Kip drafted a green ball and threw it up into the yawning barrel, willed it to stay.
The officer pulled the trigger. A moment, then the musket exploded in his hands. The breach of the musket blew out, throwing flaming black powder into the man’s face, setting his beard alight. He screamed, fell back.
“Kill him!” someone shouted.
Kip saw steel being drawn on all sides, flashes of the sun on blades. And he started laughing. Because he was good at something.
He was good at taking punishment. He was a turtle. Or maybe a bear. A turtle-bear. Orholam, he was an idiot. He laughed again, slapping his hands to his shoulders as he lay on the ground. Green luxin jetted out, covering him like he’d seen it cover the green wight back in Rekton.
As Kip watched, a sword descended and hacked into the green luxin over his arm. It cut in two finger’s breadths, but the luxin was thicker. It stopped, quivering like an ax in wood. Kip flipped over, pulling in more green from every light surface, not even knowing how he did it, pulling and pulling, drafting light from Orholam’s endless tap.
It filled him with that same wildness. Wildness chained, hemmed in, trapped. The luxin covering him grew thicker. Kip gathered his feet beneath himself and stood, roaring.
He was crazy. He was crazy, and he felt great. He smashed a green forearm into a wide-eyed man holding a sword. It flung the man back. Kip paused for a second, and spikes sprouted from his green armor everywhere. He threw his weight back and forth, crashing into the crowd like they were rats to smash against cupboard walls.
Blood was flying in red ropes. Kip wasn’t human anymore. He was an animal, unwilling to be caged. He was a mad dog. Some dim, thinking part of him thought that he shouldn’t have been able to move so well with such a heavy suit on him. He was strong, but not this strong.
He had no sense of the battle beyond the little circle around him. Even that was a blur—sharp motions to the left and right, gleams of light off blades and rising muskets to be crushed before they could fire. He slashed and hacked and pounded with unreasoning fury. He could hold only one thought: I will not be stopped.
In moments, or hours, Kip had no notion of time—he saw fear in every eye. A continual flood of men spilled in through the gap, thrust forth hard by the mass of bodies behind them, all pushing them forward and into Kip, but his very presence was slowing the flood, men pushing back as soon as they saw him, others leaping to the sides, hoping to avoid his fury.
Their weakness inflamed him further. Like rats willing to bite in the darkness but scattering in the light, they were cowards. He clubbed them, smashing heads, ripping open bellies. He charged the gap where they couldn’t flee, impaled them, flung gore left and right.
A thought won through his brain. Among all the shouting and screams and fear and mist and musket fire and clash of arms, someone was screaming a word: “Kip! Kip! King Garadul! That way!”
Kip couldn’t see who was shouting. He stretched, found himself taller, the luxin swirling under his feet, boosting him several hand’s breadths. Looking into the city, he saw Karris, skin red and green entwined, holding a sword, pointing it deeper into the city still.
King Garadul was rallying his Mirrormen around him there, pulling them together after they’d been separated coming through the gap. He was screaming orders. Seemed furious about something. Hadn’t seen Kip.
Before he even knew what he was doing, Kip was charging, all his will focused, intent, implacable. This one thing remained: King Garadul had to pay for what he’d done. He had to die.
Chapter 86
When Gavin heard the explosion, he knew immediately what it was. He was almost back to the wall on his way from the docks, where he’d been using the first light to help draft boats for the refugees. The evacuation was entirely possible if people would be reasonable. Gavin had told the city’s elders that nobles could bring three chests, armorers and apothecaries could bring three as well, rich merchants could bring two, and everyone else could only bring what they could carry.