“Who’s going with Breaker?” Ironfist asked. “Quick! I can’t. My path is different.”

Slight Daelos seemed to be gathering his courage, and he spoke quickly. “My parents would die if I left, Breaker. This is all they’ve ever wanted for me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for myself. Sorry.”

“I’m not blaming you, Daelos, but he only meant getting me to the docks—” Kip started.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Ironfist said. “You go with Breaker, you’re out of the Blackguard. Permanently. The promachos has spoken.”

“I’ll go,” Cruxer said. His voice was steady, but he looked like he was dying.

“Cut the stitching on the side of your insignia,” Ironfist said.

“Wait. What?!” Kip said. “Cruxer, what are you saying?”

“I’ll go,” Ferkudi said.

“In,” Big Leo rumbled.

“Wait, what is this?” Kip said.

“Same here,” Goss said.

“Wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Teia said.

Winsen shrugged. “Sounds fun. I’m in.”

“No time!” Ironfist said. “Line up now. You each found a paper in your pack. Sign it.”

“Stop it!” Kip shouted. “What are you doing? You’ve worked your entire lives to be Blackguards. You’re this close. I have to go, but me going means you can stay. Me going means I won’t ever have to fight you.”

“Breaker,” Cruxer said. “Don’t you understand? We’re all good enough to be Blackguards. The commander has offered promotions to every last one of us. But we wanted to be Blackguards not because we wanted to have the clothes and the admiration—”

“I thought the clothes and the admiration were pretty great,” Teia said.

“I like the clothes and admiration,” Ferkudi said.

“Ferkudi!” Cruxer said.

“Wha—she just said the same—ow! Ben, what’d you elbow me for?”

“All the trappings are wonderful,” Cruxer said. “But we all wanted to be Blackguards because we wanted to serve a high purpose.”

“But what if I’m not the—” Kip said.

“It doesn’t have to do with that,” Cruxer said, but Kip wasn’t sure the rest of the squad agreed. “What purpose is there in us serving evil men?”

Ben-hadad asked, “What good are the trappings of honor if the honor itself is dead?”

“I still like the trappings,” Ferkudi murmured. He was mournfully turning his gold inductees’ fight token over in his hand.

“Breaker,” Teia said. “We love it here. We don’t want to go. But we want to go with you.”

Just when he thought he was going to lose it all. Kip felt warmth suffusing him, like his body was filling with light.

“You’ll find two pairs of blacks in your bags,” Ironfist said. “I heard some of you only joined up in the first place because you wanted the clothes.” But no one laughed. The blacks were not just a gift rich beyond imagining, stretchy-soft and comfortable, luxurious and useful, they were the ultimate symbol of the elite Blackguard and what the squad was giving up. That their commander gave them the blacks anyway told them that he thought they were worthy of the honor and the brotherhood they were choosing to sacrifice. Ironfist growled, “What, am I gonna have to requisition handkerchiefs? Line up!”

Kip could barely see through his brimming eyes. But the squad lined up immediately, and he took his place at the end.

“You’re Blackguards no more,” Ironfist said. He walked down the line, took each signed release, and ripped the Blackguard insignia and rank off their sleeves. Kip was the last. It felt as if Ironfist tore his heart out.

“Lem,” Ironfist said. “Take these papers down to the secretaries’ desk and have them copied in triplicate and put on file.” He handed over the papers and simple Lem disappeared.

Ironfist dug into a bag. “You can call yourselves whatever you want now. Make your own patches if you don’t like these. The promachos called you the Mighty.” Ironfist went down the line again and slapped an insignia on each person’s left shoulder. It was of a powerful man in black silhouetted on a red field, standing with feet planted, head bowed, arms straight out to either side, and force radiating from each hand. It reminded Kip of his time in the jungle, when he’d expelled the leeches.

Ironfist said, “Now go, go with Orholam, and may I see you again. If not on these mortal fields, then in paradise.”

They went to the door, and Kip turned as the rest of them went into the hall. “Commander, if I may, where’d you get the patches?”

“Andross Guile had them made.”

“That many?” Kip asked.

Ironfist nodded. “And the weapons. And the supplies. Minus the blacks.”

Unbelievable. Just when Kip felt comfortable hating that old murderer, Andross had given him his squad back. Andross had not only given them weapons and gear, he’d arranged the writs of release so they wouldn’t have to pay back the signing monies that all of them had spent or given to their families or previous owners. Andross Guile, generous?

“Sir,” Kip said, “where are you going?”

“A different front of the same war.”

“Halt!” an unfamiliar voice shouted from the hall where the rest of the squad was. “Which one of you is Kip?”

“That’s me,” Goss said loudly. “What’s it to you?”

A musket shot rang out.

Chapter 93

Kip’s first shameful instinct was to run away from the sound of musket fire. But that passed as soon as he saw Ironfist’s face. Ironfist was restraining his first instinct, too. Except his first instinct was to run toward the sound.

But Ironfist didn’t see the fear in Kip’s face. “I can’t,” he said. “Even if it means— Go, Breaker, go.” He pushed Kip toward the lift, and ran the opposite direction himself.

In the very act of moving, Kip was broken out of his indecision. He ran toward the lift, but by the time he got there, not ten seconds after the musket shot, all four of the Lightguards were down. Two were screaming, one was crawling away with a torn-out throat, bleeding in gushes, slickening the stone floor.

All of the squad were still standing. Winsen and Big Leo went to the two screaming, dying Lightguards and opened their jugulars. The crawler collapsed. All four were twitching.

“Oh, shit,” Ferkudi said. “Goss, are you hurt? I thought—”

Goss was blinking. “I, Orholam’s balls,” he said. “I don’t know how he missed. Musket ball must have fallen out before he fired or something. Bad job packing the—” He collapsed.

Cruxer barely caught him in time, easing him to the bloody stones. But Goss was dead. There was a hole right in the center of his chest.

“They came to murder us,” Cruxer said. He closed Goss’s eyes. “No warning. That was no attempt at capture.”

“We gotta move,” Teia said.

But as she said it, they heard loud thunks from the lift shaft. Big Leo ignored it. He picked up Goss’s body. “I can’t just leave him here. I’ll catch up.”