The Black Prism

Chapter 82

Kip had always pictured a charge as being somehow glorious. Whatever he'd pictured, it wasn't this. He held his pants up with his wounded left hand and the musket in his right. And the musket was heavy! His heart was heaving and everyone else was running faster than he was.

He had little sense of what was happening anywhere else. A man who roared that the soldiers could call him either god or Master Sergeant Galan Delelo ran at the front, urging his men on. The backs of the other soldiers filled the rest of Kip's vision, and the pain of running distracted him from all else except for the intermittent whistling, which he couldn't place at first-until he realized it was the sound of musket balls flying past, and then he could hardly think of anything else.

For a moment he saw the city walls as the men in front of him disappeared in a ditch before scrambling up the other side. He remembered dismissing these walls not even a week ago. Now they looked pretty impressive. The side of the wall was encrusted with slums like barnacles, and King Garadul's men were already swarming there, trying to use the low buildings and rough shelters as a ladder. But even in the brief glimpse Kip had, one of the slum buildings on which the men were climbing teetered and then collapsed, crushing men and sending up a cloud of dust.

Something wet and chunky splattered across Kip's face as he ran. He turned, vaguely saw a man dropping beside him-and then the ground suddenly wasn't where it was supposed to be.

He went down hard in the dry irrigation ditch. He skidded on his face, flipped over, rolled, the wind knocked cleanly out of him. As he moaned, struggling to regain his breath, he realized he wasn't alone. The irrigation ditch was full of men cowering inside its marginal cover.

Master Sergeant Galan Delelo appeared back on the lip of the ditch. "Get up, you pathetic rats! They've got an angle right into this ditch from the wall, you damn fools. Get up! If you're anything less than dead, get up or I'll shoot you myself!"

For a second, no one moved.

"You wouldn't," a man said.

The master sergeant drew a pistol and shot him in the belly. "Who's next?" he yelled. He pointed his other pistol at a man carrying a large robin's egg blue sack.

"I'm a messenger!" the man screamed.

"You're a soldier now," Master Sergeant Delelo shouted. He was either unaware or just didn't care about the musket fire raining around him, sending up little puffs of earth. "Now, move!"

The man dropped his messenger sack, grabbed Kip's musket, and ran forward, along with everyone else.

Lying on the ground, Kip was left with the other corpses. When he had his breath back, he touched the side of his face. Gore, gray-red chunks of… He didn't want to think about it. What mattered was that he was free. At least until the next officer commandeered the cowards who filled up this ditch again.

There wasn't much time. If Kip thought too much or waited too long, he wouldn't move, and he needed to move now. The master sergeant was right, this ditch wasn't out of the line of fire. If Kip waited, he was going to get killed.

He wanted to see more of the battle, make a good plan. He didn't know what kind of a judge he would be of whatever he saw, and he didn't even know which way to run.

He grabbed the messenger's sack and slung it over his shoulder. He saw the wreck of a wagon farther back away from the wall.

Did we run right past that? Kip hadn't even noticed. Regardless, the oxen who'd been pulling the wagon were dead or mewling, screaming in pain, bloodied. Kip ran for it.

He ducked into the shadow of the wagon and found two other men already there. They looked at him with wide, fearful eyes. "Move!" he shouted.

Kip climbed up on the wreck and looked out on the plain. At first all he saw were the dead bodies. Several hundred perhaps. Mostly he couldn't see any blood, so it looked like people sprawled about sleeping. It wasn't so great a toll, considering how big the army was, Kip thought, but seeing so many dead wasn't really something he could merely think about. Those people were dead. He could have been one of them. He could still be.

He tore his eyes away, tried to look for something useful. In a few spots at the wall, King Garadul's men had actually reached the top of the wall. There was fighting in three or four places, defenders and attackers alike being thrown off, grappling, puffs of black smoke erupting everywhere from musket and pistol fire.

To Kip's left, there was a slight hill, out of range of musket fire from the wall. There were several hundred horsemen and drafters around the hill. In front of the hill, drafters were crafting a bridge over the irrigation ditch. Kip saw then that the original bridge had been destroyed by the retreating people of Garriston. It had slowed King Garadul's advance, probably more because they'd stopped to talk about it than if they had simply charged the horses through.

At the top of the hill, Kip saw standard bearers and a figure who might have been King Garadul himself. He was shouting, making huge animated movements toward Lord Omnichrome, who was unmistakable because he literally glowed in the early morning light.

Kip didn't realize he'd made a decision until he found himself running. He snatched a musket from the ground next to a woman curled in the fetal position, moaning, and kept running. His vengeance was this close.

As Kip approached the hill, movement began on the hill and rapidly spread, horns sounding orders. It was a few seconds before Kip saw the horses moving. King Garadul was advancing on the wall-personally, right toward the Mother's Gate. Was he trusting that his men would open the gate by the time he got there, or was he just an idiot?

Kip was halfway up the hill when he saw a woman whose form seemed familiar. He stopped.

Karris White Oak had flagged down one of the horsemen heading after King Garadul. The man slowed down for her, and she swung up into the saddle behind him with surprising grace. The man turned in the saddle to ask her a question, and then tumbled out. Kip saw the quick gleam of a dagger, then it was sheathed, and Karris kicked the horse's sides and went speeding after King Garadul. She was going by herself, and with her eye caps still on. She wouldn't be able to draft, but she was still going to try to kill him. Even if she were successful, it would be suicide.

I swore to save her. And I swore to kill him.

Kip was a terrible rider, but there was no way he could catch up without a horse. Seeing horses tied up near the crown of the hill, he headed straight for them.

"… through the Lover's Gate. You'll have to swim. Join the refugees. He'll-"

Kip rounded a tent in time to see the young drafter Zymun swing up into a saddle. He was taking orders from Lord Omnichrome himself. Kip's heart leaped. They weren't twenty paces away.

"You need a horse?" someone said, right at Kip's elbow.

Kip almost jumped out of his skin. He blinked stupidly at the groom.

"Rough work out there, huh?" the groom said.

"Message!" Kip said, remembering he was carrying a messenger bag. "Message for the king! Yes, a horse! I need a horse."

"I figured," the man said. He went off to find a beast large enough.

Kip looked back toward Lord Omnichrome and Zymun. He missed whatever else they said, but he saw Lord Omnichrome hand a box to the mounted drafter.

That box. Kip couldn't believe it.

That was his box. Right size. Right shape. That was his inheritance. The only thing his mother had ever given him. And Zymun had it.

Zymun bowed to Lord Omnichrome. Kip sank back as the young drafter pulled his horse around and galloped away to the east. Lord Omnichrome strode back toward the crown of the hill. The groom brought Kip a horse and helped him mount and stash the musket in a sleeve beside the saddle.

Kip looked, torn. Lord Omnichrome was disappearing up the hill, rejoining his entourage. He was the heart of this; Kip knew it. He should kill him. Orholam, his chance was passing through his fingertips. But to the south, Karris was charging to her death, and to the east, that snake Zymun was stealing the only thing Kip had to remember his mother by. Kill Lord Omnichrome and stop the war. Kill Zymun and take the knife. Or save Karris and have a chance at King Garadul. Kip couldn't get them all.

Kip had made his oaths to the living and to the dead. He gritted his teeth, sure he was making the wrong decision-and making it anyway. It's better that the innocent should live than that the guilty die. Gavin loved Karris, and he deserved another chance at happiness. Kip rode after her.