by Guy Antibes
That night, Sara tossed and turned in her blankets. The shock of Brightlings and of June filled her with sorrow and with dread. Images of the past that she had tried to banish from her mind paraded across dreams throughout the night. Relief flooded her as morning came and she could return to concentrating on the present. She thought of Klark holding her in the barn and wanted more of that, but this day could be the most dangerous so far.
“How far from here?” Choster asked.
“Less than a day’s ride, if we go hard, but I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sara said.
Choster nodded his head. “I agree. We’ll have to look for guards along the way. I’m assuming we just follow this road?”
“Yes. There’s a likely spot for an ambush about two hours up the road and from then on we should be more wary.” That spot was where Vesty died.
As they approached, Sara stopped them. “Let’s load our guns.” They stopped and had a bite to eat and some water. Sara had to force hers down, but she realized she needed the energy.
Willa took her hand. “I’m with you, here, Sara. No matter what happens, I’m with you.”
“And I’m with you.” Sara threw her arms around the older woman.
“Be careful and I’ll be careful,” Willa said as she mounted up.
“I’ll go ahead, then Klark, Willa and Sara. If you see something, you shoot your gun and we’ll all converge,” Choster said, giving them a curt nod of his head and took off.
Klark kissed Sara on the forehead. She couldn’t let it end at that and kissed his lips lightly and gave him a hug, pulling out her necklace. “I’ve still got this,” she said.
Klark’s eyes widened and he smiled. “Don’t hesitate to use it. It’s saved lives in the past. I’ll tell you its story sometime.”
“Is that a promise?”
He nodded and jumped up on his horse.
Willa followed a minute later.
Sara stood on the road and closed her eyes. Her emotions swirled. Would West be at the top? Would she see him in the mine supervisor’s house again? Her hand tightened around her sword. The time had come to go up the mountain.
She walked her horse and drank in the forest that led to the mines that she loved. At least whoever killed Brightlings hadn’t put a torch to the trees. As she walked up the trail, the patches of snow began to coalesce into a snowfield. She heard the report of a gun, mounted and slapped the reins of her horse. She turned a corner and three men fought with Choster and one with Klark. Willa pointed her gun into the melee from the horse. Sara rode up to her side.
“Don’t shoot from a horse, it will knock you off,” she said as she helped Willa down.
Willa walked closer to the fighting, braced her legs, and then pointed at one of the assailants, pulling the trigger. Choster now fought against two and swords clanged in the still forest air. The smoke from two gun discharges scented the air with peril. Sara aimed and fired at Klark’s opponent as he pushed him back while Choster made quick work of the last, now that he fought only one man.
Choster’s chest heaved. “Do you think they can hear the guns from the mines?”
“They might.” Sara looked around. “I honestly have no idea.”
Willa grabbed one of the dead men by the ankles and pulled him into the underbrush. Sara did the same. She rubbed her hand on her pants and spotted the wreckage, still at the side of the road.
Klark followed her eyes. “One of ours. I barely noticed it last year.” He walked to the remains. The yellow paint had begun to peel. “Vesty?”
Sara nodded.
“An expensive toy. But it handled well. They shouldn’t have run off the road.”
“West and his men did that.” She just stared at the wreckage. “Vesty died and my father seriously injured. I wonder if his death might have made life better for me.”
Her comments surprised Klark, from the look on his face. “Not charitable words.”
“Were their words very charitable to me?” Sara felt a taste of bitterness. “What’s happened has happened.” She clutched her sword and turned around. “Load your guns again. I suggest that you take a cloth and clean out any residue on the tube with the tamper. Blow through the open hole in the back first.”
“I don’t think any headed up towards the mines,” Choster said. “Couldn’t use my gun, they were on me so quickly.
Soon the company rode towards the mines, strung along the road again. Sara rode up to Choster as they approached the mines.
“We can go along this cutoff to the North mines and then there’s a trail that will let us enter from a different direction than what they’ll be expecting.”
Choster waved his arm. “Lead the way.”
Sara took the lead, taking a track from the road. The winter had taken its toll and she had to pick her way among the fallen branches and icy mud holes. They traveled closer together, scanning the forest up ahead for more sentries, but none were to be found.
The sky darkened and a few flakes of snow began to spot the ground. Crossing a larger road, Sara plunged into the underbrush and came out on a trail. She held up her hand.
“We’ll come into sight of the miner’s houses on the other side of this rise. I think we may want to change positions again.” Sara’s breath came shorter as the tension grew. How many men would they face? She thought back to the three men who came at her in Northcross’ study. It seemed like ages ago, but she was so quickly subdued by experienced fighters that even now the memory made her shiver. The sentries they had confronted coming up weren’t the Grand Duke’s soldiers. They were of lesser quality, more of a match for her fighting ability.
“We’ll stop and dismount when we see the camp,” Choster said. “It doesn’t make sense for the four of us to ride into a group of twenty or thirty men. Even with the guns, we wouldn’t prevail.”
“We can start at the bottom of the camp and work our way up,” Sara said. “We might find miners who remember me and they can create some kind of diversion for us.”
“As long as the diversion carries picks and shovels, I’m all for it.” Klark flashed her a smile.
They rode for a few more minutes until Sara spotted roofs. “Do we tie up our horses?”
“I would if I wanted to ride back to Belting Hollow,” Choster said as he dismounted, “We’ll just have to remember where they are.”
Sara led them down through the trees to the lowest cabin. Across the way, a sentry sat on the porch of the Middle House.
“No guns,” Choster said quietly, “unless your life depends on it.”
The sky darkened more as the snow descended in large wet flakes.
“All to the good,” Willa said. “This will give us some cover in the open, won’t it?”
Choster nodded. “Klark, you and I will go in between those two houses and walk up the road all hunched over. They might think we’re coming to relieve them or report. When we start talking to them, you two cross the road and come up from the bottom.”
Sara loosened her sword and the knife in her boot. Willa followed her lead and then the both of them began walking down the hill towards the bottom. A single sentry sat on a rock, hunched over and dozing in the worsening weather—a spear stood point down in the ground.
The two women had never dealt with spears before, but they proceeded nevertheless. Sara motioned for Willa to come from one side and she would work her way around to the other, mimicking Choster’s strategy for the house. They didn’t have time to warn the men.
Sara came from the spear side. When she closed in on the man, she grabbed the spear and threw it away. Willa attacked the man on the other side and the poor soul didn’t know what to do before both of them had skewered him. Sara had no qualms about the death, and with the ruin of Brightlings fresh in her mind, she grimly dragged him out of sight.
They crossed the road and kept just inside the trees, stopping to wait for Choster and Klark. They waited for some time and Sara began to wonder what had happened to them, when a group of men carryi
ng picks and shovels ran, yelling, from one of the miners’ houses. The sentry stood up and ran inside the house.
“Follow me Willa. There’s a back door.” They slipped in the new fallen snow and arrived just as three men were escaping.
“Stop right there,” Willa said, holding a gun in one hand and a sword in another. She stood with her back to a tree. The men stopped, as Sara emerged from another tree close by.
“Drop your weapons and you won’t be hurt.”
“No!” One of the men ran towards Willa. She fired just before the man reached her. The others dropped their weapons, their eyes wide with fear.
Choster emerged from the house seeing that the fight for the lower part of camp was over. The miners poured out of the house and threatened the two remaining men.
“Stop.” Sara walked up to them. “Do any of you know me?”
“You’re Miss Featherwood. Ben’s daughter.”
“Right. I don’t want these men to be killed out of hand. That one,” Sara looked at the fallen guard, “thought otherwise. This is a gun and it uses the mineral found in the South coal mine. It works, as you can see. Now how many more men are there?”
The one who recognized Sara approached her. “Maybe two, three more live in Well’s house. There are four others who are guarding the approach from the road.”
“Guarded.” Willa said. Her grim visage even scared Sara.
“And the rest of the miners?” Klark said. “Are they willing to free themselves of these men?”
“Free is right.” Another miner stepped forward. This one was tall and lanky. All of them looked like they hadn’t bathed in months. “We’ve been cooped up here for weeks. That friend of the assayer came back up here with maybe fifty of his men. They locked us up in our houses and headed south to the King’s mine. That’s all we know.”
Choster stepped into the middle of them. “Who wants to fight to rid Shattuk Downs of this blight? These men burned Brightlings to the ground. June, the housekeeper, was inside when it happened. We buried her yesterday.”
Klark spoke up, “These men are rebels, but they aren’t freedom fighters. They fight to run Shattuk Downs as they see fit and you’ve seen how they think. The Grand Duke doesn’t demand it nor does the King.”
“I’ll fight with you,” the lanky man came and put his hand on Choster’s shoulder. “Who else?”
Choster now had a tiny army. The odds were evening up.
The men looked to Sara to lead them since she was a Featherwood. Where was Ben? She felt the responsibility to fight for her own land now that Brightlings was rightfully hers and she was determined to cast these vermin off of it. Anger began to boil in her mind.
The miners numbered nearly forty. The rest of the guards were holed up in the house staying warm. The fight at Well’s house took only a few minutes. The rebels were marched to one of the mines, where they all were tied up and left under guard.
Choster and Klark walked in and talked to their captives. They came out shaking their heads. “They don’t know anything. They’ve been up here for the last ten days when all of this started. We’ll have to get information elsewhere.”
Sara talked to the remaining miners. “Feed them and give them some blankets. Eventually they’ll be taken to Belting Hollow and perhaps Obridge for trial. I’m holding you all responsible for their safety. Remember they didn’t kill any of you out of hand.”
A few of them nodded.
Klark retrieved the horses and now their force numbered twelve mounted and twenty-two walking miner-soldiers. They took the guards’ weapons. The miners left behind were armed well enough with their tools.
They all set off towards the south mine that held the vein of minerals that made up percussive powder. Sara led them on the horse trail she had taken with Wells nearly a year ago. The road might be watched. Darkness came, but the storm that provided them with cover in the afternoon, had passed and the moon lit their journey.
“Back in power, Sara?” Klark said. “It’s not worth it though, is it?” Sara could barely see Klark’s face and understood that his remarks were sympathetic, no matter how artlessly put.
“They still think my father is in charge. In charge of what? He may still be under the debris at Brightlings.” She looked straight ahead. “No. It’s not worth it, even if he’s still alive.”
Klark rode closer. “We’ll get to the bottom of all this and end it.”
Sara put her hand out for Klark’s. “I’m afraid these men are Red Swallows and not the Grand Duke’s. West is behind all of this. It’s just like him to burn Brightlings down out of spite. Let’s hope one of his men up at the King’s mine knows more than the other guards did.”
Choster stopped the column a few hours before daybreak to rest up for an attack at dawn. Sara leaned up against a tree with two blankets wrapped around her. She dozed and Klark woke her up.
“Battle time, Sara.” His smile seemed a little worn this morning. “I’m going in to reconnoiter with one of the men who has worked this mine before.
The camp roused and ate cold rations. By the time Klark returned they were all prepared to fight. Their packs of food and blankets lay in piles for them to retrieve after the battle.
“No sentries that I could see. These guards were lot less kind to their captors here. I saw some bodies stacked up alongside one of the houses. Some of the dead wore uniforms and the others were miners. The main body of men that the miners saw headed this way, likely did their dirty work and left.”
Choster took one group of men, including Willa, and Sara led Klark and the others towards the camp. Like they did before, they split into two groups. Sara headed straight in after giving Choster and his group time to come in from the other direction.
Sara gathered her men together. “We don’t want these men killed, especially any who seem like leaders. Is that understood?” The men nodded.
She let Klark lead the men on foot. The horses were left behind. The King’s camp buildings were too close together to gain an advantage. She went to the supervisor’s house. That would be the best place to find the highest-ranking rebel. The windows were dark, but a wavering thread of smoke still emerged from the chimney.
Choster had spread his men around the other houses on the opposite side. He raised his gun in the air and nodded to Sara.
“When you hear the gun go off, we will converge. Knock them out, but don’t kill. I’ll be angry if you do.”
The gun shattered the stillness of the dawn as the miners rushed all of the houses. There was little fighting. By the time Sara made it into the house, the inhabitants were already tied up. She walked back outside to lend a hand to Choster’s group. Only one guard had made a credible defense and his body was dragged out into the dirt lane that led up to the mine.
Klark made a quick search of all of the houses and buildings and found four rebel guards hiding among the coal wagons.
“Choster? That you?” a soldier said as his hands were being freed from his bonds.
“In the flesh. Tell us what happened.”
“We haven’t had much to eat.”
Sara sent four men into the supervisor’s house for food and drink. They ate and drank for a bit.
“A man named West came with about fifty men. Told us to stop fighting after they’d killed four of us. Didn’t see much reason to fight to the death. Sorry.”
“You did the right thing, Youngman.”
“Yeah.” The man still looked sheepish. “He’s setting up his own little country in North Shattuk Downs. The man likes to talk. He knew about the mineral and took a sackful. Says the Grand Duke was rebelling as well and would have his hands full with Parthy while West took over up here. The man’s not right in the head—he’s a fanatic.”
Sara looked over the captives for one who looked brighter than the rest. He also dressed a bit better. “Who is the leader here?”
Youngman nodded towards one of the men dragged out of the house.
Two miners took the man
by the arms and shoved him to the icy ground.
“What can you tell me?” Sara said.
The man gave Sara a sullen look.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Aren’t you a little young to be out here with the men?”
The remark was made to taunt her and Sara would not be rattled unless she did the rattling. “I’m Sara Featherwood and you are trespassing on my land.”
“I know all about you. Your father kicked you out. You mean nothing to me.” He spit at her feet.
“Perhaps you need a little convincing.” Sara told four miners to hold the man’s leg. “Do you know what this is?” She waved the gun underneath his nose.
He shook his head.
“It shoots a metal ball with percussive powder. You know what that is and that’s why you’re here to guard the mine. Let me give you a demonstration.”
Sara put her gun on the man’s boot. “Think of my gun here.” She threw a branch on the ground and fired a ball. The branch shattered. The discharge pushed Sara back and she walked back up to him. “Just think about if I had the barrel pressed against your foot?”
The man’s face whitened.
“What is West going to do?”
“He headed back with the rest of the men. They’ve already taken over Belting Hollow. The town will be our headquarters before we move out to Obridge and join our brothers.”
“Where is Ben Featherwood?”
“He’s long gone. The Grand Duke drafted a bunch of the men to fight in his war just after Winter’s Rise. We waited for them to leave while West made it back from Parth. Most of the able bodied men, except for the miners were told to head south to Stonebridge. We took over with less than one hundred men. There. Are you satisfied?”
“Nearly, where’s West?”
The man shrugged. “I haven’t seen him for a week and a half. Been up here.”
Sara nodded and they let the man up. She turned to the assembled miners. “I’m going down to Belting Hollow and drive out the snakes. Any of you are welcome to come. West and his men burned Brightlings down to the ground,” Sara said. “The maid, June, perished in the fire,” Sara paused as the miners began to get upset at what the rebels did. “These men are all guilty of murder as far as I’m concerned. The mines are hereby closed until spring. I want you all out of the mountains after you’ve closed everything up properly. Take all of the guards with you to Belting Hollow.”
