by K. C. Lannon
“But Commander, this half faery has information on—”
“That is all, Prance.”
Boyd did not even bother trying to hide how aggravated he was. “Fine, but Iain goes with me and my battalion. He’s a deserter, and he needs to be taken to Neo-London right away.”
Iain tensed. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Alvey blurted out—
“But how am I going to go to the cave and speak to him on my own? Do you think this chair can maneuver through all that rough terrain outside the cave?”
Despite the grim situation, Iain held back a grin with difficulty. The half elf might be bratty and destructive, but she was sharp—very sharp. Iain stepped forward instantly. “I would be glad to escort her if it will help your mission, Commander Walker.”
The rest of Boyd’s face was turning as red and purple as his bruise.
Alvey chimed in. “I refuse to work with anyone else but Iain! And the dwarf might accidentally hurt me or like enough kill me. He’s never been careful, the old blighter. But with Iain’s help, I should be able to handle him more safely. And Commander, you do want to try to settle this easily and peacefully, don’t you?”
“Very well then. Warden Callaghan will remove your handcuffs and help you get to the cave entrance, but no farther. We’ll be close.”
As Commander Walker began setting up everything and securing the cave entrance in case the dwarf decided to come out after all, Iain sidled up to Alvey, crouching down by her chair. “You don’t really know that dwarf.”
“Aye.” Alvey brushed a strand of hair from her face, her lips twitching at a smile. “But he will know another way out of the cave, and I believe he will be happy to lead us out, with the items I need.”
Iain chuckled wryly, both amazed and nervous. “That’s a good plan.” Then he added a little sternly, “But coming here alone like that was dangerous.”
“I am not your little sister whom you can scold!” Alvey sniffed. “Nor am I related to you in any way resembling a sibling relationship.”
Iain just stood back up, baffled and having no time to chat. He had to work out how he would get Commander Walker alone to talk. He took a moment to say a little prayer of thanks that Deirdre and James were safe, far away from all this.
Chapter Thirteen
Deirdre looked down at the bag of crystals in her hands. She had asked for James to give it to her, claiming she wanted to inspect it, shortly after Iain left. James had handed it over rather reluctantly.
And since then she’d alternated between staring at the crystals and squinting at the spaces between the trees, her heart pounding as she waited for Iain to reappear. And the longer he took, the more she suspected that he was lying earlier and that he’d return not with Alvey but with soldiers to capture her.
Or shoot you on sight, fear suggested in her head.
She shuddered, closing the bag and standing up. “He’s taking too long. I don’t like this!”
James looked up at her from where he was seated, finishing the lunch Iain cooked. “He… he said to wait here.”
“We shouldn’t just be waiting! Who knows if he’s even coming back?” She hesitated when she saw James’s eyes widen, nervous, but pressed, “I mean, I know what he said, but if he was just going to find Alvey, he wouldn’t take this long! Something’s gone wrong.”
Hurrying to his feet, James asked, “Do you think he’s been captured or something?”
“Why would they capture him? He’s one of them!”
“But he ceased contact with them, and that’s considered desertion sometimes.” James didn’t meet her eyes.
“Well, either way, if Alvey’s been captured, we have to get her out of there and leave!”
After a moment, James nodded in agreement. “All right. Let’s go find them.”
They followed Iain’s path into the woods and had not gone far before James hissed at Deirdre to stop, pointing up at the patch of sky through the crown of branches above them. She followed his gaze and saw a plume of smoke.
“The military must be over there,” James said. “They’ll have guards patrolling the perimeter of their camp… We’ll get caught if we’re not careful.”
Frowning, Deirdre looked up at the trees. It was still September, but the leaves had begun to color and some were even already falling, making it a bit easier to see through the foliage but without being easily spotted.
“Can we get a bit closer, then look from the trees?” she asked, pointing up.
“Um, yeah. I think so. Let’s leave our packs here if we’re going to climb.”
“Good idea.” She slipped hers off, covering it with leaves. James did the same, slipping out a pair of binoculars from his pack.
“I didn’t know you had that!” Deirdre commented, smiling. “Another good idea.”
He mumbled something, not unhappily, then cleared his throat and said, “Let’s go slowly. Keep an eye out for anything strange.”
“Right.”
Deirdre spotted the first sign of military activity: a bit of rubbish, along what looked like a deer trail. They could hear the voices coming from the military camp, though it was just a dim racket of sound.
“This must be their patrol path,” James said, gulping, looking around.
Nodding, Deirdre quickly selected a good climbing tree from the large oaks around them. “Okay, up you go!” She held out her hand to boost James up toward the lowest branch.
He just stared at her, not recognizing the signal.
“Put your foot here, and I’ll push you up!” she urged, jerking her head up toward the branch. When he still hesitated, she smiled. “C’mon! I’m sure you’ve climbed loads of trees before.”
He didn’t answer either way, but he complied, though it took him a couple of tries to decide which leg to use. But once he was boosted up, he scurried up to the limb with surprisingly alacrity; once he got on top of it, he clung onto it like a startled cat, frozen.
“Keep moving!” she urged, looking around; she could faintly hear the sound of someone walking on fallen leaves, growing closer to them.
They climbed up carefully, James taking his time. Deirdre didn’t mind his slow pace as much as his tendency to mumble all the terrible things that might happen if he fell or wonder aloud how one might tell if a tree was home to a dryad, a tree spirit, and if it would be considered impolite to climb one. But he had the wits to shut up when the patrol, two armed soldiers, walked beneath them. They didn’t look up; Deirdre knew from all her time hiding and playing in the woods that people rarely looked up.
A few minutes later, they had a decent view of the camp, which was smaller than what Deirdre would have imagined. There were no tanks like she’d conjured up in her fears; instead, there were white tents, armored and covered trucks, and strange, heavy machinery that looked quite out of place. Almost right in the middle was a lean-to surrounded by crates. While elsewhere the soldiers—who were also fewer than Deirdre had feared—bustled about in constant activity, several were beginning to take the tents down or clean and ready weapons while a few just stood guard around the lean-to.
Something important must be there.
Only a few steps from the camp, separated by just one thin line of trees, was another clearing with a short but jagged cliff face on the far side. There was a steep incline, but its bottom was impossible to see; it went down too far.
Could that be the entrance to the cave? She tilted her head back, looking at the area as a whole. Like any area with caves, there were uneven but rolling swells and dips, indicating that there were hollow caverns beneath not only the area around the cliff but also the entire campsite. They were right above the Forest Caves.
Before Deirdre could mention any of this to James, he pointed at the heavy machinery and whispered, “That’s all for mining!”
“Mining?”
“Right. And see the crates on the other side of them?”
“By the lean-to?”
“No, by the machin
es.” James impatiently jabbed his finger. “I bet they keep dynamite or something in there for clearing or bringing down a cave!”
Deirdre tilted her head. “What’s your point?”
“They’re using all that for the cave—that’s why they’re at the Forest Cave. There must be something valuable in there!” He paused, thinking. “I wonder if that’s what Alvey’s looking for too?”
“I don’t know. Can you see Iain?”
James responded by pulling his small binoculars out of his pocket and looking in the camp. After he looked for a few minutes, Deirdre suggested, “Check over at the lean-to.”
After just a moment, he responded, “Yes, I think— There he is! And Alvey’s there too.”
“Good. Are they coming out?”
James hesitated and then shook his head. “No. I, um, think they’re both prisoner. I see…” He sighed with a hint of exasperation. “There’s a soldier there, Boyd Prance. And it looks like the other soldiers are listening to him. I bet he’s giving them both a hard time.” He lowered the telescope, adding with a shake of the head, “He’s a total idiot though.”
Deirdre gnawed on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Is there any way Iain can get himself and Alvey out of there?”
“I don’t think so. Iain’s never, um, been a good planner.”
Especially if he’s been eating that faery fruit, Deirdre thought bitterly.
“It’s up to us to get him out,” James said, meeting her gaze.
“But how?” She gestured helplessly toward the campsite. “There’s no way to get in there and back out without being seen!”
“Maybe… if there was a distraction…” James’s eyes lit up, and he looked back through the telescope at the campsite for a long minute, eventually saying, “There is a way to do it. Deirdre…” He looked at her again, grinning as if he had been waiting to say this his entire life: “I have a plan to rescue them.”
After James had looked at the campsite again, saying he was “taking notes,” they waited for the patrol to pass once more and then hurried back to where their backpacks were. There, James cleared a spot of dirt and began to use a stick to draw in the soft ground a detailed map of the military campsite. Deirdre watched him, not seeing anything that contradicted what she’d observed.
“So, we’re going to distract them,” James said, his voice sounding excited as though he was planning a picnic. “We’ve got Alvey’s orange crystals, and then there’s the dynamite, and then I remember reading how to turn on those trucks and kinda make them short out.”
“Okay,” Deirdre said, unsure where he was going with this.
“So.” He jabbed the stick at the largest tent on the north edge of the campsite. “The commanders are probably going to be here… We’ll want the soldiers to think they’re under attack, right? That way, everyone will go racing over there.”
“How?” she asked.
“So, um, you’re fast, so you’ll throw some of Alvey’s crystals at the tent.”
“What? James, I’m not going to blow people up!”
“You won’t! If you throw the crystals around the tent, you won’t actually blow people up! You’ll make it all smoky and dusty and stuff so they can’t see you. Then you’ll run.”
She rocked back and forth, frowning at the dirt map. “But what if they shoot at me?”
“Smoke, remember? They won’t even see you! Just stay low.”
“But… but where am I even running to?”
“I’ll get to that. Once you throw the first crystals, I’ll be over here”—he pointed toward the west line of trucks nearest the mining equipment and dynamite (marked with a large TNT)—“and I’ll trigger these trucks so a few start driving off on their own.”
“You can really do that?”
“Yeah!”
“James.” She met his gaze and held it. “You’ve done this before?”
“I… yeah. Yeah, I have! Just trust me!”
Deirdre leaned back, letting out a slow exhale. “But what good will starting the trucks do? And how will you not get caught?”
He groaned in frustration at her question, rolling his eyes. “Look, when you let off the crystals, everyone will turn to the north of the campsite. Right?”
“I guess…”
“So I’ll sneak through and get inside the first truck. I can always hide under them if I need to.”
“Okay…”
“I’ll get inside one or two and make them start driving away on their own. At least one will drive right into the mining equipment, setting this box of TNT off! Another distraction.”
“But what about—”
“And during that,” James went on loudly, “I’ll get into another truck and drive straight into the campsite, right toward Iain and Alvey.”
Deirdre gasped. “What if someone shoots at you?”
“Deirdre, there will be at least one or two other trucks driving around on their own! Why would they think there’d be someone inside the one I’m driving? Don’t worry; I’ll duck so they can’t see me. Plus those trucks are so high they won’t be able to see inside easily.”
“I…” She hesitated, remembering what she saw at the campsite. The trucks really were quite large. “I guess so.”
“So then I’ll drive right over to Iain and Alvey, and that’s where you’ll be waiting.”
“And we’ll all drive off together?”
“Right!”
“But how do you know there won’t be a bunch of soldiers by Iain and Alvey?”
James nodded in a patient way. “See, Iain didn’t seemed to be restrained when I saw him, so once the explosions start going off, he should be able to get a gun and maybe take out a couple of guards and clear the area.”
Deirdre gaped at him. “You… you think so?”
“Deirdre, he’s been trained for this kind of thing… sort of.”
Scratching the back of her head uncertainly, she looked down at the map again; her vision of it seemed to blur. “I just don’t know, James. I mean, what if we’re shot at while we’re running away?”
“They are military trucks; they can handle a few bullets. Plus we’ll have Alvey’s crystals; you can use them to get into the campsite if anyone isn’t distracted, and we can throw them out the truck as we’re driving away!”
“But…” She frowned and snapped her gaze to him. “How will you even start those trucks? You don’t have a key!”
He rolled his eyes again. “Deirdre, military trucks don’t have keys. You just start them!”
“Really?”
“Really!”
He then began to ramble on, talking about other details about the trucks, the campsite, the soldiers, and so on, sharing so much information it made Deirdre’s already confused head hurt.
He really does seem to know what he’s talking about. And I guess he does come from a military family. And he’s never led me wrong before; we snuck out of the city, too, thanks to his planning. And made it through the old tunnels in London. And these crystals do really pack a punch… also—she sighed, rubbing her temples—I just can’t think of any alternatives.
“Maybe we should wait until nightfall?” she suggested a bit weakly.
“No, see, their guard will probably be up at night. Faeries come out more at night, or so they say.”
“What about our backpacks?”
“We’ll wear them; who knows if we’ll be able to come back and get them?”
Deirdre nodded, letting out a long, slow, steadying exhale, then meeting his gaze. “All right, James. Let’s give it a shot.”
He beamed widely.
“But back out immediately if things start going even a bit wrong!”
“Of course! And it won’t. This plan is perfect.”
* * *
You’ve got this.
You can do this.
James crouched in the woods just outside the encampment, watching as the guards made their rounds. Soon they would leave the area with the military vehicles a
nd head toward the center, and that was when he would sneak over there. He glanced over the trucks quickly, peering around a tree to get a better look; they were too far away to know for certain what he was dealing with.
Deirdre would hopefully never know that he’d lied to her.
Well, it wasn’t really a lie, was it? I mean, I learned from that kid at school, and he’d done it loads of times! So it’s almost like I’ve done it too…
The older boy in his class clearly knew what he was talking about when he told James step-by-step how to make a car accelerate on its own without putting one’s foot on the pedal. James recalled the boy had later gotten expelled and was probably still in prison for tampering with cars and armed robbery. So that meant he must have been good at it—until he got caught, at least.
As he waited, James mapped out visually in his mind every step he would take. First he would sneak around the west side to the military trucks, climb inside, and place something heavy on the accelerator. Then he’d open the hood and jam the throttle valve, get back in the truck, start the engine, and get out of there before sending the truck crashing at full speed into the equipment.
Then he would rescue Alvey and Iain, and neither of them would have any reason to fuss at him ever again. He could see it all clearly in his mind—but in his mind, he wasn’t sweating like a hog.
He wiped his hands angrily on the thighs of his trousers, his palms drenched. As he shifted his pack on his shoulders, his muscles aching from carrying his stuff as well as Iain’s, he noticed that his back was soaked as well.
“Come on…,” James whispered, his breathing shallow as the soldiers made their rounds his way. He’d have to move quickly once he heard Deirdre’s crystals start going off. He prayed for baxt, luck and good fortune.
Pop, Pop, Pop!
James looked to his left, his heart racing, as he heard the crackling, booming sound of the crystals hitting their mark and exploding like firecrackers. Then he heard men shouting, and he saw the soldiers run from the area toward the smoke that was now swirling in the air, their weapons raised.