“Your old beau is gathering his men, and he’sabout to search in here,” Cedar said, letting her help him out ofthe packsack. She tore into it as he continued to speak. “Iapologize for my ineptness, but it’s getting light, and he spottedme when I went for your gear.”
“I’ll think of something.” Kali pulled toolsout of her pack. “Can you guard the entrance?”
“Yes, but, ah…” Cedar cleared histhroat.
Kali glanced up. “What?”
“On account of people shooting at me, I hadto choose between your pack and mine.”
“So…no fresh smallclothes until we get backto town?” She tapped a pickaxe leaning against the wall. Maybe shecould dismantle it and-
“No fresh ammo,” Cedar said. “I have abox on me, but I won’t be able to hold an advancing army off forlong if they’re enthusiastic with their siege.” He leaned herWinchester against the wall. “I don’t suppose you have any?”
Kali fished in her pack, groping around thebottom, and pulled out a fistful of cartridges. “Sorry, I’d usuallyhave a full box, but I had to make room for my pliers. And mywrench set. And-”
“Never mind.” Cedar grabbed the cartridgesand shoved them in his pocket. His gaze fell upon the potatoes.“Too bad those can’t be used for ammo. They’re probably frozenharder than cannon balls.”
“Technically, I suppose you could make somesort of spud launcher.”
His eyes brightened. “You could? Now?”
“No, not now. I don’t have time to do thatand get us out of here.”
“Oh.” Disappointment tugged down the cornersof his mouth.
“Just do the best you can with the rifles,huh?” Kali grabbed her wrench and tore into the piping on theceiling to rip a segment free.
Sand and rock dribbled into the hole thatmarked the entrance to the mine. Cedar whirled, raising his rifleand firing before Kali spotted anyone.
A yelp came from above.
“Yup, they’re down there,” a man called.
Kali grabbed one of the pickaxes and kickedthe iron end off, figuring she could turn it sideways to use as thebit in a hammer drill. The tool she had in mind would be clunky atbest, but it only needed to work long enough to dig a way to thesurface, preferably from the end of a tunnel far from the entrance,so the gunmen waiting outside would not hear her.
The drill would need a lot of power, and shedid not have the time to build a steam version. She pulled out oneof the vials in her sock and eyed the glowing flakes.
Cedar fired again. “I better go up front andsee if I can discourage them from getting so close. Sooner or laterone of them will think to try and smoke us out. Kali?”
She lifted her eyes from her growing pile oftools and salvaged equipment. “Huh?”
He hesitated. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.I’ll keep them away as long as you need.”
Jaw set with determination, he strode towardthe entrance. Kali worked. Much to do, little time.
Shots fired while she twisted metal andhammered her casing into shape. Cedar shot at anyone who camewithin his field of vision, but she knew he could not poke his headout of the hole, lest someone shoot it off. The gunmen could creepdangerously close, as evinced by more than one bullet ricochetinginto the tunnel. One bounced off the rock-hard floor, hit a wall,and skidded all the way back to her chamber. Any one of thosebullets could hit Cedar. Or her.
“Work,” she told herself. “Focus.”
While thumps, groans, and gunfire continuedat the mine entrance, her fingers flew. The drill itself was easy,but the motor took a steady hand and a lot of squinting, given thepoor light. More than once, she fumbled a small screw, and itbounced onto the uneven floor to hide in a crevasse. At least shehad all the parts she needed.
A clash of steel announced the end of Cedar’sbullet supply.
Kali lunged to her feet, remembering he hadtaken her cartridges but not her rifle. She grabbed it and dartedto the front of the mine. She almost stumbled over an inert body onthe way. A bullet had taken one of Sebastian’s men in the eye. Shegulped and stepped over him.
Cedar stood a few feet from the hole, hisback toward her, his sword poised and ready. Blood spattered hisshirt. Not his, she hoped.
“Cedar,” Kali said, not wanting to startlehim, not when he held that sharp blade. “Here’s my rifle.”
Before he even turned around, she was leaningit next to him. She had to get back to the drill so they could finda way out of there.
Thunk!
A tin can bounced off the wall and landed onthe ground. Fire spat and hissed at the end of a fuse.
Cedar lunged, snatching it and hurling it outof the mine in one motion. Inches above the entrance, it explodedwith a flash and a bang that thundered in Kali’s ears. The walls ofthe mine shuddered, and dirt and rock rained down. Black powdersmoke hazed the air, and its pungent smell flooded the tunnel.
Before Kali could scramble back from theentrance area, Cedar grabbed her rifle. With smoke blanketing theentrance, he used the opportunity to stand straight, his head andshoulders above the hole in the ground. The rifle cracked severaltimes.
Outside, screams of pain erupted.
Kali closed her eyes and reminded herselfthese men had intended to hand her over to gangsters-or worse. Shehad no idea how Cedar could see his targets through the smoke-theymust not have moved after the explosion-but she was glad for hisaccuracy.
“Pace yourself,” she said. “I need five moreminutes.” She ran back to her workspace.
Gunfire answered her, and she glanced back intime to see Cedar duck low. Dirt knocked loose by the bulletsspattered his head and face, but he gave her a somber nod and wavedfor her to go.
Kali dropped to the floor before her drill.The construction was complete. It just needed a power source.
She slipped a flake of flash gold out of hervial. Despite the need to hurry, she took the time to cap thecontainer and tuck it back into her sock. If the goons outsidefound that vial, it would end up in the hands of some criminal.It’d be hard to deny the existence of flash gold after that, andshe would have even more people hunting her.
The flake pulsed as she tucked it into a slotshe had etched for it next to the motor.
Streaks of lightning coursed up themetal-reinforced wooden shaft, merging and sparking above the drillhead. The air crackled around the tool, and energy hummed up Kali’sarms.
“You could be less obvious about yourpresence,” she told the gold chip.
It throbbed in response, and one could almostbelieve it sentient. Not for the first time, she lamented that shehad not inherited either of her parents’ gifts for sensing andmanipulating otherworldly elements. She could instill commands intothe gold, something her father’s research said most people couldlearn to do, but she could never make more of the substance.
Kali pressed her thumb against the flake andclosed her eyes to concentrate. With such a small piece of gold, itdid not take long. It could not accept a complicated imprint, butit would do what she needed.
“Spin and hammer,” she whispered to it,imaging the actions she wanted the drill to perform.
The pickaxe point twitched, then rotated.Though slow at first, the revolutions soon picked up speed. Ithitched with each revolution, thanks to the haste she had used onthe chuck, and the perfectionist in her growled at the hiccup, butshe reminded herself the tool need not last for long. It wasworking. That was all that mattered.
Kali touched the drill bit to the closestwall. The hitch grew more noticeable, but stone sheered off asreverberations coursed through her body. Tiny shards pelted her,reminding her of the shrapnel from her smoke nuts.
She dug out her snow goggles, grabbed thelantern, shouldered her pack, and ducked into the three-wayintersection. Cedar knelt beneath the entrance, like some knightfrom centuries past, his sword point pressed to the ground beforehim, his hands atop the hilt, ready. It had grown quiet outside.The men must have paused to concoct some plot-or build anothergrenade.
“I’m going
to make a backdoor.” She heftedthe drill.
He gaped at the tendrils of lightningstreaking along the tool’s shaft. She wished she had time to buildmore of a casing to hide the telltale signs of the magic, but, withluck, nobody except Cedar would see the drill.
“If you could arrange some extra noise,” Kalisaid, “I’d appreciate it.”
He dabbed at a cut dribbling blood into hiseye. “You don’t want much, do you?”
Kali winked. “I just want to make sure youearn your fifty percent.”
Cedar tilted his head, listening to someconversation outside, and she left him to his work. Later, shecould ask him if his spying had given him a bead on CudgelConrad.
With the whirring drill in one hand and thelantern in the other, Kali delved deeper into the tunnels. Alabyrinth of passages spread out around her, and she soon wonderedif the owners of the claim had mined beneath the adjoining parcelsas well. If so, she hoped they had scraped all the gold out ofSebastian’s land. Had that bastard even intended to mine, or hadthis all been a setup to capture her and turn her over to somegangster? He must think her a delightful idiot for showing up andsleeping ten feet away from him. If not for Cedar’s scheme, shenever would have come up here, but even with that excuse she wishedshe had been too vigilant to get caught.
A likely dead-end opened to Kali’s right andshe stopped, figuring she had better choose her spot before thetunnels wound her around so much she ended up drilling out rightbeneath Sebastian’s toes. She thought she was under the trees now,several dozen meters from the river, but the permafrost kept rootsfrom piercing the ceilings anywhere. She hoped the tunnel had notslanted down, putting a dozen feet of earth above her head. Cuttingthrough more than a couple of feet would be a tall order, even fora flash-gold-powered tool.
She lifted the tip to the low ceiling. Thoughit lacked the grooves of a typical drill, the pickaxe “bit” spunand pulsed so rapidly it ate into the dirt and stone anyway. Beingon the other end of the tool jarred her to the core; her teethrattled, her body quaked, and her joints ached as if she were theone being drilled, not the rock. Dust filled the passage and sooncoated her tongue and nostrils. Clumps of dirt and rock fell,pelting her on the head. Too bad she did not carry a helmet as wellas goggles in her pack.
Too slowly for her tastes, a concave holeformed over her head. She went slower than she wished, conscious ofthe noise the activity made. If Sebastian heard the drill and hadmen standing at the top when she broke through, she would have madetheir situation worse, creating two entrances to guard instead ofone.
She should have created something capable ofissuing loud booms and given it to Cedar to use as a diversion.
“Kali?” his voice came from the tunnelsbehind her. “Which way did you go?”
Unease roiled in her stomach. If he hadabandoned the entrance, that must mean it had been breached.
“Back here.” She lowered the drill.
“Don’t stop,” he whispered, appearing out ofthe darkness. “If I did it right, your distraction is coming.”
Shouts echoed through the tunnel. Lots ofshouts from lots of throats. Just how many men had Sebastian luredinto helping?
“A stampede of invaders wasn’t thedistraction I had in mind.” Kali returned to drilling, certain theyonly had seconds before armed men swarmed into their tunnel.
Then a massive explosion boomed, pounding hereardrums like a steam hammer. The earth heaved and hurled Kalibackward.
She would have hit the floor, but she crashedinto Cedar, and he wrapped his around her, keeping her upright. Howhe remained upright, she had no idea.
A thunderous roar filled the tunnels. Anotherexplosion? No, a cave-in. Multiple cave-ins maybe. Screams added tothe cacophony, but they sounded distant, as if piles of rubbledivided them from Kali and Cedar.
“You all right?” Cedar released her with apat on the arm.
The lantern had tipped over and gone out.Somehow Kali had kept a hold of the drill, and the slender streaksof lightning arcing along the tool provided the only light. It wasenough. She found her hole and went back to work. This time she didnot bother with slow and quiet.
“I reckon that’s a yes.” Cedar, sword inhand, turned to guard her back while she worked.
“Did you cause that explosion or did they?”Kali asked, her voice vibrating with the reverberations of thedrill. Dirt and rock sloughed from the growing hole.
“I did.”
“How?”
“You, being a bright book-reading girl, knowthat hydrogen is flammable,” he said, referencing the airship shehad crashed. “I, being a bright alcohol-drinking boy, know thatvodka is flammable.”
“You blew up the still?”
“Not bad, eh?”
She agreed, but all she said was, “Huh.”
“There you go again,” Cedar said, “making meblush with your fulsome praise.”
The dim lighting hid her grin.
She rose on her tiptoes, pressing the drillhigher. Cedar would have to take over soon if she didn’t reach-
A draft of fresh air whispered across hercheek. Her grin broadened. The resistance disappeared, and thedrill poked through.
“I’m going to need a boost.” Kali widened thehole so Cedar’s broad shoulders would fit through.
“I’ll go first and pull you up.”
She cut off the drill and nodded toward thehole. “Not interested in handling my hips again?”
“Oh, I’m interested, but let’s make surenobody’s waiting to put a bullet in your head first.”
“Or drop a grenade on it,” Kali muttered.
Cedar grabbed both sides of the hole andpulled his head through. Long seconds passed while he hung, bootsdangling above the ground. At first, she marveled that he couldhold himself in that position so long. Then she lost patience andwanted to shove him out of the way so she could look.
Elsewhere in the tunnel, the screams hadabated, and she doubted it would be long before some of the menclimbed out, if only to tend to each other’s wounds.
Finally, Cedar pulled himself up, slitheringover the edge without a sound. Only a trickle of dust marked hispassing.
As promised, he soon extended a hand for her.Kali plopped the handle of the drill into it. With their ammo gone,it was the best weapon she had. Besides, she would not leave itbehind with precious flash gold embedded in it.
Cedar lifted the drill out, then lowered hishand again. She gave him her pack, which he also pulled free.
“What’s going on up there?” she asked,wondering how much time they had.
“Ssh,” he whispered and wriggled hisfingers.
Kali grabbed his hand and bunched her legs,preparing for a good jump, but he simply pulled her out as if sheweighed no more than a snared rabbit. She settled beside him wherehe crouched above the ragged hole.
Dawn had come to the river valley, revealingmore stillness than expected, considering the activity of momentsbefore. As she had hoped, they were in the trees above the rockybank. The engine and boiler that marked the mine entrance satdownhill twenty meters away. Several bodies lay on the bank,unmoving, and Kali swallowed, numbly aware of the carnage they hadcaused. More dead must be buried in the rubble beneath them. Aconcave depression marked a cave-in, right about where the stillwould have been. She clenched her teeth, resenting Sebastian allover again for starting her along this path where bountyhunters-and simple prospectors-vied to turn her in for areward.
“Stay here,” Cedar whispered. “I’m going formy pack and ammo.” He pointed to Sebastian’s camp. His mangledbedroll lay visible on the rocky earth. “Keep an ear open. Ithought I heard some mechanical noises in the forest behind us whenI first poked my head up.”
“Blazes,” Kali said. “That woman again?”
Why couldn’t she have gone back to Dawson torest, like a normal just-shot person?
Cedar left her side to follow the tree linetoward Sebastian’s claim. The spring foliage soon hid him. Kalitook a few steps from the hole and put her back against a
spruce.The undergrowth should hide her from anyone who came out of themine.
She closed her eyes for a moment, bothbecause looking at the bodies made her uncomfortable and becauseshe wanted to listen for suspicious noises.
Kali did not have long to wait. In the woodsbehind her, a soft click-whir grew audible. It repeated, steady andregular, like the ticking of a clock. Oddly, the sound seemed tocome not from the ground but from the trees, perhaps ten or twentyfeet in the air. It couldn’t be the flyer; she and Cedar hadcrashed that. The noises were not the same either.
She craned her neck, her eyes probing thecanopy. Though birds should have been chirping to welcome the dawn,no animal sounds drifted from the woods. Water rushed by in theriver, and a soft breeze rattled tree branches, but nothingwarm-blooded stirred.
Click-whir, click-whir, click-whir.
It was definitely coming from thetreetops.
Movement rustled a clump of needles high upon a spruce. Kali squinted. Another breeze? No. The other branchesremained still.
She chomped down on her lip, tempted toinvestigate, but she should wait for Cedar’s return. If that womanwas responsible-and who else would be out here with things thatclicked and clanked? — Kali would need help against her.
She checked on Sebastian’s camp and did notspot Cedar, but his packsack had disappeared. The first man wascrawling out of the mine entrance. Time to get going.
Something sharp stabbed Kali in the butt, andshe gasped in pain, almost dropping the drill. She glared behindher, thinking Cedar was playing a joke. The pain had been enough tobring a tear to her eye, and she planned to give him a mouthful ofvitriol.
Nobody stood behind her.
She patted her rump, expecting shrapnel or adart protruding from it. That had been too powerful to be a bugbite, especially given the thickness of her trousers.
Cedar slipped out of the foliage to her side,glanced at her hand placement, and raised an eyebrow.“Problem?”
She yanked her hand away from her backsideand glowered suspiciously at him, but the angle of his approach waswrong. Whatever had attacked her had come from behind. Behind andmaybe above.
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