The Black Prism

But that wasn’t what had Tremblefist cursing. In front of the main army, drawing even with the advance cannon emplacements, were more than a hundred men and women, some riding, and some simply running. All were dressed in brightly colored clothing. Gavin could tell that by the way the greens moved, sprinting with huge bouncing, league-devouring strides that they weren’t just drafters. They were color wights, and they were headed straight for the gate.

They would be at the wall within four minutes at the most.

Four minutes. Gavin looked at his half-formed gate. If he didn’t worry about hinges, if he just sealed the damn thing to the wall itself, it was possible. Maybe. He looked up at the sun, gathering power. It was less than an hour until sunset. The festivities for Sun Day’s Eve would start as soon as the last ray of sun disappeared from the horizon. Whether the attackers were heretics or pagans or faithful, they wouldn’t fight during Sun Day. Sun Day was holy even to the gods Lucidonius had driven out.

If they could hold off the attackers for that one hour, they had a chance. And Sun Day would give them the time they needed to reinforce the gates and get supplies and guns in place.

One day. One hour. Four minutes that would determine the course of this war. It came down to this. Gavin was not going to quit. He had four minutes left in him.

The culverins on the wall finally answered those out in the field, but the shots were wild, not even close to the field artillery emplacements or the charging color wights. And more of King Garadul’s shots were hitting the wall itself, each rebounding off the yellow luxin with a crunch and a whine and a splay of yellow light as the wall absorbed the blow and healed itself.

The forms Gavin was filling with luxin were three-quarters full, washing him in the invigorating scents so close to mint and eucalyptus, but he was tiring anyway. He looked out to the color wights. Not even two minutes left.

Orholam, I’m trying to do something good here. Great purpose, Orholam. Selfless and all that. You want people to be selfless, right?

Tremblefist handed Gavin off and was shouting orders down to the Blackguards on the ground. General Danavis was ordering troops to the gate and to form in ranks behind the wall. The crowd was beginning to scatter. Everyone was shouting, but Gavin couldn’t even make out the words anymore.

Flashes of magic bloomed in front of him. The color wights had spotted him. They were throwing missiles and fire and everything they could think of, but his Blackguards were deflecting it all.

Gavin kept drafting. The color wights were only two hundred paces out now, running at a full sprint. He had only seconds left. A cannon roared to Gavin’s right and tore through a dozen of the color wights, shredding them. But the color wights behind them leapt through the blood and smoke and flying limbs, faces snarling, inhuman, glowing.

Drafting the last of the yellow luxin to fill the last form, Gavin pulled the threads together in his hand. He was going to make it! He was sealing the luxin when a cannonball smashed into the forms. All the force of the impossibly lucky shot went straight into Gavin’s hands. It was like holding a rope and having someone drop an anvil tied to the other side.

The luxin was yanked out of Gavin’s hands instantaneously. Gate and cannonball slammed into the ground beneath the arch, the cannonball blasting through Blackguards and a dozen still-gawking civilians behind them. The gate—abruptly unheld, unsealed yellow luxin—hissed and seethed into light before Gavin could stop it.

In two seconds, the gate flashboiled into nothingness and disappeared—and so did Garriston’s hope.

Chapter 73

Gavin collapsed. Or he would have, if two Blackguards hadn’t caught him and dragged him away from the brink. He wanted to fight them, to stand up, but he was so lightheaded he couldn’t even make words.

He missed the first clash, right below his perch, but he heard it, felt it. The yells of men and women bracing themselves, giving voice to fear and rage, honing their will for their drafting. Then waves of heat and the shock of impact, armor popping, men and wights grunting. Then, screams, always screams.

“Where are my muskets?! I ordered those brought here two hours ago!” General Danavis was screaming. Swearing. He was standing ten paces from Gavin, looking through the murder holes and machicolations at the battle beneath the arch of the gate. His soldiers were blinking at him. Out of twenty men, only two had muskets. “Fire, damn you!” he shouted at them. “You, and you, go find muskets. Now!” Then he was gone, screaming at the artillery crews.

The Blackguards pulled Gavin to the edge of the wall. The cowl on the wall meant there were only a few places open on either the front or the back. They found one where the cranes pulled in goods. A Blackguard bichrome drafted a blue-green slide all the way to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Gavin managed.

“We’re taking you to safety, sir.” Then the man jumped onto the slide.

Gavin was looking through the bright hallway formed by the bonnet to one of the culverin teams. They had fired a ball and were looking downfield—the sign of an inexperienced crew. Only one man needed to watch so they could adjust their aim. The rest should be reloading already. But after a moment, they cheered. “Got it!” Gavin couldn’t see what they’d hit, but as they turned back to their task, he saw a flash of movement.

“It’s safe!” the Blackguard called up from the ground at the base of Brightwater Wall.

Green claws latched onto the wall just in front of the artillery team. What? Gavin had known green wights to infuse their legs with the springiness of green luxin, but he’d never seen one jump even half the height of this wall. He cried out, pointing, but not before the beast flung itself upon the artillerymen. Its hands, grown into huge claws, tore through four men before they even knew it was there. Blood was flung in broad arcs, splattering against the walls. The last three men saw the beast, but froze. Only one even made an attempt to grab a musket from the wall.

The green wight clove the man’s head in three, two broad claws descending halfway through his head.

The Blackguards hesitated for only half a second. None of them had ever seen a color wight either. Four Blackguards stepped forward, almost simultaneously. The two in front went to one knee, clearing firing lanes over their heads. Their hands dipped in unison, one hand coming up to draft, the other coming up with a pistol.

Triggers clicked, and flints struck, but in the two seconds it took to fire a pistol, luxin was already streaking out from every drafter. A ball of blue luxin like a fist hammered the green wight toward a wall. A glob of red luxin splattered across its side and back and made it stick to the wall. Slick orange smeared the floor in case it pulled away. But that wasn’t necessary. The green wight’s claws were still stuck in the unfortunate gunner’s head, and it had no time to react before the last Blackguard’s flames hit the red luxin and set it alight.

The next moment, three guns roared. All three hit the green wight’s chest. Green luxin and all too human red blood burst from the wounds. The wight would have collapsed, but the red luxin held it to the wall, even as it burned.

“Black out!” One of the Blackguards yelled. She stepped forward, already pouring more powder in her flashpan. Apparently hers had been the gun that misfired. She cocked the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger. A second later, it blew the still-burning green wight’s head apart.