She’d aimed perfectly, timed everything right, but the musket didn’t fire. She cocked the flintlock again, checked the mechanism. No flint. It had fallen out, probably during her impressive trick riding. Bollocks!
Karris threw the musket away, reversed her hands, turned her head over her shoulder to make sure she’d be leaping off flat ground, and dismounted. The reverse dismount and remount was actually much harder than the original trick, but she did it perfectly, both feet hitting the ground, pushing off in tandem just as the pull of the horse’s forward motion catapulted her into the air. Except as she was pulled up and forward, half of her horse’s head was torn off by a musket ball and its body dove for the earth. If she’d still been holding the reins, she’d have been flung to earth too. Instead, she became a human cannonball. The force of her jump and the horse’s sudden dive had her twisting like a cat. She was flying, upside down and backward.
Time only for one thought: Roll when you hit.
But when she hit, there was no time for anything at all. Whatever it was, there were multiple levels, and it was mercifully soft—which didn’t stop it from whipping her head and limbs in different directions. When she finally hit ground, she couldn’t move for a few long seconds.
Someone was cursing. She saw feet. She was lying on top of a man, and he was struggling to get out from under her. She must have crashed into the backs of half a dozen soldiers—and taken them all out with her. One man had his leg twisted at a nasty angle. Another turned to look at her, his nose fountaining blood, cursing.
A huge explosion took away whatever he was saying. Perhaps sixty paces away. Everything seemed to freeze for a moment on the battlefield, then things began moving too fast to take them all in at once.
Karris jumped to her feet—and almost collapsed. She was so lightheaded that it took all of her concentration not to fall. She checked herself quickly. There were stinging abrasions on her arms and legs, dress in pathetic shape, but no serious wounds. She touched her eyes. The eye caps were unbroken, of course. And smudged with blood so they were harder to see through. Just perfect.
Now that she was in the midst of the battle, the world narrowed. There were images like little paintings, but no whole. Karris saw a drafter up on the Mother’s Gate—Izem Blue? What was he doing here? He stood, skin fully blue, both arms extended, shooting blue daggers in rapid succession—an absolutely stunning display to work so fast, keeping his will focused, shooting from both hands. He was like a dozen musketeers—three dozen, despite the hazy quality of the morning’s misty sunlight. Everywhere he turned, men went down. He turned toward the Mirrormen, and Karris saw those blue blades shearing off in every direction from the mirror armor, chewing through everyone around the Mirrormen, but sometimes catching a chink or hitting the mirror armor flat enough that a knife punched through.
A body stood in front of Karris, headless, its neck spraying blood in time with the last beats of its heart.
The sound of muskets firing and the roar of blood in her ears melded together, a pulse, life and death twined together.
The Mirrormen surged toward a hole in the wall, perhaps seven paces across. So that was where the explosion had been.
A red drafter—one of King Garadul’s Free—had gone mad. He was cackling, throwing pyre jelly on everyone around him. The men splattered with the stuff were shouting in fear. Someone was begging him to stop.
A man was falling off the shattered edge of the wall, slipping, screaming.
Off to one side atop the wall, the sun gleamed off a man’s copper hair. Karris’s eyes locked on him. Gavin! He leaned close to another man, issued an order. Corvan Danavis. So the man really was a general. And he was here? Gavin clapped the man on the shoulder, and they parted.
Karris turned, remembering the pursuing Mirrormen, perhaps too late.
The leader was twenty paces back, horse surging through the lines, shouting at men to move aside, sword drawn. He was alone, his men cut off behind him by a sudden sideways surge in the line, but he was too close. Karris was unarmed and still wobbly on her feet.
Ten paces away, her pursuer seemed to jump in his saddle. Karris could see the whole front of his body, so he hadn’t been shot from the wall, but nonetheless, he tumbled out of his saddle.
Someone had killed the man from behind. What the hell? Karris looked behind the man.
Kip.
Kip? The young man was riding at a full gallop behind the Mirrormen, following the path they’d pushed open through the ranks of soldiers. But he didn’t have a musket.
Instead, he was carrying a big green ball, larger than his own head. His skin was green, and he had a wild look in his eyes—and he looked like he was going to tumble out of the saddle at any moment.
Not seeming to care that he was guiding his horse directly into other horses, Kip drew the green globe backward like he was throwing a ball—classic tyro misperception, they always thought that because a ball had mass, you had to muscle it. Kip’s arm came forward, and then with an audible pop he shot the green globe out at the Mirrormen.
It caught one in the side of his mirrored helmet. The mirror armor sheared luxin easily, but it still had to deal with the momentum of what was hitting it. A breastplate might withstand a bullet, but the man inside was still going to have some broken ribs. Here, the man’s head snapped to the side, blasting him out of the saddle, and the green globe ricocheted off, hitting another Mirrorman’s shoulder and not quite dismounting him, then caromed into a third Mirrorman’s horse, catching the animal on the side of its head and knocking it off its feet.
The force of the shot blew Kip out of his own saddle, almost halting all of his forward motion. His horse shied, trying not to collide with the others at the last second, but they had been startled by riders falling and a giant green ball flying past their heads, and one dodged directly into its new path. Animal collided with animal at great speed, crunching a Mirrorman’s leg that was trapped between them.
Both horses went down, but Karris was more concerned about Kip. She lost sight of him when he fell. Soldiers were still a river, pressing past the Mirrormen, not knowing or caring much what this fight was about. They just wanted to get out of the shadow of these deadly walls and into the city.
Karris snatched a sword off the ground and ducked through the crowd. Three riders had wheeled around and were pushing toward a spot farther back. She couldn’t get there in time.
One was drawing his musket from the saddle sheath to kill her when his head exploded in a burst of yellow light and pink mist. Karris was sure this time the shot hadn’t come from the wall. It had to have come from the opposite direction—from the hill? And what the hell could have done that? An explosive musket ball?
She was still too far away. She saw two Mirrormen pulling muskets out, aiming down.
Twin green spears—pillars, almost, they were so thick—erupted from the ground where the riders were pointing and impaled them. The first one was hit square in the chest. Green light fractured out in a spray as the mirrored breastplate held for a moment, and then burst—and still the green spear shot up, lifting the Mirrorman up into the air. The other man was no more lucky. That spear hit the top of his breastplate, again shearing some luxin away into a flash of green light. Then the spear rode up, catching him under the chin and going into his head, ripping his helmet off his ruined head like a child popping the head off a dandelion.