The Black Prism
Page 126

The Blackguards were already reloading their pistols. For most of them, Gavin knew, it was their very first battle. First blood. Yet each reloaded his or her pistol without looking. It was something they were taught to do only when there was extreme and pressing danger—visually inspecting a pistol was usually a good idea to prevent misfires and double-charging—but it was worth it to not have to take your eyes off the battlefield sometimes, and all of them had the presence of mind to do it correctly.
“Tell General Danavis to withdraw the cowl,” Gavin said. The cowl was keeping the green wights from getting in anywhere except at the artillery stations, but it left those men totally vulnerable. And while the Blackguards had all hit their target—now slumped on the floor, bleeding out and barely smoking—the other defenders wouldn’t be so accurate. The cowl transformed the top of the wall into a yellow luxin tunnel. That meant ricochets. Ricochets meant anyone who missed a shot at an attacker would probably kill a defender. It wasn’t worth the tradeoffs, especially because King Garadul’s culverins and howitzers had stopped firing so they wouldn’t kill the color wights.
General Danavis must have realized the same thing, though, because before the Blackguards could argue that they couldn’t send even one of their own away from Gavin, the cowl slid back. The sudden motion knocked several defenders off the wall, the fall guaranteeing maiming or death. But it had to be done.
It also snapped the slide that the Blackguards had made for Gavin. But in moments they remade it and threw him unceremoniously down. He couldn’t even catch himself. The sheer amount of luxin he’d drafted today had left him with nothing.
The Blackguards at the bottom of the slide caught him and lifted him to his feet. He was able to stand.
“Take me to the gate,” Gavin ordered.
The Blackguards looked at each other.
“Damn you! Lose the gate, lose the wall. We lose the wall, we lose the city.”
“This city isn’t our concern. Your safety is,” a voice shouted. Tremblefist. He’d appeared from nowhere. “You can stand, can you run?” he asked Gavin.
“I’m not running!”
“We can’t hold the gate!” Tremblefist shouted. “My Guards are getting slaughtered, and for what? We’re not your personal army. We protect your life, not your whims. You’re making our job impossible!”
Gavin’s failure spun out before him. This was his own fault. It wasn’t his drafting that had failed, it was his leadership. He’d never told these men and women why they fought. He’d demanded obedience unto death without even telling them why it was important. He’d been divided in his own mind and now he was surprised that they didn’t want to die for that? A lie would have been better.
All he could see through the press of the soldiers between himself and the gate was flashes of fire, and smoke, and blood splashed high against the arch. The Blackguards were doubtless still in the front line—only the Blackguard could have stood for so long against the number of color wights Gavin had seen coming. The crackle of musket fire was constant but slow. The soldiers between Gavin and the fight had no idea about establishing fire lanes, so men farther back didn’t shoot for fear of striking those in front of them. But so far, no one was turning back.
Of course, that would change when they saw their best fighters retreat, abandon them. The Blackguards were the linchpin.
With a roar of frustration, Gavin grabbed a nearby soldier’s musket and ran toward the gate. He could hear Tremblefist’s curse, and had no doubt the big man would be hot on his heels. He pushed and weaved through the crowd, his size slowing him, but not as much as Tremblefist’s even bigger size.
Gavin was cursing, screaming at men and women to move out of his way, when he heard a crunch of impact. A moment later, there was a surge from the gate, pushing everyone back a good five paces. Gavin cut across a line of soldiers to the wall. He grappled across a section where the image of a huge warrior stood, stoic, unmoving except for breathing, little puffs of steam escaping from his mouth. He touched a few sections—damn it, he should have done something to demarcate the appropriate place—until he found the one he was looking for. He touched it—anyone could touch it, it activated from the heat in a man’s hand—and a little window of the wall went transparent.
He was right. The crunch had been the impact of the regular soldiers arriving. There were tens of thousands of them pressed against the wall right now, already hefting scaling ladders and ropes. He couldn’t wait for them to find his little surprise—but none of that mattered if they couldn’t hold the gate.
Looking to the sun, Gavin saw it was touching the horizon. Not long now. If they could make it until the sun had fully set, the drafters’ power would be more than halved. They could still draft from diffracted light, but not nearly as strongly. He started running again, pushing through men and women directly against the wall. He heard the whistle of an incoming mortar.
The pitch was familiar, horribly familiar. A sound that replayed in his nightmares. You could hear death coming, but other than cowering on the ground, there wasn’t anything you could do to avoid it. The thump and boom of the shell landing and exploding going Thboom, shattering eardrums and blasting men off their feet. This one was getting really really loud—
Gavin dropped to the ground and covered his head with his arms. Something heavy crushed him farther into the ground, and the world outside went blue.
Thump!
Tremblefist rolled off Gavin and dissolved the blue shield he’d drafted over them both. Gavin stared at the cannon shell, embedded in the earth not ten paces away. It hadn’t exploded. It hadn’t even crushed anyone. It had landed right between two lines of soldiers. One man was dancing around, shaking his hand. His crushed musket lay beneath the mortar itself, knocked out of his hand by the shell. It was right about where Gavin had been before he cut toward the wall.
“Orholam’s hand is on you indeed, you damn fool Prism,” Tremblefist said.
Gavin was already up and pushing toward the heaving, bulging lines in front of him. The men here had already fired their muskets and there was no way to reload. Some had fixed bayonets, the knife handles set inside the open barrels. Others had drawn swords. Others were using muskets as clubs.
Over their heads, musket fire rang out from the murder holes and stones the size of a man’s head were thrown through the machicolations in the arch. But no luxin poured down. Either the drafters above had exhausted themselves long ago, or they’d been killed, or they had never made it to their positions.
One more day, Orholam. One more day, and this wall would have been impregnable. One more hour.
Gavin pushed into the melee at last. The area around the gate was a charnel house. The stench of magic and gore mingled. Blood covered the ground thickly enough that the combatants splashed it up around their legs as they fought. The bodies of men and monsters mingled, tripped up attackers and defenders. A pile of bodies filled the area directly beneath the gate, and as King Garadul’s men climbed up and over them, that made them targets for the soldiers farther back in Gavin’s army who otherwise couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting their own men. Gavin saw a Blackguard fall, her leg ripped open by a glasslike jagged foot claw of an exhausted blue wight.
His musket roared and the wight’s head exploded in red mist. Gavin flung the musket at a burning red wight that was moving to embrace a wounded soldier who was backed up against the wall, weaponless. He didn’t see what happened. He grabbed the wounded Blackguard and tried to haul her to her feet.