The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,401

maybe hit someone?”

He jerked his head away half a heartbeat before the hole splintered once, twice, and again. Other shots thudded into the door.

Ferkudi looked askance at him from the other side of the door-frame. “I think you win it again, Ben.”

“What’s that?” Ben-hadad asked, drawing his sea-demon-bone crossbow easily. With will, he tightened the string until one dial for each string showed the appropriate tension. He fitted bolts into each channel. Toward the door, he yelled, “That’s better! At this rate, you’ll be through this door by Sun Day next year. Nicely done!” He poked his head briefly in front of the hole again.

It splintered instantly.

“Someone’s onto me,” Ben-hadad said appreciatively. He rubbed at a streak of blood a flying splinter had left on his forehead. “Wait, what were you saying, Ferk? What do I win?”

“Stupidest Smart Guy in the Mighty. Are you joking with this? What are you trying to prove, Ben?”

“C’mon, Ferk. It’s all part of my cunning plan.”

“Cunning plan? To get your head shot off?”

“Nah. The hole wasn’t big enough. Didn’t want to risk my life to widen it myself. Besides, if they keep shooting at the door, we’re not going to have anything to defend here.”

“Hole? What?”

“Cover on three?”

Ferkudi nodded, lifting up his blunderbuss. “Two,” he said.

Ben-hadad pulled a fist-sized grenado from a pouch, all swirling with red and yellow luxin. He pulled the string to allow the two ingredients to mix.

On one, Ferkudi poked the bell-shaped muzzle of the blunderbuss against one of the holes he’d shot through before. Everyone on the other side took cover as his shot rang out, spraying hot metal into the hallway and their faces.

A moment later, Ben-hadad’s large grenado sailed through. He instantly dropped to the ground, not because he was injured but to look through a hole that had been shot low in the door.

There was a shattering as of glass, then a whoosh of fire, then screams. The discharge of a musket.

“Damn, I’m good,” Ben-hadad said. He stood up—easily, due to Finer’s braces, which he wore on each knee now, though not without pain—and poked his crossbow up the hole. Each string twanged in turn. He rested his back against the doorframe once more and looked over at Ferkudi with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Mmm?” Ben-hadad prompted.

“Let me guess. Two headshots?” Ferkudi said.

“Ooh! Can I play?” Winsen shouted from behind them.

“No!” Commander Big Leo boomed from his position by Breaker.

“How many is that now?” Ben-hadad asked as they both reloaded their weapons.

“I dunno,” Ferkudi said.

“What do you mean you don’t know? I’ve been calling them—” Ben-hadad asked.

“No reputable witnesses,” Ferkudi said.

“Are you—”

But then they both cut off at a sudden distortion in the air. It passed through both of them as if an enormous wave had passed, bending all reality. For a moment, it was as if they’d been color-blind for all their lives and were suddenly seeing—seeing not just the world but into realms beyond the world.

And then the shock wave passed like a ripple in the pond of time, heading rapidly west.

“Anyone know what that was?” Ferkudi asked.

“No!” Big Leo barked. “Hold the door!”

Chapter 125

The red bane was in disarray. The Dagnu had been intending to attack with Anat, Red with its brother color Sub-red, but with Anat dead, Dagnu now was scattered and stupid with rage. It would take him several more minutes before he could attack.

In the meantime, the orange was launching a storm of pure horror at the island. Shapes congealed and morphed in the very clouds, dropping from the sky toward Big Jasper like the shot from a trebuchet.

Kip drafted a bit of orange to get ready for the combat, forgetting to take his hand from the mirror array first.

In an instant, a burning like brandy gives your throat and gut flashed through his entire body. He’d tried for just a taste of orange; he’d just quaffed a full tankard.

He’d surely burned through a third of his halo.

It left him gasping, nearly gagging.

His hands dropped from the array as he grunted and struggled to breathe. There was musket fire here, the sound of the Mighty, talking, tense but not panicked. He could understand no more than that, so dazed was he from the amount of luxin he’d just burnt himself with. He gasped, huffing. Then, shaking himself like a turtle-bear who’d just taken a blow to the snout and was shocked that anyone would dare such a thing, Kip grabbed the array again and launched himself at the orange