Brent Weeks - The black prism

After a day, the rats had come. He woke to one licking the dried soup off his neck. Its little claws dug into his chest, its weight terrifyingly heavy. He'd screamed, jumped to his feet, thrashed. Screamed and screamed, and no one heard. That rat ran away, but soon, in the darkness, more had come. They dropped into his hair, bit his bare toes, scrambled up his pant legs. They were everywhere. Dozens of them. Hundreds, for all he knew. He'd screamed until his throat was raw, thrashed and hit at them until his hands were bleeding, twisted his ankle on some old boxes crammed into the cupboard. And no one had come.

His mother had found him on the morning of the third day, curled in a ball, head tucked in his arms, whimpering, dehydrated, long bloody wounds all over his head, shoulders, back, and legs, not even trying to dislodge the rats covering him like a cloak. There were a dozen dead rats with him and more live ones. She'd given him water, eyes haze-glazed, begrudgingly cleaned his wounds with the last of her harsh lemon liquor, and then wandered out to find more haze. All without a word. She seemed to have forgotten it all when he next saw her. He still had scars on his shoulders, back, and butt where the rats had bit him.

No one's coming, Kip. Another kick. You always were a disappointment. Another kick. A failure. Kick. You're not good at anything. Kick.

"Enough! Enough!" someone shouted. The officer finally pushed through the crowd, carrying his musket. "Move back!" he shouted.

He hefted the musket, pointing it at Kip's head.

What can I do? Draft little green balls? Fine.

Kip drafted a green ball and threw it up into the yawning barrel, willed it to stay.

The officer pulled the trigger. A moment, then the musket exploded in his hands. The breach of the musket blew out, throwing flaming black powder into the man's face, setting his beard alight. He screamed, fell back.

"Kill him!" someone shouted.

Kip saw steel being drawn on all sides, flashes of the sun on blades. And he started laughing. Because he was good at something.

He was good at taking punishment. He was a turtle. Or maybe a bear. A turtle-bear. Orholam, he was an idiot. He laughed again, slapping his hands to his shoulders as he lay on the ground. Green luxin jetted out, covering him like he'd seen it cover the green wight back in Rekton.

As Kip watched, a sword descended and hacked into the green luxin over his arm. It cut in two finger's breadths, but the luxin was thicker. It stopped, quivering like an ax in wood. Kip flipped over, pulling in more green from every light surface, not even knowing how he did it, pulling and pulling, drafting light from Orholam's endless tap.

It filled him with that same wildness. Wildness chained, hemmed in, trapped. The luxin covering him grew thicker. Kip gathered his feet beneath himself and stood, roaring.

He was crazy. He was crazy, and he felt great. He smashed a green forearm into a wide-eyed man holding a sword. It flung the man back. Kip paused for a second, and spikes sprouted from his green armor everywhere. He threw his weight back and forth, crashing into the crowd like they were rats to smash against cupboard walls.

Blood was flying in red ropes. Kip wasn't human anymore. He was an animal, unwilling to be caged. He was a mad dog. Some dim, thinking part of him thought that he shouldn't have been able to move so well with such a heavy suit on him. He was strong, but not this strong.

He had no sense of the battle beyond the little circle around him. Even that was a blur-sharp motions to the left and right, gleams of light off blades and rising muskets to be crushed before they could fire. He slashed and hacked and pounded with unreasoning fury. He could hold only one thought: I will not be stopped.

In moments, or hours, Kip had no notion of time-he saw fear in every eye. A continual flood of men spilled in through the gap, thrust forth hard by the mass of bodies behind them, all pushing them forward and into Kip, but his very presence was slowing the flood, men pushing back as soon as they saw him, others leaping to the sides, hoping to avoid his fury.

Their weakness inflamed him further. Like rats willing to bite in the darkness but scattering in the light, they were cowards. He clubbed them, smashing heads, ripping open bellies. He charged the gap where they couldn't flee, impaled them, flung gore left and right.

A thought won through his brain. Among all the shouting and screams and fear and mist and musket fire and clash of arms, someone was screaming a word: "Kip! Kip! King Garadul! That way!"

Kip couldn't see who was shouting. He stretched, found himself taller, the luxin swirling under his feet, boosting him several hand's breadths. Looking into the city, he saw Karris, skin red and green entwined, holding a sword, pointing it deeper into the city still.

King Garadul was rallying his Mirrormen around him there, pulling them together after they'd been separated coming through the gap. He was screaming orders. Seemed furious about something. Hadn't seen Kip.

Before he even knew what he was doing, Kip was charging, all his will focused, intent, implacable. This one thing remained: King Garadul had to pay for what he'd done. He had to die.

When Gavin heard the explosion, he knew immediately what it was. He was almost back to the wall on his way from the docks, where he'd been using the first light to help draft boats for the refugees. The evacuation was entirely possible if people would be reasonable. Gavin had told the city's elders that nobles could bring three chests, armorers and apothecaries could bring three as well, rich merchants could bring two, and everyone else could only bring what they could carry.

It was a simple rationale, if a hard one. The fleeing Tyreans would need medicine, and they didn't want to leave any arms that King Garadul could use to arm his troops and spread his aggression. And though it stuck in Gavin's throat to help the rich more than the poor, the rich would bring their riches out of the city. Those riches, if left, would again be used by King Garadul and would help him kill others. If people did everything according to orders, there would still be room for everyone to escape who wanted to.

Except, of course, everyone cheated. Everyone. Nobles brought six chests. Rich merchants brought five. Others lied and claimed to be armorers or apothecaries who were not.

Gavin put a local guild head in charge, went to draft on the barges, and when he came back found the man letting his own guild members bring extra baggage. Gavin drafted a scaffold off the side of the pier in five seconds, and had the man strangling on it in ten. He put someone else in charge before the first man was dead.

"Make decisions fast and as justly as you can," Gavin told the deeply frowning, pockmarked cooper he was putting in charge. "And my whole authority is behind you, even if you make mistakes. Take one bribe, and I'll take my time making your death as much worse than this as I can imagine." Then he left. He didn't have time for this.

He was at the base of the wall when he heard the explosion. It was exactly what he'd been afraid of. It had been why he'd drafted Brightwater Wall in the first place. With all the homes and shops built directly against the city wall, it was hard to defend from enemies outside, but impossible to defend from enemies within. Anyone who owned a shop could be given barrels of black powder, tunnel under the wall a little bit, and set a charge. They could work in full privacy, uninterrupted-could, and had.

Blackguards in tow, Gavin dug his heels into his horse's flanks. But he didn't head for the gap. A hole in the wall was a prize, of course, but it would immediately attract defenders, and it might not be big enough for the army to come through. It might become a choke point, a killing zone. Better to use the distraction of a breach in the walls to open a gate elsewhere.