6 страница

He stopped, terrified. Broad-leafed plants, slick with the mist, obscured both sides of the tiny trail. One foot set on those, and he would plunge down the rocky incline to the river. In the rapids, he'd be battered to death.

He needed to see. He tried to look at things out of the corners of his eyes, the way Master Danavis had taught him. The part of your eye that focused on things was best at seeing colors, but outside the focus area was better at seeing light and dark.

"Move!" Sanson said.

Kip looked over his shoulder. Sanson's face looked like it was on fire. Kip took a step back and tottered on the sharp edge of the trail. Everywhere Sanson's skin was exposed, he looked hot. Kip could even see the steam evaporating off his arms in little orange whorls.

"What's wrong with your eyes?" Sanson asked. "Never mind. Move, Kip!"

Sanson was right again. It didn't matter what Kip was seeing, or how. He turned and started forward. Somehow, the wonder of it all crowded out his fear. The plants were like torches lighting his way, even gently illuminating the trail between.

One hand still hitching up his wet, heavy pants, Kip began jogging as fast as he could, fearless despite the slick rocks, narrow trail, and death beckoning from every side.

There were bodies in the river, caught up in the rapids. Dear Orholam, there were bodies at the Sendinas' farm, little lumps nearly as cold as the surrounding ground. Smoldering, ruined buildings burned hot in Kip's vision. More important for him and Sanson, he saw a flat-bottomed punt tied at the Sendinas' dock. He and Sanson hit the bottom of the trail at a full run. They rounded a corner and in the morning sun saw thirty mounted Mirrormen, drawn up in battle formation.

"We wanted to take you alive," the red drafter said. His skin was crimson, and fury tinged his voice. "A drafter with your potential doesn't come along every day. But you've killed two of King Garadul's men, and for that, you die."

Chapter 15

"You're not really going to crash us," Karris said as Gavin brought them over the scrub desert.

"Oh, I see. When I'm flying, we're flying, but when we're crashing, I'm crashing."

Gavin banked the condor to the right so they wouldn't be seen from Garriston. There was still a good chance some farmer or fisherman would spot them, but who would believe a lone fisherman who said he'd seen a giant flying man-bird? If a whole city saw them, it would be a different story. Garriston, despite being the most important port in Tyrea, wasn't much. The bay was overfished, the land was hot and dry with bad soil, the Ruthgari governor corrupt, his men worse.

It hadn't always been this way. Before the False Prism's War, there had been a vast system of irrigation canals that had brought this scrub desert into bloom, with two or even three harvests a year. There had been locks that fed trade to dozens of small cities up and down the Umber River. But canals and locks required drafters and maintenance. Without either, this land had withered, punished for the sins of dead men.

"Gavin, I'm serious. Are we really going to crash?"

"Trust me," he said.

She opened her mouth, then shut it. He guessed what she hadn't said: Because that's worked out so well for me before?

"Got anything fragile in your bag?" he asked.

"How bad is this going to be?" she asked, real concern in her voice.

"Sorry. I should have waited until we were closer to the ground."

"Wait, what's that?" Karris asked.

Gavin looked west, following her eyes, but didn't see what had made her curious. The land around Garriston was plains and dry farmland, but to the west it quickly yielded to steep, tall, impassable mountains that abutted almost directly on the sea. The Umber River was just on the other side of those mountains. If it could go straight to the sea-through the mountains-it would have been only ten leagues long. Instead, it had to go east to Garriston, separated from the ocean by fencelike mountains, almost a hundred and fifty leagues from origin to outlet.

"There," Karris said, pointing. "Smoke."

Gavin wasn't sure that the black wisp was anything more than Karris's-and now his-imagination. Regardless, it was on the other side of the mountains, so it didn't matter. He was just opening his mouth to tell Karris that when the condor passed over one of the foothills. A powerful updraft shot them higher into the air.

It took Gavin's breath away. He'd only experimented with the condor over water. He hadn't even thought about how the ground beneath where he was gliding would affect the air above it. Now that he had experienced it, it made sense. Why else did birds of prey spiral so often in the same places? Gavin had assumed they were good hunting grounds. Now he knew. Updrafts.

"Can we make it over the mountains?" Karris asked.

From this new height-Gavin looked down, gulped, and immediately looked back to the horizon-he was certain that what they had seen was smoke. And for it to be visible from this far away, it could only be one of two things.

Let it be a forest fire. Please, Orholam.

"We can. But if we do, you're not going to meet the man who was supposed to get you into Garadul's army. And I can't get the condor back into the air without the sea. I'll have to float all the way down the river."

"Gavin, when I see that much smoke, I think red wight. A Torch could be burning down an entire city. You're heading out to stop a color wight near Ru? These people aren't worth any less than the people of Ru. If it comes to it, there are a lot of drafters in Ru who could work together against the blue wight. These people have no one."

In his mind's eye, Gavin was comparing the land below him to the maps he knew of Tyrea. It was surprisingly easy, given that he was closer to the perspective most maps were drawn from than most people ever got. He looked at the mountains, the not-quite-pass through them, and the position of the rising smoke. A thought struck him with a greater force than mere intuition. He wasn't here on accident. It wasn't coincidence that he was gliding in the one place where he could see this fire, or that he had Karris with him. That was no forest fire. It wasn't a red wight either.

That fire was rising from Rekton. It had been a beautiful town before the war. It was the town where Gavin's "son" was. Gavin knew it, even though they were so far away there was no way to know it. If Orholam had actually existed, this was the kind of punishment he would devise for Gavin. Or test.

Whatever it was, it was a choice.

Five years left, and five great purposes still to accomplish. And one of those actually was mostly selfless: to free Garriston, which had been crushed because of him. Which was suffering still, because of him.

If Gavin went to Rekton, he'd have to face that crazy woman, Lina. He'd have to face her son Kip, and tell him that he wasn't his father: Sorry, you're still fatherless. I have no idea what your lying slut mother is talking about.

That would doubtless go over well. They would also be close to Rask Garadul's army, so Karris would open her orders, and everything would get messy fast.

All Gavin had to say was, "I've got my orders." Karris would understand. She'd always been dutiful. To a fault.

But you aren't Karris. This isn't her test.

He opened his mouth to say it, and it tasted like cowardice. He couldn't force the words past his gritted teeth.

"Let's go see," Gavin said. He banked the condor, and saw that he hadn't made his decision a moment too soon. It would be a near thing to clear the gap between the mountains.

Karris squeezed his hand and her eyes sparkled, those jade green eyes with red diamonds in them. For some reason, her joy struck him more deeply than any disappointment could have. That joy was a reminder of sixteen years of joy he should have given her, joy stolen. He turned away, his throat tight.

The mountains loomed, and Gavin realized for the first time just how fast they were going. There was no hope of a splashing wet landing here. If the updrafts he'd expected didn't catch them soon, he and Karris were going to paint a large crimson blotch across the face of these rocks.

Orholam, if there isn't any wind at all, then there isn't any wind to get thrown upward, is there?

He was beginning to draft a red cushion-hopelessly, knowing no matter how big he made it, it would be too little at this speed-when the updraft caught them. They were hurled skyward, the wings of the condor straining.

Karris shouted with exultation.

The force was incredible. It was hard to estimate how fast they were rising, but Gavin shortened the condor's wings both to take stress off them and because Rekton wasn't so far away that they would need that much height. The higher they were, the more visible they were. But it did make him think. With all the height he could get off of mountains, the condor's range was vastly greater than he had assumed.

It was a thought for another time. Right now the problem was to stay low so they weren't visible to all of Tyrea, and to lose some of the tremendous speed they'd built up. He drafted a bonnet the same blue luxin he'd used for himself when he jumped from the Chromeria. It popped open instantly, throwing both him and Karris forward, then ripped away almost as fast.

When they regained their balance, Gavin tried again. Green this time, and much smaller. He sealed the bonnet to the luxin of the condor so it didn't tear him apart. It worked, sort of. They slowed a little. Now they were headed downward at merely ridiculous speeds. Gavin struggled to expand the wingspan again.

"What can I do?" Karris shouted.

Gavin cursed. He'd barely begun to experiment with changing the condor's wings. In all his trials, he'd merely leaned to one side or the other and caught himself before hitting the ground or the water. Grunting with the strain, he lifted the front edge of the wings skyward. Point up to go up, right?

It was exactly the wrong thing to do. They pitched sharply downward. By the time he leveled off the wings, they were heading straight down. Worse, the suddenness of their drop meant his feet weren't even touching the floor. He had no leverage to push against to continue to manipulate the wings. He threw luxin up to the ceiling to force his body down, and began locking his feet to the floor, but the eucalyptus trees were looming huge. He was too slow.

Then he was slammed to the floor. The condor dipped below the height of the trees, in a meadow, and then began to rise. It wasn't going to make it.

Gavin reached into the luxin as the condor crashed through the branches. The blue luxin cracked and would have shattered if he hadn't grabbed it. For another instant, he couldn't see anything as they knifed through the trees, then again they were airborne. Heading up and up, steeper and steeper.

He finally looked at Karris. Her skin was a war of green and red. Her hands were braced against the ceiling and the luxin lines traced from both hands to the back of the condor. She'd taken control of the tail. It was flared, green, bent up. She'd saved their lives, but her eyes were closed with the effort, muscles straining to hold the tail up against the force of the wind.

"Karris, level it off!" Gavin shouted.

"I'm trying!"

"You've already gone too-"

Then they were upside down, heading back the opposite direction. Gavin's shirt fell in front of his face, and when he pulled it out of the way they were leveled off-upside down.

"Don't level off now!"

"Make up your mind!" she shouted. She was standing on her hands on the ceiling. Gavin locked her in again and together they turned the wings and tail once more. They were crushed to the floor as the great luxin bird swooped out level once more, only twenty paces above the trees.

Gavin breathed freely for the first time in what seemed like hours. He checked the condor. It seemed well enough.

"Did they see us?" Karris asked.

"What? Who?" How was she able to see so many things at once?

"Them," she said, nodding.

Gavin looked toward Rekton. They were only a few leagues east of the town now, and it had indeed been burned. All of it. That meant either an incredibly strong red wight, or something else entirely.

And they were looking at the something else. There was a small army encamped around the town. It could only be Garadul's men.

Orholam have mercy.

"No," Gavin said. "They'd have to stare almost straight into the sun to see us."

"Huh. Lucky, I guess," Karris said.

"You call this lucky?" Gavin asked.

"What's that?" she interrupted.

Below the town, after the falls fed into rapids and the Umber River's rage finally cooled, there was a group of homes. Almost a village, but all the building were smoldering. There was a green drafter, skin filling with power, facing several of King Garadul's Mirrormen.

"That's a child!" Karris said. "Two! Gavin, we've got to save them."

"I'll bring us down as close as I can. Roll when we hit." They leveled off ten paces above a plain of rock and brush and tumbleweeds. Gavin threw out a small bonnet to slow the condor again. It snapped open, but this time they were both ready for the whiplash and braced themselves. Gavin threw out another and another. They slowed down faster than he'd expected. The condor pitched toward the ground.

Gavin flung his hands out, blasting the condor to pieces. As they fell, he wrapped Karris and then himself in an enormous cushion of orange luxin, rimmed with a shell of segmented flexible green, with a core of super-hard yellow.

They slammed into the ground, the orange and green luxin slowing them before exploding from the force of their landing. The yellow luxin was formed into a more rigid ball around each of them. Gavin crashed through some bushes, bouncing and rolling half a dozen times before the yellow luxin cracked and spilled him unceremoniously onto the ground. He wiggled his fingers and toes. Everything worked. He jumped up.

"Karris?"

He heard a yell. Not a good one. He ran.

Karris sprang to her feet, twenty paces away. Her hair was askew, but he didn't see any obvious injuries. He came to stand by her. "What is it?" he asked.

She glanced down. There was a rattlesnake at her feet, as long as Gavin's spread arms. A dagger through its head pinned it to the ground. Karris's dagger.

As Gavin stood there, mouth open, Karris put a foot behind the snake's head and pulled the dagger out-with her hand, for Orholam's sake, not with drafting. Sometimes Gavin forgot how tough Karris was. She wiped the blood off on a black kerchief the Blackguards carried for such purposes-black didn't show hard-to-explain bloodstains. She shook slightly as she tucked the kerchief away, but Gavin knew it wasn't fear or nerves. It took a body time to relax from the amount of adrenaline imminent death triggered.

Karris didn't blame him for nearly getting her killed. She grabbed her bag and bowcase, strapped her ataghan belt around her narrow waist, checked to make sure neither blade nor scabbard had been damaged in the fall, and threw her bag on her back. It was like the sudden violence had reminded her of what she was-and of what they weren't. Back on the ground, back to reality.

"Sorry 'bout that," Gavin said. "I should have gone for the sea."

"If we had, there could have been sharks." She shrugged. "And now I'd be wet." She smirked, but it didn't touch her eyes. He wasn't going to reach her now. Work loomed-and her work was dangerous, a job that might well lead to war, a job that might require her to kill or to die. She had to ruthlessly cut away any entanglements that would distract her.

"Karris," he said. "What's in that note… it isn't true. I don't expect you to understand or maybe even believe me, but I swear it isn't true."

She looked at him, hard, inscrutable. Her irises were jade green, but now the flecks of red were like starbursts, flaring, diamond-shaped. One way or another, through means magical or mundane, luxin or tears, Gavin knew that soon those eyes would be red. "Let's save those children," she said.

Karris ran, and he followed her. They cut back and forth down a hillside dominated by eucalyptus trees, peeling bark scattered on the ground, brush slapping them. Karris cut toward the skinny child, leaving Gavin to save the one facing the red drafter.

But it didn't matter. Neither of them was going to make it in time.

Chapter 16

It was too far to run for the punt, even for Sanson. A cool realization settled on Kip: he was going to die. He was surprised at his own reaction. No panic. No fear. Just quiet fury. Thirty elite Mirrormen in full harness against a child. A trained red drafter against a child who'd first drafted yesterday.

"When I tell you, run," Kip told Sanson.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flash over the trees hundreds of paces to his left, but when he looked, there was nothing there. He saw that the Mirrormen were looking back and forth at each other, as if they'd caught the same glimpse he had.

"Now, Sanson. Run." Kip didn't take his eyes off the drafter.

Sanson ran.

The Mirrormen hesitated until the red drafter gestured, a quick sign, with military efficiency. One Mirrorman from each side of the line peeled off and circled around Kip, digging their heels hard into their horses. The red drafter himself rode forward alone.

Everything Kip had done with magic so far had been instinctive. Now he needed to do something on purpose. Light was pouring over him. There was green everywhere. The two Mirrormen circling him were each keeping an eye on him, but they were going after Sanson. The wildness surged through Kip once again and he felt the skin under his fingernails tear open again as luxin poured into his palm. A javelin formed in his hand. He hurled it at the Mirrorman nearer to Sanson, but the throw was pathetic. It flew maybe fifteen paces, not even half the distance it needed.

The red drafter laughed. Kip ignored him.

Kip had seen the other red drafter and his apprentice Zymun throw fireballs from a standstill. They'd been thrown back from hurling something with so much force, but they hadn't fully thrown it physically. Kip imagined the magic streaking from him as the reds' had done. The air in front of him coalesced, sparkling, coruscating greens, from sea-foam to mint to evergreen, taking on the outline of a spearhead.

With an explosion of energy, it leapt away. Kip felt as if he had fired an overcharged musket. He tumbled to the ground. Worse, he missed. The green spear cut the air behind the galloping Mirrorman. It crashed into one of the few standing walls of one of the burned-out homes. The wall went down in billows of ash.

Kip scrambled to his feet to try again, but even as the air began sparkling green in front of him, he caught something red out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward the red drafter-too slowly. Something hot blasted through his hands, scattering the green luxin he'd been gathering, burning him.

The red drafter was advancing toward him, dismounted now, walking calmly, red swirling down into his hands again. Kip held his hands up, just as he had a hundred times when Ram was threatening to hit him. This time, a green shield formed, translucent, covering him from head to toe, its weight supported on the ground.

The red drafter flicked a finger forward. A spark shot out, trailing a long red tail. It stuck to Kip's shield, burning faintly, its red trail going all the way back to the drafter. Kip panicked and, only carrying the shield because it was stuck to his arms, dodged to one side. A much larger red missile roared out from the red drafter. It followed the tail toward the spark, curving in midair along that line.

Kip was blown off his feet and thrown back a dozen feet. He felt the green shield crack with a report, as if it had been his own bones snapping.

He lifted himself from the dirt in time to see one of the Mirrormen pursuing Sanson raise his long, sweeping cavalry sword and slash downward in midcharge. Kip couldn't see Sanson, but the Mirrormen reined in and the second horseman reversed his grip on his lance and stabbed downward hard, once, twice, professionally, coolly.

Both Mirrormen relaxed like men who've finished their work, and Kip knew Sanson was dead.

He rolled over. The red drafter was standing over him. Kip was faintly surprised by how ordinary the man looked. A long face, dark eyes, roughly cut hair, crooked teeth revealed by his grimace. He was going to kill Kip, but without passion. Just a man following orders.

Before Kip could gather magic one more time, the drafter imprisoned Kip's arms in red sludge, sticky and thick. Kip couldn't move.

The drafter raised his bespectacled eyes toward the sun once more, magic spiraling like smoke down into his arms, filling him with power for the killing blow. A dense indigo dot appeared on his ear, then over his temple as his head moved, as if someone with a lantern letting out a single ray of light from somewhere in the forest was somehow focusing that little beam right on his-

There was a roar, for just a fraction of a second, as if Kip were standing at the base 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.

Karris had joined them because it was impossible to deny her. She'd sparred with every member of the Blackguard and defeated all but four of them. She was simply the fastest drafter Gavin had ever seen, and after her Blackguard training, one of the most dangerous. And it meant nothing to her. At the rate she pushed herself, Gavin thought she'd be lucky if she lasted another ten years. Probably closer to five. It was like she was racing him to Death's gates. But she wouldn't die today.

The other horseman charged her, his sword drawn. Karris stood her ground, only moving at the last second so that she was directly in the horse's path. The horseman, expecting her to move the other way, was too surprised to change his course. Karris dropped to the ground just as the horse was about to trample her. With flexible fingers of green and red luxin extending from her own hands and crossed, she grabbed the cinch strap as the horse passed over her.

The horse thundered past and for a moment Gavin thought she'd been trampled. Then he saw her flipped into the air. The luxin uncrossed and whipped her back toward the still-galloping horse. She crashed into the back of the horseman and almost spilled out of the saddle, but she scrambled and managed to maintain her seat behind him.

The horseman flailed, having no idea what had just happened or what had hit him from behind. Karris drew her knife as she reached around his head with her other hand. She tore open his visor and buried the knife deep in his face. The man spasmed hard and both of them fell.

Karris tried to push the horseman down so she'd land on him, but his foot never cleared the stirrup. Instead of a cushioned landing, she was spun hard backward by his body being yanked from under her, and then hit the ground and abruptly rolled forward. She had the good fortune to land on grass, though.

Gavin looked at the boy they'd just killed thirty of Satrap Garadul's elite bodyguards to save. He was maybe fifteen, chubby, awkward, with eyes round at what he'd just seen. The child turned and ran toward the river. At first Gavin thought he was fleeing in fear, but then he realized the boy was going to check on his friend, the one Gavin and Karris had come too late to save.

"What is the meaning of this?" a man shouted.

Gavin turned-and cursed himself. He'd been so concerned about the boy and Karris and what was happening down toward the river, he hadn't been paying attention to what was happening up the road. The roar of the rapids and the waterfall had muffled the sound of hooves, but there was still no excuse. The man who'd shouted had the same weak chin that seemed to beg someone to stick a fist in it that he'd had sixteen years ago, the last time Gavin had seen him. His whole body was quivering with outrage as he took in the carnage that was all that remained of thirty of his supposedly invincible Mirrormen.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16