She shut it out. Found the market she'd been heading for. With the mist, she couldn't see enough to tell if her guess had been correct.

You've already bet Kip's life on this course, might as well see if it pays off.

Cursing herself for a fool, Karris drafted a green weapon harness, sheathed both blades on her back, messed with the harness for a second to get it to set right with the quiver and bow, cursed the torn, tight sleeves on her dress, cursed her muscular shoulders, and tore the sleeves off. She breathed. Then she sprinted to the edge of the roof and leapt.

The houses here were so close, it was an easy jump. Some homes even had planks between them so neighbors could visit each other. So long as she didn't want to cross the street, it was easy going. She ran as fast as she could. One street to clear, then another block of houses, then the market. Her eyes bounced back and forth as she approached the larger gap of crossing the street.

There! One of the houses on the other side had a significantly lower roof. Karris veered left and leapt, passing over the heads of thirty or forty Mirrormen. She hit the lower roof, rolled, popped to her feet just in time to have to leap again-to a higher roof. She hit the next roof with one foot extended. She pushed up, trying to push herself just a little higher but not stop her forward momentum.

Her body popped up, but not forward enough. She landed with half of her torso on flat, whitewashed stucco, then slid down, scrambling, trying to find purchase.

She dropped to her fingertips, on dirty, cracked, crumbling stucco. She swung sideways, lost one handhold for a second as the stucco ripped away. She latched her hand back onto the roof, a clean grip this time, and swung back the other way. Her foot reached the edge, tearing the slit of her dress up even higher. She pulled herself up quickly, not trusting that the rest of the stucco wouldn't crumble at any moment.

No time to be elated at being alive. Karris checked her swords and bow, glanced once down at the twenty-foot drop onto an uneven surface below-a broken leg there if she'd fallen, at least. Then she ran again.

She reached a roof overlooking the market and stopped. King Garadul was coming, with hundreds of Mirrormen and a few drafters-and Kip was hot on their heels. Literally.

This was going to get messy.

Karris smiled.

Chapter 88

Kip was on fire. Someone had doused him in red luxin and lit him up.

It didn't stop him. He simply thickened the green that encased him so the red wouldn't burn through. The pyre jelly stuck to the green. He couldn't rub it away from his face, it was glued in place, implacable. But he could move the green luxin itself, so he made it swirl outward, until his eyes were clear and he could see again. Using the same technique, he swirled all of the pyre jelly to his arms and shoulders, then along his sides, so he was outlined in flame. It all took only a few moments. He thought it, and the luxin did it. Or more precisely, he willed it, and it happened.

The wildness within him was so strong that he wanted to break free of the city and run away. But he wouldn't allow it. He harnessed the wildness. The wildness would serve him. It would help him destroy the man who held the lash and the leash, the man who wanted to control him: King Garadul.

He wasn't sure that he was going the right way, but he followed the flow of King Garadul's soldiers. Kip himself was like a beacon, burning as he was in the misty morning. But the light made his vision lousy. It was like holding a torch: if you held it over your head, you might see into the darkness, but if you held it between yourself and the darkness, you weren't going to see anything at all. Kip was the torch. He couldn't see much, and he didn't care. He could see the men streaming away from him, some of them seeing him and just running like hell, but others seemed to be running toward something. A meeting place, a rallying point. Where King Garadul would be.

Kip barreled around a corner into the backs of half a dozen soldiers. They hadn't seen him and he couldn't stop. He ran right over them in a mess of screams and burning flesh and curses and blood and a struggle just to keep from falling as he stepped on body parts. He swung his arms in big sweeping motions, fire and blood and blades unleashed into a crowd.

And it was a crowd. Kip had made it. There were hundreds of soldiers here. He could see dim flashes of the winking armor of the Mirrormen on the other side of the square. Then he was subsumed, folded into the loving arms of battle. There was no morning mist. No counting of his foes. No deciphering the shouts of his enemies into plain language, orders that might help him know what was coming. There was only the roar coming from Kip's own throat, the hammering of his own heart, the pulsing life that was his magic. There was only the burning in his muscles, the resistance his arm felt as a bladed arm cut into a man's torso, and the freedom as he pulled it all the way through.

The world closed in on Kip. He could barely see, barely turn his neck within the green armor. It drove him crazy. He needed freedom. He couldn't be trapped. He was an animal. He crashed through ranks of soldiers as they formed against him. His sweeping arms snapped spears like nothing. He bludgeoned heads with his closed fists. Tore men off his back and snapped their spines in his hands.

Then, abruptly, the ranks parted in front of him. All except one man, who didn't move aside in time, and Kip saw two rows of ten musketeers each. The first row was kneeling, the second row standing, all muskets pointed at him. Someone shouted, his voice a command. And Kip saw the one soldier between him and the musketeers. The man heard too, and understood. Kip saw the panic on his face.

The musketeers loosed a volley. Fire and smoke leaped like a pouncing, snarling lion from their muskets. Kip saw the soldier cut down, even as he steeled himself against the blast.

The musket balls hit him like a fist, many striking at the same time, and a few instants behind the first, carrying him like a punch's follow-through. He was swept off his feet.

A cheer went up. Kip's head swam and he felt the green luxin going soft all around him.

No! I can take punishment. That's my gift. That's my talent.

A musketeer ran over to Kip, pointed a blunderbuss at his head. Something streaked by the man's head-an arrow?-but missed. Kip grabbed the yawning mouth of the blunderbuss and pulled it to himself, stuck it right to his forehead, and pressed green luxin down the barrel. The man pulled the trigger and the breech exploded.

Kip jumped to his feet with inhuman strength. He stomped on the screaming musketeer and looked at himself. He could see the lead musket balls, flattened, inside his green armor. Like they'd shot a tree. The bullets had penetrated, but been stopped. Kip laughed, damn near insane. He was bulletproof.

Ignoring the musketeers, several of whom were running away while the rest were reloading furiously, fumbling with their ramrods and powder horns, trying to ready another shot, Kip looked for King Garadul. These men were no threat. They couldn't bind him. But he couldn't see. So he pulled green luxin around him and made himself taller. Simple.

And there he was. Surrounded by his Mirrormen, King Garadul was mounted, shouting at a drafter beside him, pointing at Kip. The drafter's skin was bright blue, but even as she gathered her magic, something streaked out of the sky. The woman's hands opened limply and blue poured out of her, puddled on the ground. She toppled out of her saddle.

King Garadul stopped in midsentence, looked around. The drafter on his other side, a red, fell out of her saddle. This time Kip-and all the Mirrormen-followed the arrow's path back to its source. Up on a rooftop. Karris, skinny, muscular, bloody, wearing a torn dress and already drawing another arrow. One of the Mirrormen tackled King Garadul out of his saddle. Karris's third arrow cracked a Mirrorman's greave and pinned his leg into his horse. The stallion went crazy, bolting, knocking down half a dozen men and trampling them before it tripped and rolled over on the Mirrorman.