The Broken Eye(324)

Ben-hadad had gone sprawling. He picked himself up immediately, but fell again. His knee was red, and when he stepped again, it turned a direction a knee shouldn’t turn.

Ferkudi was up in an instant. He hopped up over Kip’s wide shield and ran out. Shots rattled into Kip’s shield, and Kip was frozen. The shield embankment was open luxin, if he let it go, they’d all be vulnerable. They could all die.

This was his part. This, now, in this moment, was the totality of what he could do. If he tried to be a hero, his friends would die. As they might die anyway.

He shook as the Lightguards recovered and more brought their weapons to bear, some aiming at Kip and the others in the lift, and some aiming at Ferkudi leaping out of the lift and Ben-hadad on the floor.

A blunderbuss seemed to appear out of midair, to the side of the crescent of Lightguards. Hammer slapped down, and sparks and fire and molten death shot out, raking across the front line. It could only be Teia. Kip’s eyes widened to sub-red in an instant, and the inane thought floated into his mind: I couldn’t have widened my eyes that fast six months ago. Progress!

He saw Teia flinging the spent blunderbuss into the still-standing Lightguards. Then she hefted the other blunderbuss that she’d balanced against her left leg, and shot the second rank of Lightguards.

One or two shot vaguely in her direction before she discharged that shot, then she was off, legs briefly visible as her cloak swung free of her legs. But none of the Lightguards saw it. The attack from midair was too surprising, too disorienting. They almost broke.

Kip saw the moment yawn open. One more touch, his Guile mind said, and these men will flee.

But he was holding the green shield and he couldn’t—

Ferkudi heaved Ben-hadad into the lift, and Teia—visible now—jumped in a moment after. Cruxer threw the lever.

The lift shot up. It hit the first stop, throwing them all into the air, and ground to a stop. It fell back to the ground.

There were shouts of alarm, pain, injury, weakness, and rage going up from the Lightguards. Kip stood up, dropping the green shield, as Cruxer wrestled to put on more counterweights.

A man was rushing them. Kip drafted a green spike and stabbed him in the face. The Lightguard fell into him, still alive, still fighting. Kip elbowed him across the nose, and he went down. Saw another man rushing them, a blunderbuss in one hand.

Kip shot another green spike but missed as the man slipped on a pool of blood.

The man slid almost into their feet. He didn’t try to stand; instead, he grabbed for the blunderbuss. At this range, he might take out half the squad.

Winsen was on him with a knife in an instant.

The knife went in and out and in and out of the man’s belly, like a tailor rapidly drawing a stitch.

In and out and in and out and in and out and in and out, Winsen wasn’t stopping, and it was cold and it was hot and it was bloody and wet and slick and dirty and gruesome and necessary. The man was still fighting, drawing the end of his blunderbuss down to point at Winsen’s face.

Ferkudi leapt onto the pile and pointed the barrel out toward more charging Lightguards. Winsen yanked the trigger and the blunderbuss fired, and the Lightguards were peppered with whatever had been in the barrel, but were too far away to be killed.

With his one good hand, Big Leo hauled the man off the pile and threw him off the lift. But another Lightguard was already coming, face bloodied but not stopping. Kip shot a hammerfist of green and blew a shower of teeth and blood across himself. The Lightguard fell across the gap, halfway between being in the lift and not in it as Cruxer threw the lever again.

They flew upward, and the Lightguard flew up with them into the lift shaft. He screamed as his body blocked the lift’s ascent, pinched between the floor of the lift and the sides of the lift shaft.

But he only screamed for a moment, as muscle and bone and mail tore. Half a man was left as they flew skyward, and then as they rammed through the one-way doors at each level, and the body got trapped and scraped off at each successive level, less and less. Half, a third, a head and an arm, a helmet with a head in it, and then nothing at all—of what had been a man, ten seconds ago.

Kip fell backward onto his ass, staring horrified, as a man disappeared into the maw of war.

They clanged through level after level. With how much counterweight Cruxer had set, they never paused long. Several times, they saw astounded guards, who never so much as fired their muskets.

And then the squad hit the top level.

None of them had reloaded on the trip up. Inexperience, or trauma, or plain horror overwhelming their training. Kip hadn’t drawn in any more luxin.

There was no Lightguard checkpoint, and the Blackguards recognized them and came running. Cruxer kept his cool, and it was a blessing from Orholam himself, because out of the others, only Winsen kept his, too. Together, they pulled everyone off the lift.