Flamecaster (Shattered Realms #1)(16)

Four years ago, it had been a miserable March day, with the sleet pelting down, and the wind howling out of the witchy north. Today, it was a clear cold night in October, but the wind still blew, carrying the promise of winter from the fresh snowfalls in the Spirit Mountains.

Last time, Jenna had been packed into the wagon with Riley and Maggi, who were about to die, but none of them knew it. This time, she sat high in the driver’s seat, with a slightly older boy named Byram beside her. A younger boy rode in the back with the barrels. He called himself Mick.

They shouldn’t have much to say to each other, but that didn’t keep Byram from talking all the way from town.

Byram wouldn’t be his real name—not if he was smart. He knew Jenna as a boy named Flamecaster. Sometimes she went by Sparks instead. That was just easier, all the way around. It had been so long since she’d been a girl that she wasn’t sure she remembered the ins and outs of it.

Jenna preferred to keep her mouth shut and play her cards close. That way, if any of them was caught, they wouldn’t have much to say to the blackbirds, either.

When she wasn’t on Patriot business, Jenna answered to the name of Riley Collier, a skilled blaster from the Heartfangs. She rotated from mine to mine, boring the blasting holes, packing them with powder and setting them off, moving rock off the coal seams so the miners could get at them.

It was a good job, for a mining job, if you had steady hands and the nerve to do it. Unlike some of the other jobs, it didn’t require a lot of muscle. It also wasn’t so strenuous that you were fit for nothing else when you went off shift. Her days were shorter, with nobody looking over her shoulder, because none of the bosses was eager to go down there with her. It allowed more time in the fresh air, less underground, and she’d learned useful skills—skills she would be using tonight.

They were nearing the turnoff to the garrison house when Byram said, “Hold up.” Jenna reined in, and he stuffed some papers into her hand. “Here’s your paperwork, in case we get stopped. We got flour and oil for the kitchens, see? If it’s clear when we get to the bridge, turn the wagon around and pull onto the shoulder. Soon as you come to a stop, me and Mick will roll the barrels under the bridge and light it up. Once it blows, we’ll hop on and hit the road. Take it nice and easy, though, ’cause we don’t want to get noticed. Got that?” For some reason, Byram fancied that he was in charge.

Jenna got it, but she didn’t like it. The upside of traveling at darkman’s hour was that there wasn’t much traffic on the road. The downside was that once the bridge blew, they’d be prime suspects to any soldiers who happened to be on that side of the bridge. Especially since they’d be driving away, when any other person would head for the noise, to see what happened.

“We’ll be the only ones on the road except for mudbacks and blackbirds. Once the bridge goes up, they’ll be all over us, with no place to hide.”

Byram snorted. “What’s the chance there’ll be mudbacks this side of the bridge in the middle of the night?”

“Not mudbacks so much as blackbirds. From what I hear, that new commander is mean as a snake. I want to be far away when it blows.”

“If you’re scared, you should’ve stayed at home,” Byram said.

“If you’re not scared, you’re stupid.”

“Look,” Byram said, in the manner of someone instructing a small child. “Somebody’s got to light the thing; after that we got no more’n a couple minutes.” His eyes narrowed. “Or are you thinking me or Mick should stay behind while you beat it back to town?”

Jenna shook her head. “I brought this.” She pulled a long, thin tube out of her carry bag. It was made of cotton, coated with pitch, and stuffed with black powder.

“What’s that?” Byram poked it warily with his forefinger.

“Something new. Blasters in the Heartfangs are beginning to use them in the deeper shafts. Light one end, and it takes as long as a half hour to burn through.”

“I never heard of that,” Byram said, as if that was that.

It would help if you talked less and listened more, Jenna thought. “I heard about it from a collier who was passing through town on his way north,” she said vaguely. She didn’t care to reveal her sources to anyone who might spill.

“How do we know it’ll actually work?” Byram said. “We don’t even know how to use it.”

“You don’t, I do. You get the kegs down there, I’ll handle it,” Jenna said. She slapped the reins and they rolled forward again. Her heart was beginning to hammer as it always did during this kind of job. She tried not to think about what would happen if they got caught. Instead, she thought about Riley and Maggi, who were dead, and her da, and everyone else in Delphi, squirming under Arden’s thumb.

She thought of Arden going up in flames, leaving nothing but a charred skeleton behind. That always gave her the heart to do what she did.

They turned off the main road toward the garrison headquarters. It was in a manor house the army had taken over when they moved out of the town. Now the army encampment spread on both sides of the road, and squat, ugly warehouses had been raised behind the stables and the manor kitchen. There were still bits of what must have been a garden around the building, but it had been trampled into mud by men and horses. A few winter-blasted shrubs still framed the house. All of this was encircled by a high stone wall.