Flash Gold fgc-1 Page 4

  The leader cursed under his breath, but could do little while pressed flat against the ice. He opened his fingers, and his rifle dropped into the snow. More weapons followed.

  Kali let out a relieved breath.

  Cedar stepped back. “Leave.”

  The leader started to rise and reach for his rifle. Cedar’s boot came down on his wrist. “We’ll keep your weapons.”

  “What? There are wolves and bandits out here. You can’t-”

  “Tough.”

  The other men stirred, trading muttered comments. Kali grimaced. That might be the straw that-

  The two men near her lunged for their dropped rifles. She jumped at the closest and slammed the butt of her Winchester against his head. He staggered back, hands empty, but the second man wrapped his fingers around his rifle. He lifted it her direction.

  She skittered back, but the sled blocked an escape. A shot rang out. She ducked, sure she was too late, that a bullet would slam into her chest. Instead her attacker’s rifle flew from his grip. He screamed and clutched his hand.

  Kali did not hear the clack of Cedar loading a new round, not with the man hollering, but the expelled shell glinted, reflecting moonlight, before it hit the snow. His sword quivered where he had thrust it downward, pinning the leader to the ground.

  “Shit.” The man she had clubbed grabbed his wounded comrade. “Come on, Ralph.”

  The pinned man squirmed too vigorously for the sword to have pierced anything vital, but his curses promised he did not appreciate his helplessness.

  Cedar yawned and pulled his blade free. The leader rolled away-far away. He made no move toward his rifle. He and the others scurried away, heading into the trees instead of toward the camps on the beach. Maybe they did not want Cedar being able to identify them the next day. Somehow, Kali doubted he would have a problem.

  He joined her by the sled. Her teeth were chattering, but she refused to go into the tent until the last man disappeared from view.

  “Thanks,” she said. It sounded inane, too small a modicum of gratitude for all the help he had given her, but she still had too many questions about him to offer him more.

  “So,” Cedar said, tone light. “You think I’m ‘very good,’ eh?”

  “I just wanted those dunderheads to believe they were swimming in water too deep.”

  “Hm, then youdon’tthink I’m very good?”

  “You’re decent.”

  “My ego is in danger of wilting under your unrelenting lack of appreciation.”

  “This is the Yukon. Women here are hard to impress.”

  “I’ve heard gold usually does the job.”

  “You haven’t offered me any gold,” Kali said.

  “Somehow I suspect you’d prefer a tool set.”

  True, but gold would get her out of this frozen hell sooner. “Make the tools gold-plated, and I might swoon.”

  He chuckled. The men had disappeared, and Kali could barely feel her fingers. Time to go inside.

  She lifted the tent flap, but paused when something blotted out the moonlight. She expected a cloud, but no. The dark silhouette of an airship rode across the sky, its great hull and oblong balloon creating distinctive shapes against the stars.

  Kali’s gut twisted. Airships were almost as rare as palm trees up here, and she would normally love to see one, but she doubted that crew had come to offer her a tour. At least not the type of tour where one got off at the end.

  “Pirates,” Cedar said.

  He drew her into the shadow of the sled as the ship sailed overhead. Lanterns burned on the bow and deck, revealing several men peering over the side with spyglasses. Kali barely breathed as they passed. Though the shadows might hide her and Cedar, her sled was unmistakable.

  The airship disappeared behind the hills. She and Cedar stood in silence for several moments, breaths frosting the air, but the vessel did not return. The soft chattering of her teeth must have drawn Cedar’s attention for he gazed down at her, then gave her a gentle push toward the tent.

  “They probably won’t bother us with so many others around,” he said.

  Kali shoved aside the flap and ducked inside. “Others that would be happy to help them on their quest if it meant getting rid of me.”

  “Perhaps.” Cedar followed her. “But the pirates don’t know that.”

  “Lucky me.”

  Kali laid on her side in the dark. She pulled her knees to her chest and shivered, as much from the situation as the cold.

  The insults from the superstitious townsfolk always gouged her soul, but she had grown accustomed to them. Being stalked by bounty hunters and airship pirates? That was new and depressing. If she won the race, she might escape the town, but would gangsters continue to send minions after her? How far would they follow her? Across borders? Over oceans?

  She closed her eyes. She could not hate her father for inventing flash gold, but she did hate him sometimes for leaving her alone. Moisture pricked her eyes. She blinked rapidly. She had not cried since her mother died, and she would not start now.

  Clothing rustled behind her as Cedar settled down. The fact that she had company-a witness-was another reason to hold herself together.

  A hand rested on her arm. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” Kali said, torn between being annoyed that she appeared to need comfort and appreciating that someone was bothering to give it.

  He draped a blanket over her and laid behind her, his back to hers. The warmth was…not unwelcome.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “This doesn’t mean I trust you.”

  “Naturally.”

  She smiled faintly and closed her eyes.

  Part V

  The cold afternoon sun offered little warmth, but Kali did not care. They had reached the top of the ridge first. Three sleds trundled up the switchbacks below, dogs huffing and straining. For her steam engine, the incline had been no trouble.

  She patted the side of the boiler. “Good girl.”

  “Does it perform better if you speak to it?” Cedar lowered a spyglass, a spyglass that had been turned not toward the mushers behind them but toward the sky ahead.

  “You’re not teasing me, are you?” Kali arched an eyebrow. “Because I found you cuddled up with your rifle this morning.”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t speaking to it.”

  “Just snuggling?”

  “Precisely so.”

  “Uh huh.” Kali eased a lever forward, and the sled chugged into motion.

  They followed a broken-in trail leading down a slope toward a long, narrow lake. The path weaved through evergreens and around hills, terrain that could hide an army. Cedar checked the spyglass often, though they had not glimpsed the airship, or anyone except other mushers, since the night before.

  “See anything?” Kali asked for the third or fourth time.

  Considering how often Cedar had the spyglass to his eye, she wondered how he kept from tripping over a low branch or stumbling into a snow drift. More than the average share of dexterity, she supposed. He would be a good man to have around, especially if her life continued along this new path, which included far too many people attacking her for her tastes. But what reason did he have to stick around? Hell, she still did not know why he was in the race with her.

  “Nothing yet.” Cedar lowered the spyglass.

  “It’d be convenient if anyone else who wants to harass me would wait until after the race.” The smokestack brushed the bottom of a branch, knocking snow onto Kali. She brushed it off and glowered at her surroundings. Even nature was conspiring against her.

  “It would be smarter for your foes to kidnap you out here rather than in town, where you’ve a measure of protection from the security you’ve built into your workshop.”

  Kali considered him out of the corner of her eye. “Should I be alarmed that you’ve been thinking that over?”

  Cedar’s gaze had turned skyward. “Just be
ready for more trouble.”

  They neared the shoreline of the long lake. Snow and ice, glinting like a thousand candles beneath the sun, coated every inch of the surface. Kali stopped the sled, so she could pull tinted goggles out of her gear.

  “We’re not going across the ice, are we?” Cedar asked.

  The lake stretched a couple miles to the north and south, but the trail led straight across, where less than a mile separated the shorelines.

  “Fastest route,” Kali said. “It’ll be thick enough to support us.” She hoped.

  The river had been no problem, but the ice might not be as dense in the center of the lake. Numerous scrapes in the snow from sled runners proved many dog teams had traveled this way, but her steam sled had more mass.

  “That’s not my concern.” Cedar stretched a hand toward the bare, open expanse. “There’s no cover. If we are attacked, we’ll be vulnerable.”

  Kali checked behind them. The first dog sled team had reached the top of the ridge. “This is the race-approved route. If we go around, we’ll be breaking our own trail and dodging trees and shrubs all the way. It’ll add at least an hour, probably more.”

  “The race money will do you no good if you’re captured. Or killed.”

  “An odd attitude from someone whose payday hinges on our victory.”

  Cedar sighed. “Fine. Go.”

  They proceeded onto the ice. Kali almost wished he had not brought the threat up, for she spent the first couple of minutes with her nose to the sky, trying to watch the cloudless expanse in every direction. A jolt and an angry grind brought her attention back to the trail. She had run over the end of a log hidden in the snow and ice.

  She decided to leave the sky-watching to Cedar. If she tipped the sled on the slick surface, righting it would prove a tremendous chore, and the fire in the furnace would probably go out.

  Ice cracked and groaned as they neared the center of the lake. Nothing out of the ordinary, Kali told herself. It would be a month or more before anything thawed around these parts. In her mind, she knew that, but she could not keep from feeling nervous. They were now an equal distance from both shorelines, so there was no quick route to escape if something happened.

  Kali nudged the lever forward a little more, increasing speed. Black smoke billowed from the stack.

  “There they are,” Cedar said.

  He spoke so calmly, she thought he meant something innocuous, but, when he pointed with his rifle, she spotted the “they” of which he spoke. Her stomach sank.

  The airship glided over the trees at the southern end of the long lake, and its oblong shadow spilled onto the ice. By daylight, the massive balloon holding it aloft was just as dark as it had been by night. Only a great white cougar skull painted on one side interrupted the blackness of the material. The wooden hull, too, bore black paint, giving the ship a nefarious bent.

  Despite the threat the craft represented, Kali found herself longing for the chance to inspect it from the inside. She had read about airships, and pored over schematics, but she had never been on one. Oh, to see its engines….

  She shook her head and told herself to concentrate.

  There was no question about the ship’s course: it veered toward them, a route that would allow it to cut them off.

  Kali made a guess as to its speed and hers. “It’ll intercept us two hundred meters before we reach the trees.”

  “While I appreciate the math that must have gone into that estimate,” Cedar said, “it’ll be in firing range well before then.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  She nudged the lever again, pushing the sled to full speed. It would not be fast enough.

  As the airship closed, the crew scurrying about on the deck-readying the weapons for battle-came into view. Cannons and harpoon launchers glinted, reflecting the sun’s rays.

  A cannon boomed. The black, round projectile lofted from the bow of the ship and smashed into the frozen lake a dozen yards away. It crashed through, hurling water and ice into the air. Shards pelted the sled, and Kali lifted a hand to protect her face.

  “Range-finding shot,” Cedar said, voice calm, as he continued to jog alongside the sled.

  “The commentary is great, but a plan would be better,” Kali said. “Do you want to come up with something brilliant or should I?”

  “We can’t do anything to harm it from down here. We can just hope to dodge fire long enough to reach shore and maybe find protection from the aerial assault. Though those branches don’t offer much cover this time of year. And there are dozens of people up there, so they could just come down and hunt us on foot.”

  “I see,” she said. “Your vote is formeto come up with something brilliant.”

  The firing of another cannon drowned out his snort, but she read his expression easily enough. She tweaked her controls to vent more smoke from the stack, hoping it would obscure the sled’s exact position from above.

  “Maybe we can tear up the balloon somehow,” Kali said. “That would steal their gas and force them to land.”

  “With what? We could fire a thousand bullets into a balloon that size before it made a difference.”

  Kali grumbled, knowing he was right. “Letting out the air would be too slow. You’re right. Well, not air. Gas. Hydrogen. That’s what they usually use to achieve lift, right? Because it’s lighter than air?”

  Cedar gave her a blank stare.

  “Never mind. I’m getting an idea. Come drive. Let me see if I can rustle up something.”

  Despite his pessimism thus far, Cedar took the steering controls without comment. Kali climbed past the steam engine and clambered onto the cargo area up front. She dug into their supplies. Her knuckles brushed a lumpy bag. The sugar. Yes, that would help. She nodded to herself as her idea solidified.

  More cannons boomed. The sled lurched, nearly flinging Kali from her perch. She caught a strap in time to keep from falling off.

  “What’re you doing?” she yelled.

  A cannonball slammed into the ice a yard to the right.

  “Zigzagging our path so we’ll be harder to target,” Cedar said.

  “Warn a girl next time, will you?” She’d make a damned easy target if she fell off and got herself run over.

  The sled lurched again.

  More prepared, Kali clung to the packs and wedged her boot into the gap between the smokestack and the engine casing. She dug into the supplies again, this time pulling out her jar of kerosene.

  “If my idea works, we won’t have fuel for a lamp tonight,” she announced as she poured sugar into the jar to thicken the liquid. The wobbling and veering sled made it hard to keep her hand steady, and kerosene sloshed over the edge more than once. Wind whipped hair into her eyes, adding to the challenge.

  “What idea?” Cedar called. “What’re you making?”

  The sled swerved left, and she almost lost the jar. A cannonball slammed into the ice where they would have been if Cedar had not turned in time. She gulped and decided not to yell at him.

  “I can’t dodge these indefinitely,” he added.

  Kali tore the empty sugar sack into strips and dampened one with kerosene. She stoppered the jar, leaving her impromptu fuse dangling. The roar of cannons was much closer now, and the booms came more frequently. A ball pounded down ahead of them. A jagged fracture formed in the ice, quickly turning into a fissure dozens of meters long. Maybe longer.

  “Stop!” Kali cried.

  Cedar cursed, but figured out how to throw on the brakes. “We’re sitting ducks now. Unless we can go back.”

  The airship blotted out the sun as it drew closer. For the moment, nobody was firing. Why bother? They could surely see the fissure blocking the path.

  “No,” Kali said. “We’re surrendering.”

  “What?”

  “They want me alive, I’m told.” She scrambled off the sled, skidding when she hit the ice, and thrust the jar into his hands. “Can you throw as accurately as you shoot?”

 
“Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll try to get them to come lower. When you think it’s time, light that and hurl it against the balloon. Uhm, you might need to shoot the jar right before it lands too. I’m not sure it’ll break on impact against a balloon.”

  Cedar stared at the jar. “You want a lot from me.”

  “You’re very good, remember?”

  Kali left her weapons and walked away from the sled, away from the black smoke she hoped would hide Cedar’s movements. She spread her arms to show her hands were empty.

  The airship hovered, the rumble of the engine audible even dozens of feet below. Numerous faces peered over the black rail at her. A dark-haired woman wearing a British admiral’s bicorne hat strolled into view, her hands clasped behind her back.

  A female captain? That had to be rare, but, from the stolen hat and the way others watched her for cues, she must be in charge.

  Behind Kali, Cedar muttered something to himself. She wondered if he recognized the woman.

  The captain leaned against the side of a harpoon launcher, and Kali looked closely at the person manning the weapon for the first time. It was the female bandit who had ambushed the sled the day before, the one Kali had dismissed as unlikely to trouble them again. She snorted. That woman now had a harpoon aimed at her chest.

  Kali resisted the urge to skitter back and take cover behind the sled. The female bandit would not do anything without an order from the captain. Probably.

  “You folks looking for me?” Kali called.

  “Reckon so,” the captain yelled over the thrum of the engines. “You’re Ezekiel McAlister’s kid, right?”

  “What if I’m not? Would you feel bad for shooting at some innocent sled racer?”

  “Nah. As you can see, the boys need target practice.”

  “They were good enough to mess up the race route.” Kali considered the airship, wondering how she could convince the captain to lower it. Even if Cedar had an excellent throwing arm, the balloon was a hundred feet above the lake at the moment. “What do you want?”