They went to the door, and Kip turned as the rest of them went into the hall. “Commander, if I may, where’d you get the patches?”
“Andross Guile had them made.”
“That many?” Kip asked.
Ironfist nodded. “And the weapons. And the supplies. Minus the blacks.”
Unbelievable. Just when Kip felt comfortable hating that old murderer, Andross had given him his squad back. Andross had not only given them weapons and gear, he’d arranged the writs of release so they wouldn’t have to pay back the signing monies that all of them had spent or given to their families or previous owners. Andross Guile, generous?
“Sir,” Kip said, “where are you going?”
“A different front of the same war.”
“Halt!” an unfamiliar voice shouted from the hall where the rest of the squad was. “Which one of you is Kip?”
“That’s me,” Goss said loudly. “What’s it to you?”
A musket shot rang out.
Chapter 93
Kip’s first shameful instinct was to run away from the sound of musket fire. But that passed as soon as he saw Ironfist’s face. Ironfist was restraining his first instinct, too. Except his first instinct was to run toward the sound.
But Ironfist didn’t see the fear in Kip’s face. “I can’t,” he said. “Even if it means— Go, Breaker, go.” He pushed Kip toward the lift, and ran the opposite direction himself.
In the very act of moving, Kip was broken out of his indecision. He ran toward the lift, but by the time he got there, not ten seconds after the musket shot, all four of the Lightguards were down. Two were screaming, one was crawling away with a torn-out throat, bleeding in gushes, slickening the stone floor.
All of the squad were still standing. Winsen and Big Leo went to the two screaming, dying Lightguards and opened their jugulars. The crawler collapsed. All four were twitching.
“Oh, shit,” Ferkudi said. “Goss, are you hurt? I thought—”
Goss was blinking. “I, Orholam’s balls,” he said. “I don’t know how he missed. Musket ball must have fallen out before he fired or something. Bad job packing the—” He collapsed.
Cruxer barely caught him in time, easing him to the bloody stones. But Goss was dead. There was a hole right in the center of his chest.
“They came to murder us,” Cruxer said. He closed Goss’s eyes. “No warning. That was no attempt at capture.”
“We gotta move,” Teia said.
But as she said it, they heard loud thunks from the lift shaft. Big Leo ignored it. He picked up Goss’s body. “I can’t just leave him here. I’ll catch up.”
The thunks continued, and Kip arrived at the lift shaft in time to see huge iron doors slam into place over the shaft at each level.
“It’s part of each tower’s defenses,” Cruxer said. “Parents told me about it. They’re hinged one way, so soldiers can be sent up the lifts, but no one can get down.”
“Surely we could draft levers and pulleys or something,” Ben-hadad said.
Cruxer said, “They estimate five minutes per floor for drafters to break through. We gotta go down the slaves’ stairs. The exits may be barred, but we can break through. Follow me!”
Ben-hadad grimaced. He clearly thought he could break through each level in far less than five minutes. But he followed orders.
They reached the stairs, and found the doors bolted. Ben-hadad moved to the front, locating the mechanism and studying it.
“Move,” a voice said behind them. It was Daelos. He was carrying two blunderbusses. He handed one to Cruxer as Big Leo returned.
“Big Leo?” Daelos said, lifting the matchlock.
Big Leo drafted sub-red to his fingers and touched each slow match, lighting it.
“Daelos, I thought you said you weren’t coming—” Kip started.
Daelos pointed his blunderbuss at where the hinges would be on the other side of the door. He fired.
“They killed Goss,” he said. “I’m coming.”
Cruxer’s matchlock misfired, and they all waited, tensely, while he cleared it. “What are you, rookies?” Cruxer demanded. “Defensive perimeter! Teia, get us two more from the barracks.”
Chastened, they did. Kip immediately saw a few curious heads poking out of doorways. Not everyone got out of the tower by dawn, not even on Sun Day. “Get back in your rooms!” Kip shouted. “Look out for the Lightguard. They just killed our friend.”
Two of the three ducked back immediately. But one just kept looking. And then Kip recognized him. Magister Jens Galden. He was the asshole who’d punched Kip the very day he had first arrived at the Chromeria.