Brent Weeks - The Blinding Knife

“There is only one question, Gavin Guile,” Atirat said. “Do you want to be killed by the woman, or the boy?”

Kip froze. “Father,” he said. “I can’t move.”

“Gavin,” Karris said. Her teeth were gritted and there were tears in her eyes as she fought the green luxin that suffused her body. “I can’t-I can’t…”

“I can make the shot,” Hezik said, tense, eager.

“Making the shot means killing them all, you idiot!” Buskin shouted.

Hezik said, “We can’t save them! This is our only chance. It’s a god!”

Commander Ironfist ignored both; words he thought he’d forgotten came unbidden to his lips: “Mighty Orholam, giver of light, see me now, hear my cry. In the hour of my darkness, I approach your throne.” The commander watched himself say the words as if he were a bystander. He’d not prayed the prayer of supplication since he was thirteen years old. His chest felt hollow. He could see his mother bleeding out her life in front of him as the words spilled forth. “Lord of Light, see-” A sudden thought interrupted his prayer.

“One slot up, two slots right,” he told Hezik.

“Sir, I’ve got it right-”

“Now!” he shouted.

Three clicks, instantly, as Hezik moved the cannon to the slots commanded. Ironfist took the smoking linstock and lit the fuse himself.

The roar filled the battery, and Ironfist swore every man counted the seconds.

“I wish you could know what it’s like, Gavin,” the god said. “I can feel every living, growing thing in the world. And my senses are only expanding, second by second.”

Atirat sounded drunk, but regardless, Kip couldn’t move. His muscles flexed and tightened at his command, but his bones themselves were locked in place. He’d almost made it. He’d almost saved them all. Kip Almost.

Gavin said something, but Kip couldn’t hear it. He saw Atirat tense, warned by some sixth sense. He turned, and Kip saw the blast of smoke from the cannon from the fort on Ruic Head.

One thousand one.

Atirat rolled his shoulders. Laughed. “Friends of yours?” he asked. “Don’t they know cannonballs are more likely to kill you than me? I should almost let it land, just to see.” He raised his hands, aiming, as if he could track a ball through the air itself.

One thousand five.

“Almost,” he said. Something shot out of Atirat’s hands and intercepted the ball in midair, not twenty paces above them.

He hadn’t expected a shell.

The shell exploded with a thunderous roar and concussion that shook the tower. The green bubble covering the tower shattered. The giants were thrown off their feet. Kip was bowled over.

Kip scrambled as he landed on his face, reaching for the dagger. Everyone else reacted instantly. Kip heard the snap of Karris’s pistol going off, saw Gavin throw yellow spikes into each of the giants and straight at Atirat. Flames billowed off Gavin’s hands — and were quenched.

Even as his giants died, Atirat batted aside the attacks directed at him as if they were smoke. Hands left, right. Gavin was locked down, the bubble reformed, snapping in place. Gavin overwhelmed, buried in green sludge, Karris falling, Baya Niel fallen.

Kip could feel the steel in his joints re-forming. He leapt toward Atirat’s back, extending the dagger, and felt his bones lock in place in midair.

Fat kids know all about momentum.

Kip’s dagger punched straight into the back of Atirat’s head.

The luxin freezing Kip’s bones blew apart like mist. He tackled Atirat, landed on top of him. He twisted the dagger in the god’s head, hearing bones crunch and squish.

Still on his knees, Kip looked at the dagger in his hand. The green and blue jewels on the blade were glowing hot, bright for one instant. Kip heard bodies falling: the giants, robbed of form and life.

Karris laughed and Kip realized how suddenly quiet it had grown up here. He tucked the dagger away, stood.

“Orholam’s beard, Kip,” Gavin said. “Well done.” At their feet lay a man-or some hideous thing that had been a man. Without the green luxin that he had woven into every part of his body, Dervani Malargos was a skinless, hairless tangle of meat, brains, and blood oozing out of his destroyed skull.

The tower shook and sank five paces suddenly, almost throwing them all into the sea.

“Does that mean that the entire island is about to collapse?” Karris asked.

“Afraid so,” Gavin said.

“I would think that’s really great,” Karris said. “If I weren’t about to fall to my death.”

Gavin laughed. “I can help with that. Get over here.”

And the lovely, lovely sound of Gavin drafting filled Kip’s ears.

“We did it!” Hizek shouted. “We saved them! I told you I could make that shot!”

The Blackguards were cheering, watching the great tower slump into the sea with no fear. Gavin Guile had stopped a god; they had no doubt he would be able to escape a mere collapsing tower.

But Teia couldn’t take her eyes off Commander Ironfist, who stood stock still. And then he dropped to his knees like a ton of bricks.

Teia had never seen a man quite as big and frightening as Commander Ironfist. She’d certainly never seen a man his size weep.

“ Elrahee, elishama, eliada, eliphalet,” he said, over and over, clearly some Parian prayer. He fell on his knees and, seeing Teia’s bewildered look, said, “He sees me. He hears. He hears even me.”

Then, heedless of what his people would think, the huge Parian lay prostrate, weeping, weeping.

Andross Guile’s flagship had survived the naval battle. Of course, he hadn’t brought it in close enough to risk losing it. His ship did assist in the rescue efforts after the green island broke apart and sank into the sea. It had been another ship that had first come across the Prism, Karris, Kip, and Baya Niel, but they’d been transferred over after the remnants of the fleet had picked up whatever survivors they could find.

It had been a race between the Chromeria’s ships and the circling pirates, who were searching the wreckage for loot, or picking up men to press-gang or sell as slaves.

Now, after dark, Gavin and Kip sat on the forecastle of the big ship, huddled around a brazier. Kip’s clothes still weren’t dried out. He knew how to dry them with sub-red now, but after how much he’d drafted today, he didn’t even want to see luxin, much less draft it. He was going to be lightsick tomorrow, he had no doubt. Gavin had been given new clothes and bandages for all his cuts immediately, of course. But then, that’s what being the Prism gets you.

They sat on the deck for a long time in companionable silence. Gavin dismissed his exhausted Blackguards. The men who were guarding him now had helped take the fort on Ruic Head and after fighting for hours had then assisted the rescue efforts all day; they deserved the rest. From time to time, men would come up to the Prism and congratulate him. Some even congratulated Kip. Kip Godslayer, one called him. Kip didn’t appreciate it. He was Godslayer only in the most technical sense. He’d delivered the final blow only because he’d been the least threat, only because he’d been beneath notice.

Gavin simply said, “You do what you have to do, Kip. Let people call you what they will. You can’t change it. People want heroes, and if every once in a while that title sticks to you, just make sure you don’t believe in it too much yourself.” He shook his head, as if the words weren’t coming out right. “You were brave today, Kip. You lived up to the highest ideals of the Blackguard, and I’m proud of you.” He handed Kip the mulled wine.

Kip grimaced, taking it. It hadn’t been him. It had been the knife. He still hadn’t told his father about the knife. He needed to. He’d been trying to work up to it all afternoon.