Chapter 107
It was still night when Kip was summoned to the deck. He dressed quickly, pulling on his trainee’s garb. He strapped the dagger sheath to his calf, and checked that the slit he’d cut in his trouser leg allowed him to grab it. It was more obvious than he would have liked, but people probably wouldn’t be looking at his leg today. He put the lenses pouch on his right hip. He ran a hand through his unruly hair and stumbled up to the deck.
The Wanderer was under way, though only the foresails and mizzen were raised. The sailors worked silently, apparently aiming to get the ship into a different position before dawn. The Blackguards were gathered on deck around Commander Ironfist.
“How well did you study those black cards, Kip?” Commander Ironfist asked.
“Sir?” Commander Ironfist had seen the new cards, but how did he know about the black cards?
“Not many secrets on Little Jasper, Kip.”
“Uh, pretty well, sir.”
“You see any of the apotheosis cards?”
“I have no idea what that means, sir.”
“Maybe they’re just a rumor, then. Never seen any of them myself.”
The commander moved to address everyone, but Kip interjected, “Sir? Um, I know that after we were inducted, there wasn’t really time to file papers and everything. I wanted to—I’m technically, or was technically, I guess? Teia’s owner, anyway.”
“Are you worried about your payout? Now?”
“No, sir! I mean, if I die, sir, I want Teia to get it all. I didn’t even really realize until we were fighting the Gargantua that if I died she wouldn’t get anything. She needs it more than the Guiles do, sir.” Kip was suddenly embarrassed, and he wasn’t completely sure why.
The commander looked at Kip for a long moment, then nodded. It would be taken care of. He turned to the Blackguards. “All right, form up.” He barely raised his voice, but everyone moved smoothly into rows. They put the trainees like Kip up front. Commander Ironfist picked up a bowl where a fistful of shiny black berries had been crushed. “Trainees,” he said. “I expect some of you have full pupil control, but if you don’t, dab a finger in this and touch the corner of each eye. One dab will serve for both eyes. It’s belladonna. It’ll dilate your pupils for you. It should wear off by full sunrise, but you’ll be extremely sensitive to light until then. More isn’t better. This stuff’ll make you go blind.” He handed the bowl around, and almost everyone but Kip dabbed a finger in. Kip drew out his sub-red spectacles instead.
Cruxer goggled at him. “You have Night Eyes?” he asked. “Can I see them?”
Kip handed over his sub-red spectacles. Night Eyes? Cruxer put them on. He cursed aloud. It was only the second time Kip had ever heard the boy swear. “What?” Kip said.
“Orholam’s beard, Kip, there’s only like ten pairs of these in the world. Some people say Lucidonius himself made every pair. This is amazing. I can see everything!”
The rest of the trainees drifted out of the lines and even quite a few full Blackguards were craning their necks. Commander Ironfist snapped his fingers and glowered at Kip, and Cruxer, who very quickly took them off and handed them back to Kip, resuming his at-attention posture. “Sorry, Commander,” he said quietly.
Kip put his glasses on.
“I’m afraid that’s not the only wonder we’re going to see today,” Commander Ironfist said. “I can’t leave any of you greens behind, but I’d like to. Truth is, you might be more of a danger to your fellows back here.”
He let that sink in, and Kip didn’t like it. Nor did any of the other greens he could see. For that matter, the Blackguards who weren’t greens didn’t seem particularly enamored of the thought either.
“You’ve all felt it. Even I can feel it now, and I’m no green. Our scouting tells us that there’s a bane somewhere, probably in the crook of the coast. Those of you who haven’t heard of that may have heard it called a lightbane. It’s a temple to the false gods, loci damnata, in this case Atirat. A bane corrupts light itself, and drafters more strongly than most. The good news is that if the power is wild like this, it means there’s no false god in place yet. Questions? I know you’ve got ’em, so make it quick.”
One of the full Blackguards, a broad-shouldered, lean warrior with wild hair, coal skin, and intense blue eyes named Tempus said, “The luxiats says Lucidonius made it so there wouldn’t be bane anymore. It shouldn’t be possible.”
Ironfist nodded to him. “We have no idea what the heretics have done to make it possible. Today we may find out, Orholam help us.”
“Effects on drafting?” an Ilytian who barely came up to Kip’s shoulder asked.
“Green should be much easier to draft large amounts of, but may be much harder to control. It may be different closer in. In addition, none of us have dealt with color wights on the scale we will today. There are stories about the bane perfecting wights. Don’t know if it’s true, but if I’ve heard it, so will have a lot of green wights. You’re going to see things you’ve never seen, things that you think are impossible. These wights have had time to work together, to learn from each other. No wights have done that for hundreds of years. Remember, whatever shape they’re trying to take, they’re still men underneath, and you’re doing them a favor by putting them down. Orholam have mercy on them, because we can’t. Greens, if you find yourselves losing control or believing that you don’t need to obey my orders, I won’t hold it against you. Of your own volition and in your own minds, decide right now that you want to put an end to this menace. If you come up with your own way to fight this, you’re welcome to it. Sink their ships, kill their wights, save our men. The Blackguard has made every one of you elite warriors, so fight as you know best. Follow my orders as long as you can bear it. I don’t question your loyalty, but I know I can’t trust you to obey orders. I’m putting you all in second squad under Watch Captain Tempus. First squad, take the center. Second squad, you’re with them. Third squad, the Prism says that the fort on Ruic Head is held by the rebels. The generals don’t believe him. The fort’s guns can reach halfway across the neck. If it is held by rebels, we need to silence those guns before they can wipe out our fleet. If he’s wrong, we make sure that the rebels don’t take it, and then come out and assist. If the bane is in range of the big guns, we’ll do our best to kill it, sink it, whatever. Everyone got it? Go.”
The third squad with Teia and Commander Ironfist headed out. Kip nodded to her as she went, wondering if he’d see either of them again. As they did, the Prism came skimming in on one of the sea chariots with Karris. They saluted the departing squad. The Prism’s face looked haggard, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He brought his chariot into place with the skimmer and handed it off to a Blackguard to seal it to the greater ship.
Gavin started immediately: “Squad one, squad two, our mission is to destroy the bane. We do that, sanity returns. Destroying the bane will weaken our greens, but it will weaken their wights much more. Its loss will incapacitate any green wight for a few minutes at least. We can expect the temple to be swarming with greens. In the center, there will likely be twelve greens standing inside luxin pillars. If we can get past them without waking them, that would be best. Unlikely, though. And though we can’t see it from here, there may be a central spire. We climb the spire, we kill Atirat’s avatar—hopefully before he or she wakes—and it all disappears. So if you can’t swim, find something that floats quick.”
The Blackguards were looking at him oddly.
“What?” Gavin asked.
“Lord Prism, how do you know this?” Tempus asked.
“Because I killed the blue bane by myself a couple months ago.”
Tempus rubbed his temples. Other Blackguards shuffled their feet. Kip heard a few mutter “Promachos” as if it were a quiet curse. At first Kip thought it was because they didn’t believe Gavin, then he realized it was because they did.
My father’s a giant, a god among men.
“Promachos,” Tempus asked. He hesitated. “If we’re too late, and the avatar wakes…”
Gavin pursed his lips. “Whoever it is, they won’t know much more about it than we do. It will certainly be a drafter of incredible power, seemingly able to draft infinite amounts from the smallest amount of light. It may be able to control the green drafters in its vicinity. Your bodies, at least. It can control the green luxin that’s become part of your body over your years of drafting. Maybe your minds, eventually. But if we get to it today, it shouldn’t have time to learn the full extent of its power. Best if we kill it before it wakes and keep this all theoretical, eh?” Gavin quirked a smile. “Light’s rising,” he said. “Let’s take it to them. We cut through the lines first and find the temple. Greens won’t be at strength until full light.”
They took to three skimmers. Gavin took the center of one with Karris and Kip with him, Watch Captain Tempus took the center of a skimmer dominated by green drafters, and Watch Captain Blademan took the last. Ironfist hadn’t let any of the greens be drivers, even in Tempus’s group. They’d be archers on each of the sea chariots when they split.
With the light barely gray in the east, the skimmers set out in a wide formation. The light was so weak that not all of the drafters could help propel the skimmer, even with their eyes dilated, so their progress wasn’t as fast as usual. Gavin’s skimmer, even with fifteen people on it, was easily the fastest, and he didn’t wait for the others.
They cut across the sedate waves, barely making any noise. Up ahead, Kip saw their ships looming larger. It wasn’t yet dawn, but to Kip the disposition of the ships seemed odd. They knew that the Color Prince’s army had seized the battery across from Ruic Head, of course. Between those cannons and the cannons in the fort on Ruic Head, the Atashians’ field of fire covered almost the entire entrance to Ruic Bay. Of course, the Color Prince held the fort on Ruic Head now—and he didn’t know that Gavin knew that. But if he had seized the fort, it would seem better strategy to beef up the middle of the neck here, to force the Chromeria’s ships to head along either coast, where it would be easier to shoot them.
They hadn’t done that. Instead, the center of the prince’s line was weak. There were a number of ships, but they were caravels and coccas and naos, small vessels. Quicker, more agile, sure, but not with many guns. Was the prince simply trying to bait the trap and not reveal that he did hold the fort on the north side?
That had to be it. Once they saw the Chromeria’s forces commit to going along the northern shore, the prince’s line would be reinforced and crush them against the fort’s guns.
Whatever corrupting power the green had, it didn’t seem to be exerting it yet. Kip supposed it must have something to do with there being no ambient light. After dawn, it would surely become more and more intense.
They passed the first ships and heard alarum bells ringing only after they passed. A luxin flare shot out over the sea, illuminating them. There was a rattle of muskets and a couple swivel guns, but at the speed they were traveling, none came close. Kip saw one of the superviolets on the skimmer tracking the flare. It took her several seconds with the bouncing of the skimmer over the waves, but finally the beam of superviolet she was shooting out caught the flare and encapsulated it, extinguished it, plunging them back into darkness. The other two skimmers came through in darkness, unseen.
As the light rose in the east, they traveled faster, and they passed more ships, too quickly for them to get off credible shots. As the sun peered over the horizon, Kip caught his first glimpse of Ru’s Great Pyramid, rising red and green in the morning.
But there was no sign of any rising green spire. The skimmers spread out as they went deep into the bay. The distant sounds of the battle starting rolled over the leagues behind them. And still no temple, no spire, and Kip was only beginning to feel the restless energies of green pulling at him.
They came fully in sight of the city. Kip could see the towns outside the walls still smoking, having been burned down the day before. The base of the great stepped pyramid was only blocks from the waterfront. Though constructed of the local reddish stone, the pyramid was whitewashed aside from the great red stripes painted in zigzags up each of its four sides, and covered with greenery. At the top rested a giant curved mirror. Clearly, the makers of the Chromeria’s Thousand Stars had stolen the idea from the Great Pyramid. Behind the city, the Red Cliffs loomed a thousand feet over the city. Smoke rose from whatever towns had once rested up there, and Kip saw a single trebuchet bombarding the city from on high.
It must have been difficult to get the catapults up to the top of the cliffs, or to find materials to build them up there, but there was no way to stop them once they made it there. And if the Blood Robes brought one up, surely they would now bring more. There was no defense against that.
The trebuchet loosed another shot. It looked to Kip like it was nearly random. It was such a long distance that it might take them days to breach the walls—but days of raining death into a city were days of terror for those inside.
The walls of the city still looked whole, though the entire waterfront was burning, and hulks of burned-out ships rested in the shallows everywhere. Apparently the Color Prince’s rented pirates had done good work.
But Gavin obviously didn’t care about the city right now. They pulled in a broad arc, seeing that the army had entirely encircled the city and seized all the towns around it.
“Greens, anyone got a feel yet?” Gavin asked. The sun had fully cleared the horizon now. Musket shots were crackling from the shore, aiming at them, but they were three hundred paces out.
“If anything, it feels weaker here than out—” one of the men started.
“Shit!” Gavin said before he could even finish. “Of course! ‘Most of the times,’ she tells me! Most of the times.” He turned the skimmer sharply back out to sea. Karris made hand signals to the other skimmer.
“What is it? What is it?” Kip asked, and he could tell he was speaking for some of the others, too.
“The bane’s huge. If it’s nearby, but it isn’t here, where is it?” Karris said.
Kip still didn’t understand. Up ahead, he saw the guns of the fort on Ruic Head open up, pillars of black smoke blowing out with every shot. It had to be home to the biggest guns Kip had ever seen. Below, the Chromeria’s fleet had taken a tentative course. They weren’t hugging the north coast closest to the fort, but neither had they gone straight for the middle.
Now, as the guns opened up, cratering the waters around their fleet, the Chromeria’s ships were reacting quickly, tacking to the middle. But instead of the Color Prince shoring up the middle to keep the Chromeria’s ships in range of his guns, they were melting away instead. One Chromeria ship was afire and had lost its mainmast, but the rest were fleeing.
Sure of salvation, the Chromeria’s ships were heading straight for the gap, amazed at their own escape.
The fort’s big guns set half a dozen of the smaller ships aflame, though. Men were screaming, and Kip saw shapes moving through the water faster than they should have been able to, jumping out and hurling luxin. Birds—ironbeaks, no doubt—crowded the air.
But when Kip took his eyes away from the individual stories unfolding before his eyes—the men dying, the fires started, the amazing shots hit, the luxin bent into shapes he’d never seen—he saw that the Color Prince wasn’t even trying to hold the center. No ships were rushing to shore up the defenses there.
And Kip was feeling wild. What the hell?
It was getting harder to think strategically. Kip wanted to kill, he wanted to run, he wanted to move—and though he was flying at greater speeds than most men know in their whole lives, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to move like this as his own master, under only his own control.
What had Karris said? “If it isn’t here”?
It is here.
“The bane float,” Gavin said. “Most of the times!”
As soon as Kip realized was that meant, he saw that everyone else had already figured it out. Gavin had turned the skimmer toward the middle of the strait. There, lost among the fires coming from each shore, were a dozen rowboats—boats filled with the Color Prince’s drafters and wights.
“Split!” Gavin said. “Kill them before they can finish!”
Finish what?
The skimmer split into its component parts—six sea chariots and the central skimmer, leaving Kip with Gavin and Karris, who were each manning one of the reeds. Kip took off his sub-red spectacles with one hand and tucked them into their case, but the skipping of the skimmer was so jarring that instead of drawing another pair to ready himself for the fight, he had to use both hands to grip the railing.
The snap of muskets firing sounded in Kip’s ears and a torrent of every color of luxin flew between the sea chariots and rowboats. Half the drafters in the boats seemed to be there solely to defend the others, and Kip saw massive shields of green luxin springing up around every one of them, far more powerful than the drafters should have been able to make. Fire and luxin and even musket balls were absorbed easily. The other men on the boats were heaving at great green chains that disappeared into the depths below them, and even as Kip watched, something seemed to give. First one crewman fell down and the tight chains suddenly went slack, and then another and another.
The sea chariots and the skimmer closed on all of them.
Something enormous moved beneath the waves and Kip saw a tangled, coiled mass rising toward the surface with terrible speed.
And then the entire sea exploded into the sky.