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.