He didn’t recognize the soldier standing in front of him. “Form up, soldier!” the man shouted. “Move it!”
They thought he was a soldier because he had a musket. But then, with his powder-blackened clothes, it was no wonder.
“Come on, soldier, we’ve got a city to take!”
There were at least twenty soldiers with the man, and only the officer had a real uniform. Kip shot a glance at Karris. She was wobbling back and forth, holding her hands over her eyes like she was blind, just another wounded person. Kip realized that if they saw the violet caps over her eyes, they’d capture her immediately. Or kill her outright. With that dress, it was best not to let their attention alight on her any longer than necessary.
If Kip refused, the man could summarily execute him. And he looked grim, ready to do it. “Yes, sir!” Kip said. He joined the lines, glanced at Karris, looked once more for Liv and didn’t see her, and then ran with the soldiers toward the city and the sound of guns and the flash of magic.
Chapter 81
Gavin squared his shoulders and confronted his accusers. A hallway in the Travertine Palace. It wasn’t exactly where he would have picked to die, but he supposed it was better than some dungeon somewhere. Better than I gave you, Gavin. At least he could face this with dignity.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“We know what you’re doing,” Usef Tep said. “Sir.” The “sir” was belated. It always was with the Purple Bear.
Samila Sayeh came forward, put a hand on Usef’s meaty arm. “We’ve come together to stop you, Gavin Guile.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Gavin asked.
“By volunteering.”
Huh? Gavin tottered on the edge of drafting everything he could. Stopped. Tried to keep his idiot perplexity off his face.
“It’s noble, Lord Prism, but it’s not wise.”
What? Well sometimes when you don’t know what the hell someone’s talking about, the best thing to do is play along.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Gavin said. Oops.
“The Freeing is the holiest moment in a drafter’s life,” Samila said. “You’re trying to protect that for us. And we thank you for that. But we’re warriors. All of us fought in the war. We’re willing to fight again.”
“I die this day,” Usef said. “It’s my duty to make an end, and I accept that. But I’ve got no patience for all this Orholam this and Orholam that. I’d rather go down fighting.”
“Lord Prism,” Samila Sayeh said, “we have to hold the city long enough for everyone to escape. Holding the walls is a death sentence. Why not give it to us? We’re dead anyway.”
Their talking had given Gavin a few moments to think, to recover his balance. “If I send you out there, you’ll all break the halo. That’s why you’re here. Next year I’ll have to face you fighting for him. They don’t put down color wights. It’s not just your souls we’re talking about here. It’s your sanity. And you’re right, you’re all warriors. That makes you ten times as dangerous when you break.”
“We’ll fight in teams. Each with a pistol and a knife. When we break, we’ll do as the Blackguards do.”
When a comrade broke the halo on the battlefield, the Blackguards considered them dead—and indeed, it did usually render a person unconscious temporarily. The Blackguards would check the eyes of a fallen comrade, and if the halo was broken, they’d slit their throat.
“Except when a team’s down to one, we end ourselves too,” Samila said. It was, for some, a thorny theological point, though not without precedent. Was suicide a sin when you knew you were going mad and would likely hurt or kill innocents? “You are the Prism, you could make a special dispensation.”
“Future generations would believe that implied special dispensation is needed,” Talon Gim said, scowling. He had always had very definite theological views.
Maros Orlos stepped forward. “Lord Prism, we’ve already sent to be Freed all the drafters we knew were too far gone to be any use on the battlefield. What is the greater good here? That we do things as they’ve always been done, or that we save an entire city?”
There was no contest, of course. Gavin was trembling. “I think such a sacrifice would honor Orholam. I will give each of you a… special blessing as you take up this burden. I am… deeply humbled by this act of devotion. Deeply grateful.”