Flash Gold - Hunted Part 7

Tunnels she could get herself trapped in. She shook her head. Going in was not a good idea.

Unless...

Could she make them believe she had gone in, get them all to follow, and then escape into the forest while everyone was searching the tunnels? She better check and see how extensive the system was first.

Hoping the one-man-versus-the-entire-river gunfight Cedar had started would give her time, she eased over the lip of the hole. She probed for a bottom with her feet. There. Five feet below.

She released the lip and dropped to the bottom, clunking something with her elbow on the way. A lantern stuck in a niche in the wall. She grabbed it and followed the piping system into a low tunnel that led away from the river. The walls radiated coldness and smelled of damp earth. Creeping into the Stygian darkness made her think of the tombs and sepulchers in a book she had once read about the Dark Ages. The gunfire grew m.u.f.fled and distant. When she judged herself far enough from the entrance so the flame would not be visible, she lit the lantern.

Pickaxes and shovels leaned against dirt and stone walls marbled with quartz and thin threads that might have been gold. For all she knew about mining, it might have been iron pyrite too.

A few meters ahead, the pa.s.sage branched into three tunnels. Enough exploring. The mine promised the maze she had hoped for, one her would-be captors could waste several minutes exploring. All she had to do was set a decoy at the entrance so they believed she had gone down and then hide nearby until they dropped down to explore. It'd be better if she could figure out some sort of time-delay device to cause a sound, making the men even more certain she was down there, but she did not want to risk delving further and genuinely being trapped.

Kali was about to turn around when something glinted in the darkness, reflecting her lantern light. She only hesitated a heartbeat before jogging toward it. Just another moment....

The tunnel broadened into a small room filled with... Were those potatoes? She peered closer. Several crates lined the wall. Though they must have been harvested months earlier, they appeared fine, preserved by the surrounding permafrost. But why were they in a mine?

A rusted, decommissioned boiler stood in the corner while rows of ceramic jugs lined the opposite side of the chamber. A clunky metal contraption rose against the back wall. It was the source of the reflection she had noticed. The object-machine?-might have been anything; the mishmash of parts comprising it reminded her of something she would create out of sc.r.a.p metal. It was only when she opened a box that emitted a yeasty smell that the pieces clicked together.

"Oh." She rolled her eyes, feeling foolish for taking so long to get it. "Alcohol. Right."

A thump sounded near the entrance. Someone jumping down.

Kali cursed under her breath and cut out the lantern. She had dawdled too long.

"Kali?" came a soft call.

She blew out a relieved breath. "Cedar, back here."

"We have a problem," he said, voice drawing near.

She relit the lantern. "You're mad that I shot up your fancy sleeping blanket?"

"All right, two problems."

Cedar jogged into view, water sloughing from his clothes and matting his hair to his head. He bore a rifle in one hand while his sword dripped blood in the other. A second rifle poked over his shoulder, sc.r.a.ping against the wall as he approached. He also wore his packsack. No, wait. That was her packsack. Her tools! Excellent.

"Your old beau is gathering his men, and he's about to search in here," Cedar said, letting her help him out of the packsack. She tore into it as he continued to speak. "I apologize for my ineptness, but it's getting light, and he spotted me when I went for your gear."

"I'll think of something." Kali pulled tools out of her pack. "Can you guard the entrance?"

"Yes, but, ah..." Cedar cleared his throat.

Kali glanced up. "What?"

"On account of people shooting at me, I had to choose between your pack and mine."

"So...no fresh smallclothes until we get back to town?" She tapped a pickaxe leaning against the wall. Maybe she could dismantle it and- "No fresh ammo," Cedar said. "I have a box on me, but I won't be able to hold an advancing army off for long if they're enthusiastic with their siege." He leaned her Winchester against the wall. "I don't suppose you have any?"

Kali fished in her pack, groping around the bottom, and pulled out a fistful of cartridges. "Sorry, I'd usually have a full box, but I had to make room for my pliers. And my wrench set. And-"

"Never mind." Cedar grabbed the cartridges and shoved them in his pocket. His gaze fell upon the potatoes. "Too bad those can't be used for ammo. They're probably frozen harder than cannon b.a.l.l.s."

"Technically, I suppose you could make some sort of spud launcher."

His eyes brightened. "You could? Now?"

"No, not now. I don't have time to do that and get us out of here."

"Oh." Disappointment tugged down the corners of his mouth.

"Just do the best you can with the rifles, huh?" Kali grabbed her wrench and tore into the piping on the ceiling to rip a segment free.

Sand and rock dribbled into the hole that marked the entrance to the mine. Cedar whirled, raising his rifle and 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 kicked the iron end off, figuring she could turn it sideways to use as the bit in a hammer drill. The tool she had in mind would be clunky at best, but it only needed to work long enough to dig a way to the surface, 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 she did not have the time to build a steam version. She pulled out one of the vials in her sock and eyed the glowing flakes.

Cedar fired again. "I better go up front and see if I can discourage them from getting so close. Sooner or later one of them will think to try and smoke us out. Kali?"

She lifted her eyes from her growing pile of tools 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 toward the entrance. Kali worked. Much to do, little time.

Shots fired while she twisted metal and hammered her casing into shape. Cedar shot at anyone who came within his field of vision, but she knew he could not poke his head out of the hole, lest someone shoot it off. The gunmen could creep dangerously close, as evinced by more than one bullet ricocheting into the tunnel. One bounced off the rock-hard floor, hit a wall, and skidded all the way back to her chamber. Any one of those bullets could hit Cedar. Or her.

"Work," she told herself. "Focus."

While thumps, groans, and gunfire continued at the mine entrance, her fingers flew. The drill itself was easy, but the motor took a steady hand and a lot of squinting, given the poor light. More than once, she fumbled a small screw, and it bounced onto the uneven floor to hide in a creva.s.se. At least she had all the parts she needed.

A clash of steel announced the end of Cedar's bullet supply.

Kali lunged to her feet, remembering he had taken her cartridges but not her rifle. She grabbed it and darted to the front of the mine. She almost stumbled over an inert body on the way. A bullet had taken one of Sebastian's men in the eye. She gulped and stepped over him.

Cedar stood a few feet from the hole, his back toward her, his sword poised and ready. Blood spattered his shirt. Not his, she hoped.

"Cedar," Kali said, not wanting to startle him, not when he held that sharp blade. "Here's my rifle."

Before he even turned around, she was leaning it next to him. She had to get back to the drill so they could find a way out of there.

Thunk!

A tin can bounced off the wall and landed on the ground. Fire spat and hissed at the end of a fuse.

Cedar lunged, s.n.a.t.c.hing it and hurling it out of the mine in one motion. Inches above the entrance, it exploded with a flash and a bang that thundered in Kali's ears. The walls of the mine shuddered, and dirt and rock rained down. Black powder smoke hazed the air, and its pungent smell flooded the tunnel.

Before Kali could scramble back from the entrance area, Cedar grabbed her rifle. With smoke blanketing the entrance, he used the opportunity to stand straight, his head and shoulders above the hole in the ground. The rifle cracked several times.

Outside, screams of pain erupted.

Kali closed her eyes and reminded herself these men had intended to hand her over to gangsters-or worse. She had no idea how Cedar could see his targets through the smoke-they must not have moved after the explosion-but she was glad for his accuracy.

"Pace yourself," she said. "I need five more minutes." She ran back to her works.p.a.ce.

Gunfire answered her, and she glanced back in time to see Cedar duck low. Dirt knocked loose by the bullets spattered his head and face, but he gave her a somber nod and waved for 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 her vial. Despite the need to hurry, she took the time to cap the container and tuck it back into her sock. If the goons outside found 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, and she would have even more people hunting her.

The flake pulsed as she tucked it into a slot she had etched for it next to the motor.

Streaks of lightning coursed up the metal-reinforced wooden shaft, merging and sparking above the drill head. The air crackled around the tool, and energy hummed up Kali's arms.

"You could be less obvious about your presence," she told the gold chip.

It throbbed in response, and one could almost believe it sentient. Not for the first time, she lamented that she had not inherited either of her parents' gifts for sensing and manipulating otherworldly elements. She could instill commands into the gold, something her father's research said most people could learn to do, but she could never make more of the substance.

Kali pressed her thumb against the flake and closed her eyes to concentrate. With such a small piece of gold, it did not take long. It could not accept a complicated imprint, but it 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. It hitched with each revolution, thanks to the haste she had used on the chuck, and the perfectionist in her growled at the hiccup, but she reminded herself the tool need not last for long. It was working. That was all that mattered.

Kali touched the drill bit to the closest wall. The hitch grew more noticeable, but stone sheered off as reverberations coursed through her body. Tiny shards pelted her, reminding her of the shrapnel from her smoke nuts.

She dug out her snow goggles, grabbed the lantern, shouldered her pack, and ducked into the three-way intersection. Cedar knelt beneath the entrance, like some knight from centuries past, his sword point pressed to the ground before him, his hands atop the hilt, ready. It had grown quiet outside. The men must have paused to concoct some plot-or build another grenade.

"I'm going to make a backdoor." She hefted the drill.

He gaped at the tendrils of lightning streaking along the tool's shaft. She wished she had time to build more of a casing to hide the telltale signs of the magic, but, with luck, n.o.body except Cedar would see the drill.

"If you could arrange some extra noise," Kali said, "I'd appreciate it."

He dabbed at a cut dribbling blood into his eye. "You don't want much, do you?"

Kali winked. "I just want to make sure you earn your fifty percent."

Cedar tilted his head, listening to some conversation outside, and she left him to his work. Later, she could ask him if his spying had given him a bead on Cudgel Conrad.

With the whirring drill in one hand and the lantern in the other, Kali delved deeper into the tunnels. A labyrinth of pa.s.sages spread out around her, and she soon wondered if the owners of the claim had mined beneath the adjoining parcels as well. If so, she hoped they had sc.r.a.ped all the gold out of Sebastian's land. Had that b.a.s.t.a.r.d even intended to mine, or had this all been a setup to capture her and turn her over to some gangster? He must think her a delightful idiot for showing up and sleeping ten feet away from him. If not for Cedar's scheme, she never would have come up here, but even with that excuse she wished she had been too vigilant to get caught.

A likely dead-end opened to Kali's right and she stopped, figuring she had better choose her spot before the tunnels wound her around so much she ended up drilling out right beneath Sebastian's toes. She thought she was under the trees now, several dozen meters from the river, but the permafrost kept roots from piercing the ceilings anywhere. She hoped the tunnel had not slanted down, putting a dozen feet of earth above her head. Cutting through more than a couple of feet would be a tall order, even for a flash-gold-powered tool.

She lifted the tip to the low ceiling. Though it lacked the grooves of a typical drill, the pickaxe "bit" spun and pulsed so rapidly it ate into the dirt and stone anyway. Being on the other end of the tool jarred her to the core; her teeth rattled, her body quaked, and her joints ached as if she were the one being drilled, not the rock. Dust filled the pa.s.sage and soon coated her tongue and nostrils. Clumps of dirt and rock fell, pelting her on the head. Too bad she did not carry a helmet as well as goggles in her pack.

Too slowly for her tastes, a concave hole formed over her head. She went slower than she wished, conscious of the noise the activity made. If Sebastian heard the drill and had men standing at the top when she broke through, she would have made their situation worse, creating two entrances to guard instead of one.

She should have created something capable of issuing loud booms and given it to Cedar to use as a diversion.

"Kali?" his voice came from the tunnels behind her. "Which way did you go?"

Unease roiled in her stomach. If he had abandoned the entrance, that must mean it had been breached.

"Back here." She lowered the drill.

"Don't stop," he whispered, appearing out of the darkness. "If I did it right, your distraction is coming."

Shouts echoed through the tunnel. Lots of shouts from lots of throats. Just how many men had Sebastian lured into helping?

"A stampede of invaders wasn't the distraction I had in mind." Kali returned to drilling, certain they only had seconds before armed men swarmed into their tunnel.

Then a ma.s.sive explosion boomed, pounding her eardrums like a steam hammer. The earth heaved and hurled Kali backward.

She would have hit the floor, but she crashed into Cedar, and he wrapped his around her, keeping her upright. How he remained upright, she had no idea.

A thunderous roar filled the tunnels. Another explosion? No, a cave-in. Multiple cave-ins maybe. Screams added to the cacophony, but they sounded distant, as if piles of rubble divided them from Kali and Cedar.

"You all right?" Cedar released her with a pat on the arm.

The lantern had tipped over and gone out. Somehow Kali had kept a hold of the drill, and the slender streaks of lightning arcing along the tool provided the only light. It was enough. She found her hole and went back to work. This time she did not bother with slow and quiet.

"I reckon that's a yes." Cedar, sword in hand, 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 the drill. Dirt and rock sloughed from the growing hole.

"I did."

"How?"

"You, being a bright book-reading girl, know that hydrogen is flammable," he said, referencing the airship she had crashed. "I, being a bright alcohol-drinking boy, know that vodka 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 me blush with your fulsome praise."

The dim lighting hid her grin.