GUNNER’S APPRENTICE

Two sentries. Kip was going to have to kill two sentries, silently, before they could raise any sort of alarm. The light was weak – the sun still hidden by the mountains – but Kip put on his green spectacles, and bent the temple tips tight around his ears. He was lying on his stomach, hidden in the bushes, and the sentries were a good sixty paces away, over open ground, up a gravel trail. Suicide.

She’s going to die at dawn, Kip.

Kip balled his fists. It was a terrible plan. It was the only plan.

He raised himself to a sprinter’s stance, taking care not to get dirt into the barrel of the stolen rifle. The sentries were seated back to back, looking out to either side. He would be in the peripheral vision of both of them. There was no time, but he waited anyway, waited until the rising sun touched the far peaks of the snow-capped Karsos Mountains on the opposite side of the valley. Both sentries turned away from Kip to look at the glorious ripe-peach-colored alpenglow.

Kip burst from the cover of the bushes and bull-rushed the men. Perched above the valley floor where the Color Prince’s army was camped, the two men were wrapped in blankets against the cold wind, seated, each carrying a musket and a mirror to signal the army below.

The last two years of relentless training had cut Kip’s form to a fraction of its former fulminence of fat: nine-tenths being, after all, still a fraction, so the run up onto the promontory was faster than Kip had ever moved in his life.

But the men saw him almost immediately. They jumped to their feet, scrambling for weapons, throwing off the encumbrance of the blankets. Kip reached a full sprint, broad shoulders and bulk belied by surprising speed.

One of the sentries folded, leg cramping in the cold. The other was hoisting his matchlock musket, pulling the trigger even before the weapon reached his shoulder — counting on the tiny delay between the matchcord hitting the flashpan and its heat igniting the black powder.

Kip shot a springy ball of green luxin at the man, knocking the musket to one side an instant before lowering his shoulder and smashing into him with all of his own considerable mass.

It worked better than Kip had dared to hope. Perfect transference of momentum. One instant Kip was running full speed and the sentry was standing still. The next, Kip was standing still, and the sentry was sprawling backward, trying to keep his feet.

The sentry ran out of ground before he ran out of speed – and tumbled out of sight. The gravelly trail Kip had used was the only part of the promontory that wasn’t bordered with sheer precipice, so the man would fall to his death, and his musket hadn’t even gone off.

Lucky. This might just work.

The other sentry was at Kip’s feet. The man’s leg was still at a stiff angle, the cramp disabling him, but the sentry had rolled over and was crawling toward the edge, away from Kip. When the man had fallen, he’d stubbed out his matchcord, but he wasn’t reaching for a flint to relight it or for a knife to fight Kip himself. He was reaching out with his mirror, trying to grab the first rays of dawn to flash a signal to his compatriots on the valley floor. He had to know that the move meant death.

Dutiful. Brave. Self-sacrificing.

It wasn’t fair. The man didn’t even have a chance to fight. Betrayed by his own body at an inopportune moment. Kip drew green luxin into his palm, sharpened it, and shot a thick spike through the man’s back. The man expelled one great breath, ribs cracking, crushed like a bug, muscles clenching one last time. Before he relaxed at last in death, Kip was already moving toward the promontory’s edge.

The sun’s light was rolling down the eastern slopes across the valley. Around one huge leafy oak on the valley floor, several thousand men and women were gathered: soldiers in rows, drafters and color wights crowded to the front. The Color Prince himself, as dull in the indirect light as he would be spectacular once the sun touched him, was addressing his people, a murmur of his booming voice reaching even Kip, three hundred paces away. But Kip’s eyes weren’t drawn to that odd figure, half living luxin, half human.

They were drawn instead to the young woman, standing on a stool beneath the oak, wavy dark hair nearly covering the noose at her neck, hands bound behind her back. It was Aliviana Danavis. The girl he’d loved for as long as he could remember. Liv, about to be executed as a spy. Orholam have mercy.

She didn’t have much time left. Kip lay at the edge of the promontory, his burn-scarred left hand fitting the stock of the stolen rifle like they’d been made for each other. He was shaking too badly to be as accurate as he had to be. Gunner had tried to teach him to master his body: locking joints in place to give himself a stable shooting platform while keeping his muscles loose and fluid for fine corrections.

Kip couldn’t do it all – at least not fast enough, not with Liv down there, about to die – so he drafted a frame of green luxin, solidified it around his hands and shoulders, making a bipod, a perfect rest for the rifle. He breathed deeply, trying to slow his heart, taking the time to judge the wind, the difference in elevation, and the range.

Even as he made the mental calculations – the special luxin shell would drop a little more than four hands’ span over three hundred paces, this much wind should push the projectile less than four thumbs to the left, this rifle always shot at least a thumb up and left for every hundred paces – Kip despaired. His perch was excellent, his equipment unrivaled: everything was more than adequate for the shot he was attempting. But he wasn’t.

Gunner had taught him to reload quickly, showing him tricks like pre-measuring your powder and wrapping each charge in paper that would then also act as wadding. No more double-charging a musket, no more shaky hands while you tried to measure your powder under fire.

With those tricks, from this distance, Kip could get off two shots and still escape. Three if he were willing to trade his life for Prince Koios’s life. But his best chance would be the first shot.

If he killed the Color Prince now, Liv could escape in the chaos. Maybe.

It was a tenuous hope. It was his only hope.

Kip’s fingers were still trembling, but he ignored them, focusing on his target. Panicking about his trembling would only make it worse. This was a shot he could make. It might be the best shot of his life, but it was definitely possible. He’d learned from the very best, and Gunner had taught Kip to shoot while they were on the heaving decks of a galley at sea. This is easy, he lied to himself. He could do this. Kip’s breathing slowed.

The Color Prince was on the far side of the huge oak. Kip could only see pieces of him, there for a moment, then gone as he paced. Visible through the glorious green of sunlit oak leaves fresh-budded with the spring, there was an ocular cacophony of a hundred other colors as Kip glimpsed the clothes worn by the Color Prince’s army. All the brilliant colors made a perfect camouflage for the Color Prince. Was that jade movement the Prince, pacing, or just the stirring of a soldier’s cloak in the wind?

Wind that Kip had to take into account for his shot. Gustingwind.

Kip licked a finger, and wiped the moisture on his cheek so he could feel every hint of wind on the promontory. Now he needed a telltale near the target. From this distance, with Kip on the mountain and his target on the valley floor, the wind could be very different here and there.

The oak’s leaves rustled easily in the wind, both too light and too inconstant to be a good telltale; the leaves didn’t only shift in the wind, they also shifted with the slower, delayed movements of their branches’ swaying.

The sun continued its climb, now lighting the valley floor in splendor. Prince Koios suddenly appeared, right next to Liv. The man’s lips moved, a blessing or a curse, an epithet or an epitaph. Liv’s thin dress, which had been rustling in the wind, suddenly stilled.

That was Kip’s telltale. No wind. For one moment, no wind.

Kip’s finger was a subtle negotiation between man and rifle: notyanking the trigger and thereby pulling the barrel off target, but slower, easier, finding the release point and aiming throughout, attaining peace in a moment dedicated to the most murderous motion made by man.

The rifle’s hammer slapped down on that moment of peace, blasting it out the barrel with a roar like a dragon. Kip didn’t hear it, didn’t feel the sledge-blow to his shoulder, barely saw the thick black smoke that dimmed his vision before a gust of wakened wind could blow it away.

Gunner – the pirate so superlative with every instrument of war baptized in black powder that his shipmates had re-named himGunner – Gunner said that a trained gunner wielded a power so great that it snipped threads from the Fates’ tapestry and burned holes in the fabric of time. So you always shoot into the future. Where a man will be, not where he is. And then the powder obliterates time and life and treasure and hopes and vision and being itself. If you were a gunner, between the kick and the cloud and the black magic of black powder, you never saw the moment of violence, only the aftermath.

The threads of fate reformed. Below the oak, a figure was down, chest exploded from the luxin shell, gore spread everywhere. Liv was tottering on her stool, trying to keep her balance, trying to keep gravity from doing what Prince Koios had not. Men were crying out in fear and alarm. The Color Prince was dead. Kip had done it. He’d…

Missed.

The Prince stepped out from behind Liv’s form. Kip had missed. Kip had hit the man right beside the Color Prince.

Cool, fearless, the Color Prince scanned the mountains looking for his would-be assassin with vision that was preternaturally sharp, looking for the black cloud that was dissipating slowly — too slowly. He raised a hand and pointed directly at Kip.

Another yell rose, from the Prince’s men, his worshippers. A yell of rage.

Kip dissolved the green luxin frame and jumped to his feet. Ramrod and swab – to make sure no burning remnants of the old black powder lit the fresh powder before you could shoot the next shell. Pre-measured paper and powder, rammed home. No rushing – the movements had to be precise and clean with this barrel’s design. The three-quarters twist in the barrel, the riflingwhich differentiated this gun from a mere musket, made the shaped shells it fired ten times more accurate than a round musket ball. But those riflings had sharp edges and could easily cut the paper holding the powder and spill it everywhere, fouling the breech. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Kip did it perfectly.

Prince Koios was staring at Kip, standing arrogant, immobile, even as his men dissolved into a frenzy of motion. A rattle of muskets rang out, little puffs of smoke blossomed from a hundred barrels. Kip ignored it all. No mere musketeer was going to make that shot. Three hundred paces? That would take a gifted gunner and a glorious gun.

And Prince Koios knew it, too. He put his hands on his hips and stayed in plain view, taunting Kip. The Prince knew the rifle could make that shot. It was his rifle that Kip had stolen. He was telling Kip that he knew Kip couldn’t make the shot.

Then that bastard’s head turned. He pointed at Liv, turned back to Kip and mouthed something: You can’t save her, Kip thought it might be.

Panic clamping his throat shut, rage battling hopelessness, Kip rammed the shell home, not even glancing at the men coming running up the mountain path, some stopping to shoot as they got closer, some stopping to reload, some simply charging. Kip was war blind now, totally focused on only one thing.

The Color Prince kicked Liv’s stool out from under her.

She fell.

If you were dropped too far when hanged, it would tear your head off. Death was grotesque, but instant. If you were dropped from the correct height, it would break your neck, causing instant paralysis and death shortly thereafter. Not merciful, not beautiful: the body often released its bowels and continued to twitch long after you were sure it had to be dead, making you wonder if you knew what “dead” was. But if you weren’t dropped from high enough to break your neck, you strangled to death. It could take two minutes or five minutes or fifteen, depending on how strong your neck was, how thick the rope was, and how much you weighed.

Liv didn’t fall far. She bounced, the fresh stretchy hemp rope and the green limb overhead dangling her like a marionette, feet just a few hands’ breadths from the ground. She kicked, jerked, swayed.

Kip dropped into his prone position, reforming his green frame. A lucky musket ball hit the front of the promontory, spitting dirt and stone into Kip’s face. Only Kip’s green spectacles protected his eyes. His fingers stung and bled from the shrapnel, but he was unmoved.

Liv’s feet found the fallen stool, slipped, pulled it back toward her, stepped up on it, tiptoe. Giving herself precious seconds, precious air. Giving Kip a chance.

The calm came to him. Kip zeroed not on the Color Prince’s grinning, monstrous face, but on the rope strangling the life out of the woman he’d followed to the ends of the earth. The stock nuzzled into Kip’s shoulder like a lover. It would be a shot to make Gunner proud. And Kip could make it. This moment was his. Time itself held its breath. The Fates paused. The hammer slapped down, flint scratching frisson-plate, shooting sparks into the breech hole.

And – nothing. No roar, no shot.

With the Prince taunting him, Kip had forgotten to pierce the paper holding the black powder. With a curse and a stab of desperation, he released the luxin frame, turned the rifle over, stabbed a hole in the paper, cocked the hammer once more – and saw the Color Prince casually kick the stool away from Liv’s feet.

Her feet kicking grotesquely, her body bouncing and swinging now, the taut rope became a pendulum, a metronome measuring out the last beats of Liv’s life.

Kip didn’t have the time or the luxin to form the green frame again. He would have to shoot freehand like Gunner shot.

So be it. There was a task, a challenge: in some way, the stakes no longer mattered. Kip had missed left, five hands’ span to the left, but his elevation had been perfect. There must be a cross breeze in the middle distance, between where he was perched and his target. He adjusted, his heartbeat becoming a slow, even whoosh in his ears, his muscles relinquishing that nervous tension that killed accuracy. Liv was still kicking.

Dammit, Liv, quit it, a cold detached part of him thought, I can’t see if there’s wind. Kip looked instead to the Color Prince’s cloak. Not as thin, not as light, not as good a telltale, but itlooked still. Kip reached into the future: the shell would take so long to reach its target, Liv would sway to the right and the rope would pause right… there.

The rifle ripped its hole in time, roaring power and fire and fury. Beautiful.

When time reformed, Liv was still kicking, still swinging, still strangling, still dying. With the kick and the black cloud of powder and the hole in time, Kip didn’t even see to which side he’d missed.

Kip jumped to his feet. He had to leave now, or die. He’d had his chance, and he’d blown it. Why trade his life for the barest possibility of saving Liv’s? He couldn’t make the shot. He couldn’t make it. Orholam forgive him, but Liv had made her choices. Liv… A vision of her mischievous smile the last time he’d seen her filled his mind, and the thought of something of such beauty passing from the world brought silent, helpless tears to his eyes.

Hell with it.

He grabbed the ramrod. One more shot. No matter the cost.

Something hot tore through his leg as he loaded the rifle, almost knocking him off his feet, but he ignored it. Half of the soldiers had already discharged their muskets and were now drawing blades and pistols and clawing their way up the last fifty paces. Gunner always said, When you fight, accept the inevitability of your death and your fear will bleed away.

And it did.

Liv was struggling less now. Was she even conscious?

Kip pierced the paper, lay down, cocked the rifle, took a deep breath, and let half of it out.

After two misses, Gunner said, you should be able to hit anything. Two corrections, no more mistakes.

But Kip hadn’t even seen where the second shell hit. And Gunner was called Gunner for a reason.

Kip aimed at the rope again – then cursed himself for a fool. With these exploding shells, he didn’t need to hit the rope. He could hit the branch from which the rope was suspended instead. It was ten times the thickness of the rope and it wasn’t swaying from side to side. Kip could make that shot. He knew he could make it.

He fired. And whether it was a sudden stillness in that unseen middle wind or a sudden tenseness in his muscles or him pulling on the trigger rather than exerting a fine pressure, or there being a fraction of a thimbleful more or less powder in the charge, or any of a thousand other possibilities, Kip would never know. All he knew was that he missed the branch.

Liv’s body was suddenly spinning, swinging. No longer twitching, no longer fighting. Half her head was simply gone.

Then a musket ball tore through Kip’s body, and then another, and then another.

The End.

…

And no, that’s not a dream sequence. That’s taken from the book I’m working on now, The Blood Mirror, book 4 of The Lightbringer Series. I didn’t want to tell you up front that it’s from the next book because some readers avoid spoilers, and I thought this was important for you to read for reasons I’ll explain now.

There’s something in fiction that fantasy readers like to call Plot Armor. That’s the idea that no matter what happens to other characters, the hero is safe. This is why in so much fiction the best friend always dies. Because the author wants to hurt the main character without losing him. Even some authors who are praised for not using plot armor… really do. Some head fakes notwithstanding, there are always a couple of characters you really can’t kill off.

But I say, if you do it right: Why not? Why can’t we push the genre forward?

All fiction involves a series of tradeoffs. You can do whatever you want—you just have to be willing to pay the price. I don’t mind if you throw my book across the room—as long as you go and pick it back up again. It’s simply my job to give you enough reasons to go pick it up.

All my life I’ve been told I can’t do things.

They said, “You’ll never get published. You’ll never make a living at writing.” I said, “Why not?”

When I wrote Night Angel, they said, “You can’t write the second and third books of a trilogy when the first book hasn’t even been picked up!” I said, “Why not?”

When I started Lightbringer, they said, “You can’t have a fat kid as your main character.” I said, “Why not?”

And now they say, “You can’t kill off the main character halfway through the last book in a series.” I say, “Why not?”

They say, “You can’t send readers a scene that will never appear in your books and tell them it will.” I say, “Why not?”

Yes, it’s true. You’ve been the victim of a small deception. It just so happens that the man who makes his living telling tales has told you a lie. This scene will never appear in the books. This was merely a throwaway scene I wrote one day when I was stuck.

But I sent you this for good reason—mainly my own twisted amusement. Okay, also because even though it’s never going into a book, I’m rather pleased with how this scene turned out. And I wanted to share something that would work in different ways for veteran readers of my works, and also for new readers, so if you would like to share this, please do so. I hope you enjoyed my little surprises there. I like to think that it’s indicative of what I do repeatedly in my fiction.

I have a little maxim I operate by, and that’s this: “Don’t give fans what they want, give them something better.” So I hope I did that for you, and I hope you forgive me for it. Thank you very much!

…

Copyright (c) 2014 by Brent Weeks All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.

…

Books by Brent Weeks

Books by Brent Weeks

The Night Angel Trilogy:

The Way of Shadows | Shadow’s Edge | Beyond the Shadows

Perfect Shadow (a Night Angel novella)

The Lightbringer Series:

The Black Prism | The Blinding Knife |The Broken Eye (publishes August 2014)

The Blood Mirror (forthcoming)