Chapter 15
Prairie Fire
They left the notice board and walked back to the inn along the stone wall.
The street was no quieter than when they had come—if anything, louder. People clustered in twos and threes, muttering, eyes drifting toward the board now and then.
Word had already gotten around.
Back in their second-floor room, Nova slid the bolt home. Eren sat by the window. Outside, the shadow of a crooked-neck tree lay crooked across the wall, swaying with the wind.
"What do we do next?" Nova asked from the doorframe.
Eren did not answer right away. At the board he had already spotted what was off—the paper, the script, the signature. Now he was thinking about something else.
"The posting doesn't tell you a damn thing. Who the captive is, where they're held, what kind of outfit snatched them—not one word. Just 'big pay' hung out there. Looks like bait."
"Someone downstairs last night said they grabbed a researcher with the revolutionaries." Nova's voice dropped. "If that's true…"
"Even if it is, a job this vague isn't how you save anyone." Eren leaned back against the wall.
But if they wanted word on the revolutionaries, this lead beat waiting in town. Follow it anyway—even if the job was fake, they might pick up something.
"Are we going?" Nova asked.
Eren said nothing. He cupped his chin, thumb worrying his beard stubble, his gaze gone distant.
The shoot under his skin was still unsteady, and he had a child at his side. Go toe-to-toe with whatever faction was waiting and he would not come out ahead.
Who was behind the job? Would there be an ambush waiting? He would not know friend from foe until they were in it.
The shoot jumped twice under his skin—like a headache pounding at the temples, nagging and raw.
He tightened the buckle on the inside of his left arm one more notch.
Then he sighed, gave two small nods, and looked up at Nova.
"If we go," he said, "there's only one purpose: look. See what we're walking into. See if there's any word on the revolutionaries. We don't wade into other people's mess."
He looked straight at the boy. "When we get there, wait for my cue. Be ready to pull out anytime."
The light outside had already shifted. The crooked-neck tree's shadow had stretched to the wall across the street; voices in the lane were thinning out.
Eren stood, brushed dust from his trousers. "We need to get a few things ready before we head out tomorrow."
Nova tilted his head. "Ready for what?"
Eren opened the door. "First we walk the town."
Foothill did not have many shops, but the stalls were packed tight. Every patch of roadside was taken—food, salt, old clothes, boots, blades, rope, iron scraps, even half-wilted mushrooms and hill herbs. Eren led Nova along the main street, taking in the stalls.
They stopped at a sundries stall. On a low wooden table: rag scraps, leather strips, a few chipped clay pots, a stack of small woven baskets. Eren squatted and sorted through them, picked out four fist-sized pots—thin walls, the kind that would crack at a tap—and pulled off several thick cloth strips.
"These pots are beat-up," Nova said.
"That's the point." Eren weighed one in his palm.
The keeper gave them an extra glance but asked nothing.
Farther on, Eren paused at a stall selling mine goods and stared into a few open sacks. One held gray-white powder—lime, he knew. Beside it, a yellower heap smelled sharp when the wind caught it.
"What's the yellow stuff?" Eren pointed.
"Sulfur powder—drives off vermin." The man stirred it with a scoop. "Plenty of snakes and bugs in the tunnels. Ring a trench and they stay put. How much do you want?"
"Small bag of lime, small bag of that." Eren took Crystone coins from his belt pouch and paid.
The keeper wrapped both in oiled paper and tied them with thin twine.
Nova took the two packets and hefted them. "Heavy."
"Don't squeeze—burns the eyes."
They turned into a narrow lane. At the mouth of it sat a smithy—more shed than shop, fire roaring, hammer ringing. Eren stood in the doorway awhile, scanning what hung on the wall: hooks, a coil of stripped barbed wire, nails of every length, a few chipped old blades.
He bought a short length of barbed wire, twisted it free and coiled it, then wooden wedges, a handful of palm-length iron nails, and a bundle of finger-thick hemp rope.
After that they stopped at a few more stalls for odds and ends. Altogether it did not cost much.
Out of the lane, Nova's pack had swelled. Back at the inn they emptied the bed: clay pots, rags, lime powder, sulfur powder, barbed wire, rope, wedges, nails…
Eren dragged a chair to the window and set to work in the last of the daylight.
He unclipped his hammer from behind his hip first and rested the gear-toothed head on his knee. Coil by coil he wound barbed wire around the outer rim, points facing out, pulled it tight and snipped off the ends. When he finished, the hammer wore an extra ring of teeth.
Then the lime. He portioned the powder out, tore cloth strips to width, set the thin pots within easy reach. In a fight: stuff, seal, throw. The jar shattered, powder flew—stings the eyes, burns the throat, but it would not kill anyone.
Nova watched awhile, then reached for the cloth himself and cut strips neater than Eren's.
Smoke pots took more doing. He mixed sulfur with dry ash he'd gotten from the kitchen hearth, rolled it in oiled paper, and stowed the rolls with a fire starter in a small pouch. Load the pots and light them only when needed—less chance of a leak on the road.
"Does this make smoke when you light it?" Nova leaned in to sniff and jerked back, coughing.
"Yeah. Don't stick your nose in it."
He made a few throwing lines from hemp too—weight at each end, simple enough to whip out and tangle a horse's legs. When they were done he coiled them into a side pocket of the pack.
Eren and Nova worked through the evening, sorting finished gear and leftover supplies into the pack. Some of it—trip lines, triggers—would only matter once they were there.
If things went bad, the little tricks might keep them alive.
Night had fallen. The street below had gone quiet except for muffled laughter and cursing from the tavern. They packed everything away and leaned back against the headboards to rest.
Tomorrow they still had to find out where this "rescue" was supposed to happen—the notice had not said.