of the waterfall once again. Something huge and yellow blasted into the red drafter so fast and hard it seemed the man disappeared. His body was thrown into the air, torn in half by the force of the collision. The red luxin sludge holding Kip fell into dust.
Kip stood and looked in horror at what had been a man. The red of the drafter’s clothes now mingled with his blood, magic and violence mixed. But his entire upper body had been reduced to jelly. Kip looked to the forest.
With the boy saved for the moment, Gavin ran toward the Mirrormen. Karris had headed down the hill to save the other boy running for the river, but she was already too late. The Mirrormen formed up with surprising discipline and speed. None of these men had bothered to bard their horses. Barding was heavy and awkward and tired the horses quickly, and the Mirrormen obviously hadn’t expected to run into any real opposition, much less drafters. That meant the horses were easily the most vulnerable targets. But Gavin didn’t like killing innocent beasts. Their masters? That was a different matter.
He swept a hand in a sharp, hard arc, the air crackling like a succession of rocks exploding in a fire. A dozen blue globes, each half the size of his fist, shot out. The mirrored armor, working like a mirror reflecting light, reflected part of any luxin thrown against it, making it unravel. That was a big problem for a drafter trying to cut down a horseman with a luxin sword, but it was only protection, not invulnerability. The thin-walled luxin globes smashed against mirror armor—and sheared open, dumping out flaming red goo that splashed all over the Mirrormen, up and down their chests, into their visors, down the seams into their groins.
With fire and screams and the sizzle of burning skin, the charge faltered. Gavin swept his other hand out and another dozen globes shot out. Men were crashing to the ground from their saddles, trying to roll and put out the fires. Others clawed at their flaming helmets, cooking. Still others were trying to continue the charge, half a dozen men lowering their lances—until the second wave of globes caught them.
More than a dozen horses continued the charge, though. Even without their riders’ guidance, these horses were bred to war, and they ran toward Gavin.
Gavin threw green wedges around himself like a clamshell and braced himself. The horses jostled him hard as they charged past, but left him standing.
There were only three Mirrormen left uninjured, all of them men on the ends of the line who’d broken off the charge early. They were sawing their reins, turning tail to flee. Cowards, perhaps. But smart cowards. Gavin flicked fingers at each in turn. Superviolet luxin was fast, light, and invisible to almost everyone. Like a spider, each dot stuck to one of the men and then climbed up to the joint in their armor at the back of their necks.
Three spiked missiles of yellow luxin sped along the superviolet spiderwebs trailing from those spiders to Gavin a moment later. With a meaty crunch, each missile punched through mail and into a spine. Three riders toppled from their galloping horses.
With all the riders around him dead or dying, Gavin looked down the hill to see how Karris was doing against the last two Mirrormen. One was already down, and if anything, Gavin was surprised to see that the other was still alive—a fact that would no doubt change shortly.
Four hundred years ago, when it had been founded, the Blackguard had been an Ilytian company, chosen as much for their proud relation to Lucidonius as for their martial skill. But when Ilyta lost influence in the Spectrum, the Blackguard had been forced to abandon choosing on the basis of province and instead had justified their elite position on function: when a drafter drafted, his skin filled with the color he was about to use. That meant in a fight, a paler-skinned Atashian or Blood Forester drafter was easier to predict. That justification had satisfied the Parians who were also darker-skinned, just fine. Since then, Blackguards had been mostly Parians or Ilytians, with Parians gradually becoming the majority as their political power waxed.
But having based their protected status on their fighting prowess, the Blackguard had been forced to accept more than a dozen elite warrior-drafters from countries other than Paria and Ilyta over the last two centuries.