. In rapid succession, it flickered between a scary, blooded warrior, the veteran he would be; and a big child, covered in wet mortality and scared of what he had done. That young Ferkudi looked like a child caught stealing candy, his face saying this is wrong, and I’ve done it, and I’ve been caught doing it, and nothing can fix this.
But it wasn’t filched candy, it was the crushed skull of a man, and being caught red-handed here was literal. Ferkudi closed his mouth as he looked at them, and his pink tongue darted out to clear his mouth, and then he blanched as he realized he was clearing his mouth of another man’s blood.
“Tsst!” Kip hissed, waving.
It saved Ferkudi. He shook himself and got control. He looked around, signaled—no one else was standing on the decks of either barge.
“Perimeter,” Kip told Winsen, as all of them refilled themselves with luxins. “But finish any wounded first. I can’t believe we got this lucky. There may be more.” He nodded to Big Leo, who was the other sub-red/red drafter. “You take the far barge with Ferk. I’ll get the near one.” To Cruxer, he said, “You collect Winsen’s arrows and our weapons as well as you can, I want this to be a clean raid, no hints. As soon as the White King knows who he’s fighting, we lose an advantage. Then you come help me.”
“That puts you alone on that barge,” Cruxer said. He had already collected the point that had snapped off his spear. Drafting blue luxin even as he spoke, he locked it back into place with a twist. “We agreed that you would have an—”
“Then collect our weapons quick,” Kip said. “No time.”
Kip ran out down the walkways. He heard the distant rattle of muskets as another engagement started down in the valley. Good. He made it to the barge with no trouble. Everything seemed to be going perfectly. Maybe they had plenty of time. Maybe he should wait for Cruxer.
The Mighty was too small. They simply didn’t have enough bodies to do a raid like this. They were getting lucky here. More people meant more noise, more trouble with communication, more problems, but it also meant someone to watch your back.
Hell with it. You worked with what you had. Kip threw open the door to head below. A muffled explosion from the other barge was the only warning he had that the ships were defended.
He threw himself to the side as a scared young woman in front of him fumbled a linstock and fired a small cannon toward the door Kip had just opened.