He pulled a pouting lip and widened his eyes so much they started to cross.
"You don't look afraid," I complained. "You look like constipated."
"Maybe I should try for anxious," he said. "More subtle. I do well with subtle."
"Is that what you call it?" I said, and this time it sounded just right.
It must have because he laid his palm between my shoulder blades as we walked, his palm moving with my muscles. I had the feeling he was testing me again.
"Your muscles miss training with two swords," he said. "I should smith you a partner weapon for Excalibur just to maintain your innate balance. Where is it, anyway?"
I felt myself pressing backward into his palm and seeking more contact.
While Chas had retrieved Excalibur for me, I had no interest in making it my daily sidearm. After its last use, I was wary of having it in my possession too often. When I'd fought Hunter and his Blood Blade, I'd suffered bouts of emotions and images so stark and powerful, so incredibly dark and painful I was loathe to use it again, let alone train with it.
I'd said nothing to anyone about the power that I'd experienced, and I wasn't truly sure some of it hadn't been the pairing of Excalibur to the blood blade as we'd fought.
I wasn't entirely sure the sword hadn't magnified the weaknesses in my opponent. I was worried it would pick up the vibes of those around me and feed me images I didn't want to see, instill emotions I didn't want to feel.
"The sword's magics are too much for me," I said simply.
"It's virtually weightless, isn't it?" he said. "That's what Marlin said. That you barely feel as though you're holding a sword at all."
"Yes, and it meets the opponent's thrust, finding the right space to cut through."
He halted and tugged on my arm to hold me back.
"There's something else, though," he said. "And it has nothing to do with me making a training sword to go along with it."
I shrugged. "How can you make a match for a sword that feels like it's part of me? It would be a waste of your time. I'll just train with the katanas to keep my muscle memory."
"You should be training with Excalibur if you're going to wield it."
"It has its own mind," I said. "Training would be useless."
"Training is never useless, and you know this." His gaze searched my face, roaming over each muscle movement and each point of tension.
"You're hiding something," he said with a frown. "I thought you trusted me."
I felt the muscles in my back twitch. "I do," I admitted. "But it's tough for someone like me to really give in."
That was a lot to confess. It made me vulnerable. I held my breath, waiting to see what he'd do with the information.
His finger crooked beneath my chin to direct my gaze to his before he splayed his palm along my jawline. His ring finger stroked the cords in the back of my neck and I felt my head leaning into his palm.
He had big hands. Rough hands. The calluses on his fingers did strange things to my skin.
"Judgement is something Hunter and his cronies do. You won't find it here."
I might have answered to the comment, but I sensed he wasn't looking for further declaration from me. He was seeking something else entirely.
His expression shifted. The black-eyed gaze that made me feel naked and vulnerable moved to my mouth and I imagined time might slow down so that he could kiss me, so that I could enjoy the feel of his lips on mine, so that I could let the tension knotted in my stomach uncoil and move like fire to my core.
I'd not given myself to anyone in years. In fact, if I was honest, I hadn't truly given myself at all. Ever.
I wondered what it would be like to invite the touch, to enjoy it, to feel as though it was a true and lovely thing instead of feeling terror and hate and rage.
And that was the thing that made me pull away.
"Don't," I said, offering him my cheek before his lips touched down.
I felt the coarseness of beard stubble as he nuzzled my skin. His breath smelled of mint and bacon. I squeezed my eyes closed as I imagined how he would taste and tried to shut out that longing.
"Do you know what it's like to forge iron?" he said and let go of me.
He stepped back but kept his eye pinned to mine.
It was such an abrupt shift that I braced myself. He was angry, annoyed, entitled and I'd have to defend myself.
But none of that happened. He just sent me a sort of whimsical smile that made him look boyish and endearing.
"Iron doesn't want to be shaped," he said. "It doesn't want to be broken free of the rock that surrounds it. Even when you crack it free of its shell, the iron fights to remain the same. So you smelt it. You use fire and heat and muscle and something else to bend it to the thing it needs to be. The thing you see within the molecules that you want to free. Do you know what that is?"
I shook my head, fighting off the mental image of him toiling, bare-chested and sweating over his forge.
"Patience," he said. "Smelting and forging and smithing iron takes patience and I'm a very good smithy."
He didn't wait for me to argue, to respond, to do anything. He just grinned almost arrogantly. We were at the end of the Musk estate and the town was laid out all around us in a chaos of streets and activity. Someone hollered a hello to him and he turned to lift a hand in greeting.
Then the moment was over and we were making our rounds, checking on the shopkeepers, letting the citizens know how things would roll out over the next few days, of exactly what sort of threat we might be facing.
I let Lance do most of the talking and some of them seemed happy about that. There was an almost surreptitious air of awe as the townsfolk looked at me. They couldn't meet my eye and when I asked questions, they flushed.
I learned a lot in that pilgrimage through the town. People hated Hunter. Many of them had more contact with him than I'd imagined.
One man had lost a daughter to the Ruby Skulls a year before I'd rejoined the town. She had been married to an abusive man who understood well how to cover up his crimes. She'd petitioned the Ruby Skulls for justice. They'd been unable to find evidence.
But they had been able to find plenty of evidence when there was a body to show for it. When there was a bloody woman standing over that dead body with a knife.
She stood trial. It took two days to convict her.
She was hung an hour later.
And there were stories like that all through town. I thought of the poor boy who'd stolen a basket of apples to feed his family and who had lost his hand instead. I listened to each story, feeling more and more horror.
What Hunter had delivered to the world was not blind justice but atrocity.
I grew more determined.
We were standing outside the apothecary shop on the main street, in full view of the dusty road that led out of town. I heard the loud whinny of a horse as the pounding noise of hoof beats sounded at the gate
I turned to see Sadie ride through the gates. She was wearing her broad brimmed hat and leather vest. The pony insignia looked worn and dirty. I noticed her saddlebags were stuffed on either side of her horse with papers and books.
Her weapon was drawn.
Both Lance and I rushed to her as she led her horse through the street toward us.
She looked sweaty and exhausted. Her horse was glistening with sweat.
She jumped off long before we met and I noticed her weaving on her feet.
"Get her," I said to Lance.
It took him a few mere strides before he was at her side and had his arm around her, giving her support.
I nodded toward the brothel and he grunted in assent. We struggled our way into the whorehouse and found a table. One of the prostitutes brought us a tall pitcher of water without asking if we wanted it.
It dripped with condensation. Sadie drank directly from it, downing nearly half before she dropped it back down onto the table.
She sucked in a deep breath.
"It's worse than we
thought," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"My ponies have been coming in from all over the nation. It's not just this one little assault Hunter perpetrated," she said. "He's got his Rubies traveling the nation. Those not involved in the fire are out there riling up the nation. All of the other towns. Telling them that you've taken over New Denver and that New Denver and that you have your eyes on taking over the entire world."
I leaned back in my chair.
"The tyrant accuses me of being a tyrant," I said but there was no emotion in my voice. I had reverted back to my default setting of quiet and unfeeling composure. I felt the inner wall going up.
"Exactly," she said. "Worse is, either they're believing him or they're too terrified of him to argue."
"We have to let those people know it's not true. We need to gain their trust."
Sadie nodded. "I thought so too. That's why I've alerted all of my ponies to make themselves ready for a relay journey. We'll spread the word, each of us. Each town we deliver to, each city we enter, we'll spread the word. But I'll need proof. Without it, it's your word against Hunter's."
"They trust the ponies," I said. "Everyone does. Take one of the street rats. Someone who has lived here. Someone who can be an eye-witness."
"Electra is coming in behind me," she said. "I'll send her back to the outpost in the morning. She'll need some rest, though. A good bath. Some food."
I sent an inquiring glance at the brothel owner who nodded. A young prostitute scurried off somewhere to get a bed and food ready.
Before she disappeared behind a swinging door, Lance poured Sadie a drink of water and pushed it toward her.
"Why was your pistol out when you rode in?" he said.
I'd forgotten that. Too anxious for a friend, I'd let that detail slip.
She nudged the glass with her finger before wrapping her hand around it and grabbing the pitcher with her other hand. She pushed back in her chair and headed to the door, almost as though she knew her pony would be coming through it any moment.
She stood there, glass and pitcher in her grasp and when Electra did push through the door, she shoved the glass into the hand not holding a pistol.
"My pistol was drawn for the same reason Electra's is," she said, pivoting to face us.
Electra nodded before she upended the glass and sank down into the nearest chair.
Sadie placed the pitcher on the table in front of her before turning to face us.
. "I've been at this a long time, Skye," she said. "But today something was out there trailing us. Stalking me. Not sure what it was, but it sounded terrifying."
That news itself was unsettling, but in the next moment, the sound of an explosion trumped it.
-9-
We raced out into the streets. Someone was yelling that the mineshaft that ran past the town had collapsed.
No one had gone into the mines since the generations before me. My grandmother used to talk about folks mining in the hogbacks. Coal, quartz. Some said there might have been gold. There were plenty of caves in the hogbacks, most of them had started out as mining tunnels. They started in the mountains, but as miners began tunneling underground it had become such a hazard in the days before the EMP had gone off, that they'd been abandoned.
"Didn't sound like a simple collapse to me," Lance said.
It didn't sound like a collapse to me either. It sounded like an explosion.
"I used to play in some of those caves and shafts," I said.
"A good normal childhood in other words," Lance said.
"Normal for me," I said, recalling the creatures I envisioned myself to be as I played in the mine shafts and how they could could tear men limb from limb. I even imagined the men who would enter the mines with the intent to hunt me down.
"There's an old trailer out there," I said. "Maybe a crate of old dynamite left over that didn't blow up during my mother's generation."
I almost squeaked on the word mother, but I managed to say it without him looking strangely at me...at least any stranger than he was looking at me now.
"You played in shafts that housed stores of old dynamite? What kind of kid were you?"
I looked him over, wondering what kind of childhood he'd had that he'd never gone out to the old mines. I felt a pang of jealousy as I imagined the life he'd led as a kid. We were of the same age. Brought up in the same town. Yet we'd not crossed paths.
I'd never gone to school. My grandmother had taught me to read and write, but by the time the brigands took over our homestead, I was too busy living to go learning.
I put my mind's eye to the task of recalling the path to the quarry and an aged workman's trailer that I knew was hunkered into a hill of sod, using the support of the hillside to help it weather and insulate against the heat of summer.
It was derelict and run down, but as a kid I liked to go in there and pretend. I didn't think about the risk of it. I had enough risks at home to worry about. The mines seemed much safer.
Now, I saw again the old wooden desk with clunky drawers and burnished metal pulls. Mental fingers ran over papers on wooden desks that by now would be dust.
There'd been a laminated topographical map on the wall and I used it to pretend I was a general of sorts, demanding that the EMP be destroyed and technology returned back to the world.
It was laughable because I had no idea what the EMP was, only heard my grandmother curse it.
"If those sticks survived all this time without blowing, then I bet they survived just one moment too long."
"You think that was the explosion?" he said.
I headed toward the Musk stables. I could hear Gentry sensing me approach and whinny out a greeting.
"If it's the dynamite, then I imagine it blew a fair sized hole in the mountain."
"Do you think there's more?"
I chewed the inside of my cheek. There had been at least a crate of old dynamite, but it had been opened and what was inside was a few mere sticks. Even to a kid's eyes it seemed to be stored well, marked well. But there had been something else in those shafts, hadn't there? Something I didn't understand as a kid. Something that might be more useful than two or three sticks of old dynamite.
"We need to go on horseback," I said. "The place I'm thinking of is too far to go on foot."
I saddled Gentry while Lance saddled a light colored mare. When we took off together, riding for the mountainside and the quarry that took up a large part of the valley floor, I felt a renewed sense of hope.
At least until we arrived.
It was a barren place, just as I remembered it. And I had my doubts that my childhood memory had been astute at all. There was no way a few sticks of dynamite could have lasted long enough to conveniently blow up now.
We didn't admit it to each other, but I knew we both were concerned that one of Hunter's men had blown a shaft to bait us. That the old dynamite was still there waiting for just the right nudge.
"There," I said, pointing to the old mining trailer. "I'm not sure if it's safe anymore but that's it."
Lance reined his horse in and dismounted. He hobbled it around a fallen tree that had begun to petrify instead of rot.
"You say that like it was safe a dozen years ago," he said.
I shrugged as I tied Gentry next to his mount.
"I think we should check it out."
I set off in the direction of the trailer, daring him with my back to chicken out. He huffed twice but then grumbled something about me being stubborn and not a bit crazy.
"I heard that," I said over my shoulder. "You're damn lucky I'm crazy as a bag of hammers. Besides, we aren't going into the tunnels. Just the trailer. There's no dynamite in there, you fool."
It felt good to tease him and I noted with satisfaction that he picked up his pace so that he could overtake me.
The trailer was indeed crumbling around itself. The center had collapsed in and the door, an aluminum type of metal thing, was buckled in.
Lance tore it off
its hinges with a sound that made my teeth grind together. I imagined all sorts of rusty cuts and illness waiting to embed itself into torn skin.
"Careful," I said.
He turned around and looked at me with a smile.
"I don't think anyone's going to need to lock the door anymore."
"I'm guessing no, but that door might not be averse to locking a few jaws."
I pushed past him, shoving him aside with my shoulder and he caught me just in time before I nicked my cheek on a jagged piece of metal that hung from the ceiling. I resolved to take my own advice and inch my way in.
"What are you after in here?" he said, following me in.
We ransacked the trailer as thoroughly and carefully as we could, dutifully picking through the detritus and fallen boards. One part of the wall was still relatively intact with a cork board.
I held my breath as I approached it. It was dust covered, the laminate a tatter of fraying plastic.
The same cork board I remembered from my childhood.
I laid my hand on the plastic, praying it didn't crumble.
"Look at this," I said.
The laminate did crumble. It sent feathers of old plastic wafting to the floor around me. But the paper beneath was still readable even if it wasn't pristine.
I traced my finger along several lines that led out from the trailer. I looked over my shoulder at Lance.
"Tunnels," I said. "All of them."
I wanted to hug myself for the joy of it. We had a working map to every tunnel and mineshaft dug out of the earth. What were the odds of us being that lucky?
He drew close and leaned in, narrowing his eyes as he studied the map.
"They go all the way through the mountains."
"Do you think he knows they're here?" I said. "Hunter, I mean."
"How could he?" he said. "I didn't even know they were here."
I stepped back, running my toe through the feathery laminate that lay on the floor.
"This changes everything," I said.
If the shafts weren't just in the hogbacks and were indeed under the mountains and they led all the way through to the other side, then maybe it was possible to attack Colton and his army of red skulls, decimate them in a surprise attack and then cave the tunnels in upon retreat.
Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3 Page 20
