Ben-hadad came back at last. He was huffing. “I got, I got, far as the lift. Should be able to, to squeeze through. But saw out front. Out the main gate at the Lily’s Stem, there’s, there’s an ambush. Forty, fifty Lightguards. Musketeers.”
“We go up,” Kip said.
They looked at him like he was mad. And he was. Even if they got to the lift, they’d be exposed to fire from the main hall until they could go up.
“Breaker. Up?” Cruxer said.
Winsen drew his arrow and let fly. A man forty paces back stumbled and fell as he burst through the door to the slaves’ stairs. Winsen already had another arrow nocked, and released.
“Let’s go!” Cruxer said.
Winsen sent four more arrows down the hall in rapid succession while they ran, then reached into his quiver and found no more.
Ben-hadad led them through a small door where he’d knocked a huge bureau over to be able to get in. “Not by strength,” he said. “Application of a lever.”
They pushed through tiny, connected rooms, all empty. Past another narrow hall. Ben-hadad pointed. “Leads back to the barricaded door you tried, Captain.” Another: “Leads to the kitchens, there’s a door to the outside, but it’s a wall this time of day. Problems of a rotating tower,” Ben-hadad said. “Designing doors in the island mantle—which doesn’t rotate—that can be used all day long. The designer solved the problem a few years later, but the Prism’s Tower had already had its base constructed by then. Inefficient, I agree.” Kip knew what he meant—he’d experienced the same thing down in the baths—but he could tell no else did. Not that now was the time to ask questions about things that didn’t pertain to their immediate survival.
Ben-hadad said, “That hall leads to more slaves’ housing and then to a door off to the side of the ambush. We’d have some surprise. If we want to try our luck?”
“I say we do it,” Teia said. “I’ll use my little trick and cause a distraction. They’re musketeers. If I can get them to fire a volley wildly, they’ll be vulnerable. They attack me on the opposite side and then, you all fall on them from behind.”
“Twenty men? The seven of us?” Ben-hadad asked. “We’re good, Teia, but I don’t know if we’re that good.”
“Why are we discussing this?” Winsen said. “We’ve got a command structure.”
“Do we?” asked Big Leo. “We’re out of the Blackguard, Win. Maybe we should all have a voice.”
“Enough,” Cruxer said. “Breaker, you sure?”
“If we have to wait until we’re sure to decide, we’re fucked.”
“Damn it, Kip!” Teia said. “Now is not the time to be un—”
“Breaker,” Cruxer corrected.
“Breaker,” Teia said. “I saw what those things did to you. It might kill you to look at another card. Or it might take half an hour. And up? Goss died to get us down this tower. You want us to go back up?”
“The White would have an escape. It has to be near her apartments.”
“You want us to go all the way up?” Ferkudi asked.
“I’m telling you, get me light, and—” Kip started.
“Enough!” Cruxer said. “Enough! Kip, Breaker, we’re with you because we believe in you. Anyone who doesn’t, get the hell out. Make your choice.”
“I’m with you,” Teia said, but it was softly. It was surrender. To death. She would die to prove her loyalty, but she knew Kip was wrong. Everyone else was in.
“Was just a question,” Ferkudi muttered.
“Then let’s go,” Cruxer said. “And, Breaker, next time I ask if you’re sure? Lie.”
Kip took a deep breath. They were placing a great deal of faith in his intuition. If he was wrong …
If he was wrong, they would all die, instead of most or all of them dying, which was what would happen if they charged the main hall.
They arrived at yet another hall. “This way to the lift,” Ben-hadad said. He pointed down the other direction. “That way goes to a wall that will become an open door in half an hour. It should rotate open far enough for us to slip through in … maybe ten, fifteen minutes. It would put us behind the Prism’s Tower, but we’d still have to make it past the Lightguards in the yard.”
“How many of these bastards are there?” Teia asked.
“Five hundred eighty-two,” Ferkudi said.
They looked at him. It had been a rhetorical question.
Ferkudi said, “As of last week, anyway. What? Like I’m the only one who looks at the kitchen manifests?” His voice dripped sarcasm.