you are, but I want you to draft more green. I need you with me,” Karris hissed.
He was staring at the smear of head on the ground. The soldiers pushing toward the gate were trampling right over the pieces of brain and bone, giving more room to the two drafters than they did to the men Kip had killed.
“Kip!” She slapped him, hard. “Cry later. Be a man now.” The red diamonds in her emerald eyes blazed. She cursed, cast about for a moment, looking for something, then a few threads of green wove their way from her eyes to her fingertips through the ocean of red that colored her pale skin, and she drafted something small in her hands.
Spectacles. Spectacles entirely of green luxin. She put them on his face, adjusted them, did something to seal them, and then stepped away. “Now draft!” she ordered.
Kip was a sponge. It was like going outside on a hot day, closing his eyes, and basking in the heat. Everywhere he looked there were light-colored surfaces, homes and shops whitewashed against the sun, and every one of them gave him magic. He soaked it in, feeling potent. Free. The throbbing in his burned hand faded to nothing.
He joined the stream of soldiers heading toward the gap in the wall. The musket fire from atop the wall had all but ceased. It was turning into a glorious morning, bright, crisp, slowly burning off the mist. It would be hot soon.
Where before, when he was unmoving, the stream of men had parted around him like a boulder as they saw that he was a drafter, as soon as he joined the stream he was jostled about just like everyone else. The lines compressed the closer they got to the wall, and men trying to stay with their units pushed hard. As it got tighter and tighter, more and more constrained, Kip started to rebel against it. He wasn’t sure how much of the agitation was his, and how much was the green luxin’s influence on him, but he could tell that there was more to his reaction than his own psyche.
With the confluence of horses and men in armor—though only a small fraction of King Garadul’s army was armored or uniformed, those soldiers were intent on going in first—Kip lost sight of King Garadul himself. Karris had slipped into the line in front of him, and she was using her slender form and muscles to slip in between rows and push forward. Kip soon lost sight of her too. It was all he could do to keep on his feet as the crowd packed tight together right at the wall.
“You!” someone shouted.
Kip looked. A horseman, ten paces away, was staring at him. Kip had no idea who the man was.
“You!” the officer repeated. “You’re not one of us!”
At first, Kip had no idea who the man was. He thought maybe it was one of the soldiers who’d escorted him with Zymun after Kip had blown up the fire. But even that was only a guess. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter. The man recognized him.
The officer tugged at his musket, trying to pull it from the saddle sleeve, but there were other horses pressing in on either side of him, and it was stuck.
“Spy! Traitor!” the officer shouted, pointing at Kip. “He doesn’t have the sleeves! He’s not one of us! Murderer! Spy! That green drafter is a spy!”
Kip had been pushed up the rubble pile to the gap in the wall itself. It put him at a high point. Everyone was able to see him.
The officer finally pulled his musket free and kicked his horse savagely to come after Kip. Turned backward looking at the man, not really believing he would fire into a crowd of his compatriots, Kip lifted his hands to draft something, anything. His foot slid on the rubble, and the surging crowd, some pulling away, some reaching toward him, threw him off balance. He went down in stages. The people were packed so tight that he didn’t fall all at once, but neither could he stop himself once he started.
The gap in the wall vomited them into Garriston. Kip fell and rolled.
Someone stepped on his burned left hand. He screamed. Feet were hitting his sides, someone tripped over him, someone stepped on his belly, someone kicked the side of his head. He tumbled, rolling down the slight hill of rubble, tried to gain his feet, and got smacked with the stock of