by Guy Antibes
The miners yelled their agreement.
Sara looked at the rebel leader. “What about the North mine?”
“We don’t have any of our men up there, but they know well enough to stay where they are.”
Sara sought out the lanky miner. “I want you to lead the remaining miners down to Brightlings. Take all the men you can spare and bring the rest of the miners out of the mountains. I’ll pay you each two gold crowns for your troubles, but after things are settled.”
“Yes, Miss Featherwood. We’re behind you, all the way.”
Choster stood next to Sara. “Those of you who will help us recapture Belting Hollow assemble down towards the road.” They both stood as the men took their belongings. The soldiers found their weapons. Their force now numbered nearly fifty with the new miners and the eleven remaining soldiers. “You did well back there, Countess. Command suits you.”
“I’m nearly ready to vomit, Choster. I didn’t know if I’d have to blow that man’s foot off or not. The bluff worked.”
He eyed her. “Was it a bluff?”
Sara turned her head away. “I don’t know. All I’d have to do was think of Brightlings and June’s body. I didn’t have to do it and that’s all I’ll think about. Besides, I didn’t reload my gun after the demonstration.”
“If we wait a day or two at Brightlings, there might be twenty more miners.” Choster paused to collect his thoughts. “Time is of the essence, Sara. The Duke could be at Stonebridge as we speak.”
His comment threw Sara out of her musings. “That’s why we’re here. Thank you for reminding me,” she said.
He grimly laughed. “If someone burned my house down, I’d certainly have to be reminded. The next step is take Belting Hollow for the King and head south.”
Sara nodded and walked up towards the mine and tripped on a length of pipe. The pain in her toe brought tears to her eyes so she picked up the pipe and threw it ahead of her. It clanked as it bounced end over end. She picked it up and threw it again. She sought out for Youngman.
“Is there any more of the mineral?”
“As least half of a crate in the mine.”
“Get it. We need to take it to the assayer’s lab at the main camp.”
“What are you doing?” Choster said.
Sara grinned. “A secret weapon. We’ll delay for two days, after all.” She put up her finger top silence any comments. “It will be worth it.”
~~~
Chapter Seventeen
A New Weapon
The assayer’s lab stood empty. Sara hesitated before walking in. Ever since she killed the assayer in Well’s house, she had developed an aversion to laboratories, but she had to go in there. She took a deep breath and put her hand on the doorframe, telling herself that she had put aside her fears and then walked in.
“Bring in the crate.”
An oven for heating gave the room little warmth, but Sara used it to bake out the moisture of the mineral. She worked the rest of the day and into the night. Before she dragged herself into Well’s house and lay on a bed, she had ground the powder and tested it. Perhaps not as good as Hedge’s but good enough.
The next morning after she ate a cold breakfast, and then she laid out the materials while the miners assembled forty fifteen-inch-long, two-inch diameter metal water pipes with caps. They were lined up in a row on the floor of the assayer’s lab. Six miners stood along with Klark waiting for her instructions.
“What do we have for balls?”
Klark held up a handful of small metal nails. “So now what?”
“These will have to do. The holes the miners drilled will retain a piece of wire that holds back the spikes. The powder, wrapped in a paper pouch, is glued to the bottom.”
Sara took the first pipe and poured percussive powder down into the tube. She took a paper circle and lined the edge with glue and poked it down to cover the powder.
She did the next one and then Klark, Willa and other miners did what she showed them. Soon all forty of the pipes contained percussive powder.
“Now thread the wire through. Make sure it can’t come out. If it does the wrong person will get injured.” Sara showed them how to do it and then placed a ball of spikes in the tube and threaded the metal cap on. “How long for the paper glue to dry?”
“Half an hour, Miss Featherwood.”
“Then get to work while I wash up.” She needed to leave the lab and take some deep breaths. She went into the house and washed herself. There wasn’t time for a bath, but her nerves wouldn’t permit her just to wait around for glue to dry. This had to work. She walked out into a cold winter sun. The tubes were all drying. Sara numbered them with some paint. The one she worked on had the number zero.
“Are you ready to do this, Sara?” Choster said.
“I can’t make a large gun up here, but let’s see if we didn’t squander precious time. Get back, all of you!”
She walked by one of the supply shacks and pulled the pin. She threw the pipe in the air and it clattered among the rocks at the side of the mine until one of the hits produced an explosion just after she retreated behind the shack. Bits of metal and rock flew everywhere. Sara felt a splinter of something nick the wood where she hid.
Smoke filled the air as they converged on the place where the pipe hit the rocks. A large chunk had been blown out. Bits of stone and splinters of the metal were everywhere.
“It works,” Willa said. Her voice was hoarse with amazement.
“Yes, it does. Now let’s see how far the bits went.” Sara’s knew that they might have a weapon to use against those horrid people who had burned down Brightling and killed June.
They all scattered to where the farthest stone and metal splinters could be found.
“Forty feet in diameter. We’ll have to throw them out at least twenty feet to keep from being hit,” Sara said.
Choster looked on in amazement. “That will change warfare.”
Sara shrugged. She could extrapolate in her mind what could be done with the powder. The exploders were just a novelty compared with the big tubes in development by other researchers in Parth. “It will change the world. But that’s in the future. I want those pipe exploders in crates with packing material. They’ll have to be handled carefully to keep them from exploding. The powder will work, but they can’t get wet. Each pipe is enough to injure or kill whoever is holding it.”
“You heard her,” Choster said. “Let’s get those packed up and then it’s on to Belting Hollow.”
~
Their numbers had swollen to nearly eighty men as the North Camp miners had emptied their shacks. The camps had been prepared for a long absence and mining carts carried their prisoners down from the hill. The king’s soldiers now were mounted and the fifteen of them took off ahead of their little army, heading towards the Battle of Belting Hollow.
They stopped at Brightlings to rest for the night and give the miners time to catch up. Sara led them to a more secluded part of the grounds and left them in the dark to stroll over to the rubble. Traces of the snow from a few days before lingered on the charred remains. She poked around and didn’t find anything, but then she didn’t know what she looked for.
“Not a happy homecoming,” Klark said, startling her.
“Your stealth skills are excellent.”
“I’m learning.”
“From Yanna Silverthread?”
Sara could see Klark’s teeth in the moonlight as he grinned at her. “Yes, if you must know. She’s over the Duke’s intelligence corps. She accompanied the Duke when he posed as Pearstone when you met him at The Purple Pig. She talked me into joining her group.”
“What about the University?” Sara turned away from Brightlings and let Klark follow her.
“It will happen. Yanna told me my education isn’t done yet.”
“You have two Firsts from the Abbey College. Isn’t that good enough for you? Now you fall into the arms of ‘Yanna’. On a first name basis.” Sara didn’t
approve of the woman ordering Klark around.
“She’s married and has two children, Sara. There isn’t anything between us.”
“Vesty could have told me the same thing about my father.” Sara felt irritable, all of a sudden.
“Three children,” she said and then held her tongue.
“I don’t know languages or enough political history. I need to learn it from professors.”
“Oh, It’s Doctor Silverthread?”
“No, I…” Klark stopped talking for a moment.“
“Here take this,” Sara said, taking off the carriage necklace. She put it around his neck. “If you get into trouble, just whistle.”
“Come on, Sara. I didn’t mean anything tonight. I came here to comfort you. I know you’re disappointed…”
“Maybe tonight I don’t seek comfort. Go get some sleep. You’ll need to be sharp tomorrow.” She squeezed his hand, but he didn’t squeeze back.
“Good night.” Klark said, the frustration plain in his voice. He disappeared into the darkness as he entered the woods.
Sara stared in his direction. What had she just done? Their bantering had gone badly astray. Why did she give him the necklace back? The act was pure impulse. Tomorrow he’d be spying in Belting Hollow. No one knew him in the town. If someone discovered him, Klark had nowhere to go. And yet to him, did the act show that she no longer cared?
She clenched her fists and pressed them to her forehead. How stupid. She really didn’t seek comfort. She just wanted to be alone to say goodbye to Brightlings—all by herself. She wanted to run back to camp and apologize, but that would show weakness.
Where did that thought come from? Did such a concept drive her mother? She never saw her mother exhibit any weakness. When pregnant, she wouldn’t even call the father back to make an honest woman out of her. Look where it got her—banished to Brightlings. Sara thought back to her behavior at Vesty’s funeral. That got her banished from Brightlings; just another time she didn’t show weakness that had cost her.
No one looked up to her then. Now nearly eighty men perceived her as their leader along with Choster. She folded her arms. She’d find the right time and place to let Klark know how she felt—if she would ever get the chance.
That made two men she needed to talk to closely and personally, Klark and the Duke. Why did life turn out to be so complicated?Oh mother, why did you have to die?
Forward into the future. She took another look at the dark pile and followed Klark’s footsteps into the woods and into tomorrow.
~
Klark avoided Sara’s eyes, but he still wore the necklace under his shirt. Sara could see the carriage shape. He looked towards the pipe exploders. “Do I take those with me?”
“If you’re captured, West would use them on us and I have no desire for that. Just normal weapons and no gun.” Choster shook his hand. “We’ll be expecting you back here by noon, even if you have nothing to report.
“Good luck, Klark,” Sara said. He nodded but didn’t take her proffered hand and turned to leave.
“What did you two lovebirds do to each other last night?” Willa said after Klark disappeared, running towards Belting Hollow.
“We had a misunderstanding. Perhaps we can talk about it after West is run out of Belting Hollow.” Sara left Willa standing there and went to inspect the pipe exploders. Did she have to alienate everyone in her company?
Willa tapped her on the shoulder. “A bit of a lover’s spat?”
“We aren’t lovers.”
“I know that, but he asked me where you went. I could see the look in his eyes that he wanted to talk to you.”
Sara let Willa follow her into the trees. “I think I was saying goodbye to Brightlings. I can’t tell you for sure because I don’t know. I wanted some solitude and Klark showed up. He tried to comfort me, but it failed miserably when I gave him a bad time.”
Willa pursed her lips. “Gave the boy his walking papers?”
“I think I might have. I had an urge to give him the necklace back, so I did, but he took it the wrong way.”
“Oh.” Willa picked at the bark of a tree. “He thought you rejected him, but you didn’t, did you?”
“No.” Sara could feel her eyes water. “This is what I wanted to avoid.” She looked up at into the sky to keep the tears from falling out, but was unsuccessful. “I don’t want to be seen as weak.”
“Dear, you’re anything but weak, even if you have a spat with Klark. You’ve done an admirable job of keeping him at a distance, but I wouldn’t worry about it anymore today.”
Sara turned on Willa, “How can you say that?”
“Let him do his job. The fight has just begun and Belting Hollow is just another battle. You’ve been fighting something ever since your mother died and it may get worse before it gets better.”
“I don’t want him to die in Belting Hollow, thinking that I don’t… I don’t care for him.”
“Sara, if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t be wearing the necklace. It would be in his pocket.”
Willa’s observation changed her outlook. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe a planning session with Choster might help.”
Willa put her arm through Sara’s, smiling at her as they walked back to the camp. “It just might.”
Choster sat on a rock when Sara walked up to him. “All better?” he said.
The comment made her feel a little guilty. “Yes I am. Now, let’s see what we can come up with before Klark returns.” Sara took her sword and drew lines in the dirt. “Here are the streets of Belting Hollow. The only big buildings in town are the two inns and the Council Chambers. The Head Councilor’s house is next to the chambers, so West might live in the house and his men would be using the chambers as barracks. But if all the men in town have been drafted, his rebels could be billeted all over town. Billeted is the correct term?”
Choster nodded. “Go on.”
“The main street is cobbled and the western end has one of the two inns. The nicest inn is close to the Council Chambers. Shops are mostly on the north side of the street.” She drew Xs in the dirt. “Here is the house of the Head Councilor. He owns the mill and a stable. He does some factoring with contacts in Obridge.”
She finished by drawing out all of the streets.
“Looks like the town should be a crossroads.”
“The city fathers, and their wives, have been against it. More people will make it harder for them to retain control.”
Choster laughed. “It doesn’t matter how big or small a town is the rulers always seek the same thing--control, control, control. Our King is a little different. I thought the Grand Duke epitomized a loose way with the people. He sure surprised me when he showed his hand.”
“Maybe West has tainted him,” Sara said, but she thought she knew who was doing the tainting, Doctor Miller.
“I think West is setting himself up to be the king of a tiny country. He’s playing his own game. I don’t think that’s at the Grand Duke’s instructions, as if he cared what I think.”
“I agree with that. His acts are so ideologically linked to control, that he’s become a fanatic. Why would a rational person burn down a manor house and not just occupy it?” The loss of her home stabbed her with an empty, empty feeling. “Obviously Brightlings is the best… was the best house in the district.”
“Yes. He’ll be at the nicest inn or will have taken residence at the High Councilor’s house. We’ll focus our forces in that part of town. But we’ll also use the pincer strategy that’s worked well for us so far.” Choster looked at the town’s layout.
Sara closed her eyes trying to imagine a flow of action. She opened them and proposed a battle plan with Choster sharpening things up along the way.
~~~
Chapter Eighteen
The Battle of Belting Hollow
Noon had come and gone. Klark hadn’t appeared and the worry about Klark’s tardiness tied her stomach in knots. Sara couldn’t wait for him to return, so
they split the forces into four groups. She gathered her men and led them towards the Northwest side of town. Choster would follow the road to Belting Hollow. Each had two of the pipe exploders; the rest would be saved for later encounters. Two other smaller groups left to create barriers on the road leading from each side of town in case the rebels tried to flee. They would position themselves to attack Belting Hollow at three o’clock, giving the barrier details time to get the roads blocked.
Where could Klark be? Killed? Captured? Why did she rebuff him so at Brightlings? His absence told her that West had captured or killed him. The thought haunted her as her men crossed the road leading into Belting Hollow from Brightlings and along a trail that Sara had often trod. Once they reached the northern outskirts, Sara took a wide route further north so that they wouldn’t be seen from town. A row of tall trees protected them from sight.
She reached a farm and found a woman and her young son tending chickens and pigs. They had run into the farmhouse when they spotted her men. Sara had to pound on the door to get their attention.
“Mrs. Carter, this is Sara Featherwood. Come out and talk to us. We’re here to take back Belting Hollow.”
“Is that really you, Miss?” The woman said as she cracked the door open.
Sara smiled in relief. “Yes. Yes it is. We’ve liberated the mines and the King’s soldiers. Now we need to do the same here.”
The door flew open and the woman hugged Sara. She was taken aback by the woman’s action.
“They took my man. Your father did and marched him south, leaving us exposed to the rebels. They come by for eggs about this time. If I don’t have any, they threaten to take them and slaughter our livestock. I suspect they’ll steal all we have.
“Come in. They’ll be along soon. They take a bit from every farmer and don’t pay anything,” Mrs. Carter said. Sara could feel the resentment in her words and how she spoke them.
