The Blinding Knife (43 page)

He came up in fire. His arms swept left and right in great billows of flame. He dropped as the stronger of the blue wights still managed to get their blades through the wall of flame.

There was no way to keep this up forever, though. In about two seconds, they were all going to realize that he was lying down, and they’d aim their missiles at the source of the flame.

Then Gavin got incredibly, ridiculously, mercifully lucky. The ground dissolved fully beneath them, dumping them all into the ocean.

Gavin got one good breath in before he went under.

He never thought he’d thank a sea demon, but his little fight by his fleet had taught him how to make himself move through the water like a fish. Gavin put his hands down at his waist, opened his palms, and began shooting out disks of green, each shot propelling him through the water.

Steering around the mechanically swimming blue wights was simple, and in thirty seconds Gavin found his skimmer, still floating. He shot himself up out of the water, took a huge gasping breath, and then
shielded himself. A few lonely missiles thunked into his shield, but in moments he was up manning the reeds, picking up speed. He could hear the wights’ keening shrieks. Fury, from the depths of the supposedly purely rational blues. Fury that a
man
could best their blue perfection, fury that they could be wrong.

He circled the island as it broke up and sank, and divined from the wake even as it dissolved that the whole thing had been headed toward White Mist Reef, moving like a vast ship. Why?

But he didn’t have time to think about that. Even now, some of the blue wights were trying to draft boats to escape. One would figure out how, then the others would copy it. Gavin couldn’t let that happen.

Grimly, he drafted pontoons onto his skimmer and drafted yellow swords onto those, pointing downward into the water.

He skimmed in murderous circles at high speed, running over the swimming once-men, the sound of their glassine flesh being torn muted by the waters and his speed. Each death was announced by little more than a sound like a wagon wheel sliding off a particularly large cobblestone, sometimes accompanied by a rush of bubbles coming to the water’s surface, always by a blossoming of blood.

The Prism was a peerless warrior, and slaughter, too, is the necessary work of war. He was a tireless worker, circling, circling, like a buzzard. He circled until there was no more shrieking, until there was no more hatred, until crimson blood no longer sluiced from the pure yellow decks of his skimmer, until the full harvest of death was brought to hell’s gates.

Aglaia Crassos found the visitor waiting in her parlor. He was fair, freckled, and bore a fringe of orangey-red hair combed over a knobby bald pate. He held a landed gentleman’s petasos in his hand, and wore a fitted coat in the new Ruthgari fashion. He looked like a solicitor or a banker, but broad across the shoulders. But then, who knew about these monkeys from Blood Forest?

“Welcome to my home, Master Sharp,” Aglaia said. “My man said you had some sort of proposal for me?”

“Indeed.” He helped himself to a seat and crossed his legs.

“I wouldn’t usually do business with a total stranger, but your references were sterling.”

“Mm. I went to a great deal of effort to
extract
those references.”

What an odd man. “Well then…” she said.

“Well then,” he said. He stared at her with unsettling eyes. She hadn’t noticed until now, but he had amber eyes. Not eyes dyed from a life as a drafter, simply the vanishingly rare true amber. “What is the worst deal you have ever accepted?” he asked. He was playing with a strand of pearls he wore under his shirt. Pearls, on a man? Was this a new fashion she hadn’t seen, or a quirk?

“Pardon me?” she asked.

“Worst deal.”

“How rude.”

“You have something Lord Andross Guile demands,” Master Sharp said.

“Pardon me?”

“The slave girl, Teia.”

“Who? What? I have no such—”

“Did you think you could keep your ownership secret? My dear, you are so far out of your depth, the shore isn’t in sight. You’re going to sign over her title, and the more quickly you do it, the less bad it will be for you.”

“You need to leave. Immediately,” Aglaia said. She wanted to spit in this monkey’s blithely smiling face. Andross Guile? She’d die first.

“The Red did tell me it might be like pulling teeth. How long should I give you to reconsider?”

Aglaia turned her back and strode toward the mantel where her slaves’ bell sat. She wasn’t even aware of Master Sharp moving, but suddenly he was holding her from behind, one arm around her ribs as if embracing her, but the hand a steel claw around her throat. His other hand stabbed behind her ear into a spot that eviscerated her with pain.

“I want you to know. I intend to enjoy this,” he whispered in her ear. His breath was sweet, minty. “You have very. Nice. Teeth.”

Then he released her. He was out the door before she even rang the slaves’ bell.

“Go after him,” she told the muscular young slave, Incaros, her new favorite. “Take Big Ros and Aklos. Beat that son of a bitch. Badly. Break bones. Go. Now!”

She ordered her chamberlain to call up more guards and then went up to her chambers. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that even now Incaros, Ros, and Aklos were beating the hell out of that bastard, but he’d shaken her. She was trembling, and furious that she’d been so frightened. She closed her door and rubbed a kerchief across her brow.

A fist smashed into her forehead and her head slapped into the wooden door she’d just closed, stunning her. She fell, and hands guided her down. The man straddled her, and when she tried to scream, he stuffed something thick and sharp and metallic into her mouth. He strapped it onto her face quickly, expertly.

The gag held her tongue down and blocked air from her mouth, so she started screaming through her nose, and he simply pinched her nose, holding her down with one hand by her throat.

His amber eyes smiled.

She stopped screaming and he lifted her to her feet, mostly by her throat, and moved her to a chair.

How had he gotten here? Climbed up the outside of the house and broken in through a window as soon as she’d thrown him out? That fast? And no one had seen it?

Furious, she thrashed. He punched her so hard in the stomach that her breath whooshed out of her and she unwittingly bit down on the gag. It was like a horse’s bit, but sharp, and it dug into her teeth and tongue cruelly. She had to keep her mouth open as widely as possible.

In moments, she was strapped to her own chair with broad leather straps.

Master Sharp stepped back, pushing his floppy fringe of red hair back over his head from where their wrestling had thrown it askew. His pearl necklace had come out of his shirt—and those weren’t pearls.

“You can scream,” he said quietly. “Anytime you want. But if you do, I’m going to punch you in the jaw. The gag you’re wearing has tiny chisels above each tooth. If I’ve measured your jaw properly, it should break each tooth, top and bottom, neatly into four pieces. It’s a bit of a rush job, so it may not be perfect. Sadly. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to do the extractions myself, so you’ll have that to look forward to with some other, less skilled hand on the pliers. But.” He shrugged,
as if it couldn’t be helped. He said, “Bottom line of the ledger. If you make my life difficult, I will break your teeth. In order. Molars first. I’ve never had anyone make it to the incisors.” He breathed minty breath in her face. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll be the first.”

Two days after their real-world testing, the scrubs had an elimination fight. Kip could only hope that some of the boys he would have to fight today might still have bruises enough to inhibit them from mopping the floor with his face.

But hope wasn’t enough. He lost twice, quickly. He walked out onto the testing field again, flexing the fingers of his left hand lightly. It still hurt like small animals were gnawing at every joint and sprinkling salt on the flesh in between courses, but it hurt less than the beating that was to come. He stared at the youth across from him. Come on, turtle-bear, come on.

The wheels had come up Red, and Unarmed. Red was lucky, very lucky. Kip had just been practicing it last night with Teia. He could finally, finally make a stable red—though that was all he could do. He’d only figured out two ways to use the sticky stuff. One was flammable goo, and setting opponents on fire was decidedly frowned on. The downside was that the boy across from him, Ferkudi, was a blue/green bichrome, currently two places above Kip. There were about fifty people gathered around the circle, watching closely. Between injuries and nervous sponsors, there were now only twenty-eight scrubs left.

Ferkudi was short and thick through the chest, but strong as a bull, and deceptively quick. Kip had watched him fight, and the boy was better at grappling than almost anyone else. The fights that Ferkudi had lost, he’d lost because his reach was short. On a good day, and with the colors he had, he’d be in the top three or four fighters. It was just bad luck that he was fighting for position fifteen right now.

Kip shrugged his shoulders, rolled his head to stretch out his neck, and signaled that he was ready to fight.

The corner of Ferkudi’s mouth twitched. He thought he was going to destroy Kip in a quick hand-to-hand fight.

No reason to let the other guy know what cards you’re holding, is there? Thank you, Andross Guile.

Thank you, Andross Guile? Did someone slip haze into my breakfast?

The whistle blew and the circle was flooded with red light. Ferkudi came in straight.

Kip kept his hands up, between himself and Ferkudi so the boy wouldn’t see Kip’s eyes filling with red luxin. Then he threw his hand down and sprayed sticky red luxin at the boy’s feet.

They stuck, and Ferkudi almost fell over. He rebalanced, brought his hands in, and Kip sprayed them with red luxin, too, gluing Ferkudi’s hands to his chest. It worked just as Ironfist had taught him.

Red was sticky, but it wasn’t as strong as iron. Kip’s will was. He threw all of his desire for the boy to be imprisoned into that drafting.

Ferkudi obviously hadn’t been prepared for Kip to be drafting red, but Kip wasn’t prepared for it either. The color breathed life onto the flames of his rage. He wasn’t mad at Ferkudi, but red obliterated reason.

He closed the distance and, before he even knew what he was doing, buried his fist in the astonished boy’s face.

The late-night training sessions seemed to be doing something, because the punch went right where he wanted it to—he punched low, straight for Ferkudi’s chin; and exactly as Commander Ironfist had said, the boy instinctively ducked his chin, and Kip’s fist smashed his nose. With his feet stuck in red luxin, the boy toppled straight onto his back.

Kip sprayed red luxin around the fallen boy so he was stuck to the ground. He raised a foot to stomp on the boy’s head—and barely stopped himself as the whistle shrilled.

Frightened at what he’d almost done, Kip flung away the red luxin. Orholam’s beard, for a moment there, he wanted to kill the boy.

The red luxin disappeared, and Ferkudi sat up. “Oh,” he said. “I think you broke my nose.” He squeezed it gingerly, plugging its bleeding. “I ’idn’t even owe you could draff red. Nice!” He grabbed the bridge of his nose, took a quick breath, and pulled it back into place. Groaning, he punched the ground twice. “Oww, oww.” Blinking tears from his eyes, he extended his hands and some friends helped him up. “Nice one, Kip,” he said.

Just like that? No anger?

“Uh… sorry,” Kip said. “About your nose. The red sort of came over me.”

“Ah, it’s nuffin. ’Snot the first time.”

“Nor probably the last, you big ugly mug,” Cruxer said, coming up to join them. “Take a seat, Kip. I don’t think you’re going to have to fight again today.”

“Really?” Kip asked. He was exhausted. The long workouts, the late nights, then not sleeping, then when he slept only having nightmares. He was hanging on by one frayed thread. He threw himself down into a camp chair.

Crack! The back legs of the chair snapped and Kip felt a stab of panic as he lost his balance and toppled flat on his back.

Fatty.

The scrubs laughed. Everyone laughed. Kip felt his face turning red as pyrejelly. Even Cruxer was laughing.

Kip jumped to his feet, but then couldn’t move. Damn me. Just when I was making inroads. Just when I was starting to
belong
for once. Sick self-loathing shot through him, froze him. What could he do?

He hated them. He didn’t want to be part of this anyway. They could all go to hell.

Cruxer raised his hands. “That clinches it! Kip, I already knew you needed a new name among us. Kip is no Blackguard name, and we’ve seen that
you
most certainly need one.”

Was Cruxer making fun of him? What did he mean, “You need one”?

“I don’t understand,” Kip said quietly, wary of a trap.

Trainer Fisk was standing there, looking bemused. “I’m sure you’re not the only one. How many of you lot grew up in Paria?” Less than half raised their hands. “Well then, story time. Not everyone’s third-generation Blackguard, Cruxer.”