like the barrel of a vast cannon. The Mirrormen went incandescent, standing for a moment longer than seemed possible, their armor glowing, then glowing red-hot, then glowing white-hot, then ripping apart like everything else.
A concussion rocked the earth at the power of the blast, and only Gavin didn’t fall. He rode the earth, magic bursting forth like he was nothing more than the tip of a volcano, the barrel of a musket.
Then, not five seconds after it started, it was gone.
The gate area was scoured clean. The bodies were gone, and a wide area around the gate on King Garadul’s side was scorched and blackened.
There was stunned silence—either that, or Gavin had gone deaf. He stood, looking out, and a figure stumbled into his view. A big man, dressed in rich clothes, now blackened. King Garadul. Evidently the man hadn’t just sent his personal guards to attack the gate; he’d come with them.
Gavin and Garadul stood, facing each other, forty paces away. Gavin could read the awe and uncertainty in the big man’s very stance.
Then Gavin’s body gave out. He collapsed. There was something white in the dirt near his face, or he was going blind. Spots swam in every color before his eyes.
Men were lifting him, carrying him away, and he heard the distant sounds of renewed battle. As the Blackguards lifted him, surrounding him with their bodies and withdrawing from the field, he saw King Garadul through the open gate, charging the gate—alone. Whatever else Gavin had done, he’d destroyed the barricade and every other impediment in that area. A few men joined their king. The dirt around Rask was exploding in little puffs as snipers tried to kill him, but none hit. It was like the man was charmed, blessed, protected by some old god mightier than Orholam.
Then Gavin saw Tremblefist’s bloodied, gunpowder-streaked face. “Forgive me, Lord Prism,” the Blackguard was saying. “You did everything you could. More. Now—” Then Gavin lost consciousness.
Chapter 74
As night fell, the plain didn’t darken. At first, Liv had no idea why. She had been walking all day, stuck behind the wagon, wearing an old petasos with the brim low so her drafter’s eyes would be less conspicuous. She’d heard the rumble of guns earlier, but assumed it was posturing. There was no way the army was at Garriston yet. Along with what appeared to be half of the entire camp, she went forward to see what was so bright.
There were so many people covering the plain that Liv almost missed the signs of the battle that had concluded mere hours before, obvious as they were. Trenches where cannonballs had landed simply became ditches for the wagons to avoid. Slippery, muddy, bloody areas next to those cannon scars, with fragments of armor littered about, were just places to watch your footing in the near-darkness. The pungent aroma of gunpowder was already dissipating.
The last of the great lines of soldiers were marching through the gate even now, forcing all the camp followers to wait until after they’d gone inside and set up camp. Liv heard wild rumors of huge magical conflagrations, an epic battle, but she was skeptical. King Garadul’s army had taken the wall in an afternoon. It couldn’t have been much of a fight. Her father was a great general. He’d only lost one battle in his life, and that barely. He must have decided that they wouldn’t finish the wall in time and had withdrawn to the city walls. He’d probably just had some cannoneers stay to inflict some easy damage on King Garadul’s men and then withdraw.
The thought made Liv feel better. If her father had chosen to make his stand elsewhere, then he surely wouldn’t have been in danger today. The idea that he might have fought and died less than a league away and that she hadn’t had so much as a sick intuition was too terrible to entertain. She’d been so caught up in looking for Kip that she hadn’t even realized they were this close to the city.
But all thoughts and worries and distractions faded as she pushed through the crowds lined up looking at the wall. No one went within fifty paces of it. As Liv finally pushed to the front, she saw why. An enormous spider, larger than a man, had strung up a dozen corpses—no, not corpses, at least one of the web-wrapped bundles was struggling. As Liv watched, the man tore his head free, his hands bound tight up against his