saw a flash of something. Royal garments. Garadul.
He burst through just as King Garadul was pulled up onto a platform at the back of the market square. His men were trying to hustle him down some narrow alley there. Kip bounded forward, and found that his green luxin legs bounced him much farther than he’d intended. He landed between King Garadul and the alley, crushing two of the king’s men, including his last drafter. The ground was littered with dead drafters, but Kip didn’t care how they’d died. He had eyes only for the king. He extended a hand behind him and shot out a dozen musket balls toward the remaining Mirrormen.
King Garadul tripped over a body on the platform. In an instant, Kip was on top of him. He kicked at Kip. Kip brought a big fist down and broke the king’s leg like kindling. The man screamed. Kip grabbed his head, latching big luxin fists together on either side and lifting. The rattle of musket fire stopped. Kip was too close to the king; no one would dare.
“You killed my mother!” Kip shouted in the king’s face.
The king’s eyes focused on Kip’s face within the green armor. “You?” he said. “Lina’s brat? She’s not worthy of vengeance and you know it.”
“Kip!” Someone was shouting, but Kip barely heard it. The king was trying to draw a bich’hwa from his belt, but he was in too much pain.
“Go to hell!” Kip screamed. “You go to hell!” He lifted the king high and squeezed with all his strength and all his will.
“Kip! Stop! This is just what Lord Omnichrome wants—”
Nothing could penetrate the madness, the sheer fury. Kip wasn’t even sure whether it was more at this man for massacring his village or at his mother. He loved her. He hated her.
King Garadul screamed and Kip screamed and together they drowned out Corvan Danavis’s scream. Kip’s hands clapped together and the king’s head popped like a grape, like a watermelon dropped from a great height, splattering juice all over.
“Kip! No! It’s just what they want you to do!” Corvan Danavis’s voice penetrated Kip’s iron skull as he dropped the king’s limp corpse onto the platform.
Looking up, stunned, Kip saw Corvan Danavis, mounted at the head of perhaps a hundred men riding into the square. The invaders, already broken and leaderless without King Garadul, scattered at the sight of so many fresh soldiers.
Kip heard a body fall behind him, and turned to see a Mirrorman with an arrow in his heart. Someone had saved him. Again. He hadn’t even seen the man. His brain was swimming. He felt like he was shrinking. He was standing on his own feet again, the green luxin was gone. He tottered, and felt someone steady him on his feet. He turned. Karris had come down from the roofs and was taking the bich’hwa from the king’s body. Karris? He’d meant to save her, hadn’t he?
That turned out well.
He looked at King Garadul’s body and felt nothing but emptiness. When he looked up, Corvan Danavis was there, swearing. Kip had never heard Master Danavis swear.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” Corvan asked.
“Go to hell,” Kip said, empty, dry, lifeless. “He killed our whole town. He deserved worse.”
Corvan stopped and looked at Kip with a new respect in his eyes. He didn’t say anything for a moment, then said, “Mount up. We have to get out of the city. Now.”
“But I killed him. Don’t we win?” Kip asked. His head felt so thick and fuzzy. And the light was hurting his eyes. He wanted nothing so much as a blanket and a dark room. They had won, hadn’t they? “Why do we have to go?”
“Look at that,” Karris said, coming close. She was already mounted. She was pointing toward the wall.
Lord Omnichrome stood on top of the Mother’s Gate, perhaps four hundred paces distant, and when he spoke, through some trick of magic, they could hear him perfectly. “They’ve killed King Garadul! Avenge the king! Drive out the foreigners!”
The gate opened, revealing hundreds of drafters—hundreds—and dozens of color wights. They were followed by thousands more soldiers.
“That’s why,” Karris said.
Chapter 89
Gavin’s intuition was wrong.
On arriving at the Hag’s Gate, he’d become like a man trying to plug a leaky hull with his fingers and toes. He could only reach so far. He and the Blackguards had held the Hag’s Gate alone, with no other support, against thousands of soldiers, for ten minutes now. At this