The Black Prism

Chapter 16

It was too far to run for the punt, even for Sanson. A cool realization settled on Kip: he was going to die. He was surprised at his own reaction. No panic. No fear. Just quiet fury. Thirty elite Mirrormen in full harness against a child. A trained red drafter against a child who’d first drafted yesterday.

“When I tell you, run,” Kip told Sanson.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flash over the trees hundreds of paces to his left, but when he looked, there was nothing there. He saw that the Mirrormen were looking back and forth at each other, as if they’d caught the same glimpse he had.

“Now, Sanson. Run.” Kip didn’t take his eyes off the drafter.

Sanson ran.

The Mirrormen hesitated until the red drafter gestured, a quick sign, with military efficiency. One Mirrorman from each side of the line peeled off and circled around Kip, digging their heels hard into their horses. The red drafter himself rode forward alone.

Everything Kip had done with magic so far had been instinctive. Now he needed to do something on purpose. Light was pouring over him. There was green everywhere. The two Mirrormen circling him were each keeping an eye on him, but they were going after Sanson. The wildness surged through Kip once again and he felt the skin under his fingernails tear open again as luxin poured into his palm. A javelin formed in his hand. He hurled it at the Mirrorman nearer to Sanson, but the throw was pathetic. It flew maybe fifteen paces, not even half the distance it needed.

The red drafter laughed. Kip ignored him.

Kip had seen the other red drafter and his apprentice Zymun throw fireballs from a standstill. They’d been thrown back from hurling something with so much force, but they hadn’t fully thrown it physically. Kip imagined the magic streaking from him as the reds’ had done. The air in front of him coalesced, sparkling, coruscating greens, from sea-foam to mint to evergreen, taking on the outline of a spearhead.

With an explosion of energy, it leapt away. Kip felt as if he had fired an overcharged musket. He tumbled to the ground. Worse, he missed. The green spear cut the air behind the galloping Mirrorman. It crashed into one of the few standing walls of one of the burned-out homes. The wall went down in billows of ash.

Kip scrambled to his feet to try again, but even as the air began sparkling green in front of him, he caught something red out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward the red drafter—too slowly. Something hot blasted through his hands, scattering the green luxin he’d been gathering, burning him.

The red drafter was advancing toward him, dismounted now, walking calmly, red swirling down into his hands again. Kip held his hands up, just as he had a hundred times when Ram was threatening to hit him. This time, a green shield formed, translucent, covering him from head to toe, its weight supported on the ground.

The red drafter flicked a finger forward. A spark shot out, trailing a long red tail. It stuck to Kip’s shield, burning faintly, its red trail going all the way back to the drafter. Kip panicked and, only carrying the shield because it was stuck to his arms, dodged to one side. A much larger red missile roared out from the red drafter. It followed the tail toward the spark, curving in midair along that line.

Kip was blown off his feet and thrown back a dozen feet. He felt the green shield crack with a report, as if it had been his own bones snapping.

He lifted himself from the dirt in time to see one of the Mirrormen pursuing Sanson raise his long, sweeping cavalry sword and slash downward in midcharge. Kip couldn’t see Sanson, but the Mirrormen reined in and the second horseman reversed his grip on his lance and stabbed downward hard, once, twice, professionally, coolly.

Both Mirrormen relaxed like men who’ve finished their work, and Kip knew Sanson was dead.

He rolled over. The red drafter was standing over him. Kip was faintly surprised by how ordinary the man looked. A long face, dark eyes, roughly cut hair, crooked teeth revealed by his grimace. He was going to kill Kip, but without passion. Just a man following orders.

Before Kip could gather magic one more time, the drafter imprisoned Kip’s arms in red sludge, sticky and thick. Kip couldn’t move.

The drafter raised his bespectacled eyes toward the sun once more, magic spiraling like smoke down into his arms, filling him with power for the killing blow. A dense indigo dot appeared on his ear, then over his temple as his head moved, as if someone with a lantern letting out a single ray of light from somewhere in the forest was somehow focusing that little beam right on his—

There was a roar, for just a fraction of a second, as if Kip were standing at the base of the waterfall once again. Something huge and yellow blasted into the red drafter so fast and hard it seemed the man disappeared. His body was thrown into the air, torn in half by the force of the collision. The red luxin sludge holding Kip fell into dust.

Kip stood and looked in horror at what had been a man. The red of the drafter’s clothes now mingled with his blood, magic and violence mixed. But his entire upper body had been reduced to jelly. Kip looked to the forest.

With the boy saved for the moment, Gavin ran toward the Mirrormen. Karris had headed down the hill to save the other boy running for the river, but she was already too late. The Mirrormen formed up with surprising discipline and speed. None of these men had bothered to bard their horses. Barding was heavy and awkward and tired the horses quickly, and the Mirrormen obviously hadn’t expected to run into any real opposition, much less drafters. That meant the horses were easily the most vulnerable targets. But Gavin didn’t like killing innocent beasts. Their masters? That was a different matter.

He swept a hand in a sharp, hard arc, the air crackling like a succession of rocks exploding in a fire. A dozen blue globes, each half the size of his fist, shot out. The mirrored armor, working like a mirror reflecting light, reflected part of any luxin thrown against it, making it unravel. That was a big problem for a drafter trying to cut down a horseman with a luxin sword, but it was only protection, not invulnerability. The thin-walled luxin globes smashed against mirror armor—and sheared open, dumping out flaming red goo that splashed all over the Mirrormen, up and down their chests, into their visors, down the seams into their groins.

With fire and screams and the sizzle of burning skin, the charge faltered. Gavin swept his other hand out and another dozen globes shot out. Men were crashing to the ground from their saddles, trying to roll and put out the fires. Others clawed at their flaming helmets, cooking. Still others were trying to continue the charge, half a dozen men lowering their lances—until the second wave of globes caught them.

More than a dozen horses continued the charge, though. Even without their riders’ guidance, these horses were bred to war, and they ran toward Gavin.

Gavin threw green wedges around himself like a clamshell and braced himself. The horses jostled him hard as they charged past, but left him standing.

There were only three Mirrormen left uninjured, all of them men on the ends of the line who’d broken off the charge early. They were sawing their reins, turning tail to flee. Cowards, perhaps. But smart cowards. Gavin flicked fingers at each in turn. Superviolet luxin was fast, light, and invisible to almost everyone. Like a spider, each dot stuck to one of the men and then climbed up to the joint in their armor at the back of their necks.

Three spiked missiles of yellow luxin sped along the superviolet spiderwebs trailing from those spiders to Gavin a moment later. With a meaty crunch, each missile punched through mail and into a spine. Three riders toppled from their galloping horses.

With all the riders around him dead or dying, Gavin looked down the hill to see how Karris was doing against the last two Mirrormen. One was already down, and if anything, Gavin was surprised to see that the other was still alive—a fact that would no doubt change shortly.

Four hundred years ago, when it had been founded, the Blackguard had been an Ilytian company, chosen as much for their proud relation to Lucidonius as for their martial skill. But when Ilyta lost influence in the Spectrum, the Blackguard had been forced to abandon choosing on the basis of province and instead had justified their elite position on function: when a drafter drafted, his skin filled with the color he was about to use. That meant in a fight, a paler-skinned Atashian or Blood Forester drafter was easier to predict. That justification had satisfied the Parians who were also darker-skinned, just fine. Since then, Blackguards had been mostly Parians or Ilytians, with Parians gradually becoming the majority as their political power waxed.

But having based their protected status on their fighting prowess, the Blackguard had been forced to accept more than a dozen elite warrior-drafters from countries other than Paria and Ilyta over the last two centuries.

Karris had joined them because it was impossible to deny her. She’d sparred with every member of the Blackguard and defeated all but four of them. She was simply the fastest drafter Gavin had ever seen, and after her Blackguard training, one of the most dangerous. And it meant nothing to her. At the rate she pushed herself, Gavin thought she’d be lucky if she lasted another ten years. Probably closer to five. It was like she was racing him to Death’s gates. But she wouldn’t die today.

The other horseman charged her, his sword drawn. Karris stood her ground, only moving at the last second so that she was directly in the horse’s path. The horseman, expecting her to move the other way, was too surprised to change his course. Karris dropped to the ground just as the horse was about to trample her. With flexible fingers of green and red luxin extending from her own hands and crossed, she grabbed the cinch strap as the horse passed over her.

The horse thundered past and for a moment Gavin thought she’d been trampled. Then he saw her flipped into the air. The luxin uncrossed and whipped her back toward the still-galloping horse. She crashed into the back of the horseman and almost spilled out of the saddle, but she scrambled and managed to maintain her seat behind him.

The horseman flailed, having no idea what had just happened or what had hit him from behind. Karris drew her knife as she reached around his head with her other hand. She tore open his visor and buried the knife deep in his face. The man spasmed hard and both of them fell.

Karris tried to push the horseman down so she’d land on him, but his foot never cleared the stirrup. Instead of a cushioned landing, she was spun hard backward by his body being yanked from under her, and then hit the ground and abruptly rolled forward. She had the good fortune to land on grass, though.

Gavin looked at the boy they’d just killed thirty of Satrap Garadul’s elite bodyguards to save. He was maybe fifteen, chubby, awkward, with eyes round at what he’d just seen. The child turned and ran toward the river. At first Gavin thought he was fleeing in fear, but then he realized the boy was going to check on his friend, the one Gavin and Karris had come too late to save.

“What is the meaning of this?” a man shouted.

Gavin turned—and cursed himself. He’d been so concerned about the boy and Karris and what was happening down toward the river, he hadn’t been paying attention to what was happening up the road. The roar of the rapids and the waterfall had muffled the sound of hooves, but there was still no excuse. The man who’d shouted had the same weak chin that seemed to beg someone to stick a fist in it that he’d had sixteen years ago, the last time Gavin had seen him. His whole body was quivering with outrage as he took in the carnage that was all that remained of thirty of his supposedly invincible Mirrormen.

But Satrap Garadul’s face changed the moment he saw Gavin. He drew rein even as half a dozen of his drafters and a score of his Mirrormen surrounded him. “Gavin Guile?”