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.
Click-whir.
Kali lifted her eyes. Leaves shuddered.“Something’s up there.”
Cedar knelt beside her and plucked somethingfrom the mud. A tiny metal sphere, perhaps a third of the size ofan old musket ball, glinted in the palm of his hand.
Low voices came from the mine entrance.Another man had crawled out. Blood stained his sandy hair andsaturated his shirt.
Weariness dragged Kali’s shoulders down; shehad grown tired of this adventure and wanted to go back to the citywhere she could rely on the defenses in her workshop to protecther. And where no one need be injured. Or killed.
“We can go back to town,” Cedar said, perhapsguessing her thoughts. “Wilder…isn’t going to pan out. He isn’twith Cudgel any more.”
“Didn’t you say his head is worth money inits own right?”