Roden was waiting beside my horse when I emerged from a tent early the following morning.
“Did you sleep?” he asked me.
I ignored that and instead gestured around the area. “Who attended to my horse? Where are your men?”
With a sigh, he said, “They were tired.”
“Roden, you’ll never —”
But he anticipated my reprimand and cut me off. “The order to rest came from me, not them. I promise that I will learn how to lead them, how to be your captain. But you must let me do it in my own way.”
All I could do was nod back at him. If anything, I was far more flawed as a leader than he seemed to be, and it was hard enough to find my own way forward. So I embraced him for a farewell and a wish for his success, and then swung into Mystic’s saddle.
“Let me come with you,” Roden said. “My horse is ready to ride.”
“Thank you.” I meant that with far more sincerity than my tone could offer. “But it’s not wise for us both to go. Just in case . . .”
“As long as you keep fighting, I will too,” he said. “Whatever comes next, for either of us.”
“Help is coming soon.” My words came from hope rather than certainty, but I wanted him to believe it. “Tobias and Amarinda will get through to Bymar. She will convince them to send her armies here to join you.”
Roden squinted against the morning sun as he stared up at me. “The princess has to cross through Avenia first. We both know how dangerous that is, and Tobias won’t be any help if they’re caught. If they don’t make it —”
“Whether Bymar comes or not, you must hold this border,” I said to him. “The combined strength of Avenia and Mendenwal might still destroy us, but at least we have some chance. If Gelyn gets through, there is no hope. None.”
Roden brushed a hand down Mystic’s neck, and then gathered the reins into his fist. “It’s bad enough that the king I’ve sworn to protect is going to Avenia on his own. Can you at least promise me that you know what you’re doing, that you’re undistracted?”
I steeled my voice and answered, “This is what I want. My head is in this.”
He frowned. “And what of your heart?” I turned away, but he added, “Jaron, are you in love with Imogen?”
That brought a sigh from me. “It’s complicated.”
But Roden only shook his head. “I have no one in my life. No family, no girl. For me, love isn’t complicated at all.”
I stared through empty air until I lost focus of the world. “I cannot love her.”
“Of course you can. I know she already —”
“No, Roden, I cannot love her. That choice was never given to me.” There was a silence before I added, “And if I cannot love her, then I will not ask her to feel anything for me.”
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Whatever she says, whatever she has made you believe, she cannot choose to feel nothing for you.”
But that’s exactly what she had done. The last time we were together, she had denied loving me, and in fact had suggested almost the opposite. I shook those thoughts from my head and said, “Nor did she choose to die in a plot to uncover my secrets. I will free her, and return her to her life. There can be nothing more.”
After a delay, he said, “I knew you could lie, Jaron. I just didn’t think you’d lie to yourself.” He frowned as he placed the reins into my hand. “After Gelyn surrenders, I will head back toward Drylliad. Now, go do what you must.”
I wanted to brush off his accusation with the ease of dismissing a servant, but I couldn’t. His words affected me more than he might have guessed. I dipped my head at Roden, and then urged Mystic to carry me away. At first I headed south, directly toward Libeth, but the words of the Gelynian commander echoed in my mind. Mendenwal had a cannon, which could rip my cities apart before we even had the chance to defend ourselves. It was probably at this time passing through the plains of Carthya, north of my castle. The land was vast through here, but for something of that size, they would have to take a main road.
I felt torn in my decision like never before. If I did not turn west, I risked additional harm to Mott and Imogen. But if I did not turn east, the cannon would reach Drylliad. Everyone we had sent there with the promise of safety would be killed.
In the end, I closed my eyes and whispered a request for Mott and Imogen to hold out for one day more, then rode east. I wasn’t exactly sure how I could possibly steal a cannon, but I loved the idea of trying. Wherever there were hills, I kept to them and spent the ride scanning the horizon for signs of an army on the march. But for as far as I could see, there was nothing.
By early afternoon, Mystic began to slow. Despite my hurry, I knew he needed a rest. So I found a thick copse of trees in a basin of rolling hills with a small stream flowing through it. Mystic and I both lapped up all we could drink, and I refilled my waterskin for the upcoming ride, then shared with him some of the food rations from Roden’s camp. I would’ve saved more for myself, but the truth was, they were stale and tasteless, and Mystic seemed to like them more than I did.
I was about to get back into the saddle to continue forward when the sounds of a large team of horses and the heavy creaking of metal caught my attention. I had been searching so hard for the cannon, the possibility of it finding me prompted a mischievous smile. I left Mystic in the trees and crept as close as I dared so that I might sneak a glimpse.
Several men on horses lined the road and continued forward until an order was shouted for them to halt. They wore the yellow and white colors of Mendenwal, unusual colors for an army. I hated the thought that we might be defeated by soldiers who looked as if they were wearing daisies. Once they stopped, a gap showed in their ranks and between them I saw a large black cannon being pulled on wheels by a long team of horses. I couldn’t imagine the weight of it, other than to count the animals and guess at the strain they were bearing for this weapon. But at least I’d found it.
“The horses are exhausted,” a man in the lines shouted. “They won’t pull any farther today.”
“This is good enough,” another man shouted back. “I’d rather not bring the cannon into camp anyway. You’ll find the rest of our men in another mile. Ride on and tell the captain we’ll test the cannon here, firing into the hillside.”
As the men carried out his orders to unhitch the team of horses and ride onward, I used the opportunity to sneak even closer. However, before I could get much nearer, two men walked up the hillside, evaluating the slope as a target for the test-firing of the cannon. I ducked behind a rock and realized quickly they were only on the other side of it. If either of them took more than a couple of steps to the left or right, they could look down and see me hiding there. As the men continued talking, I stifled my breaths, certain the only reason they couldn’t detect me was because of the noise their men were making down on the road.
“At least we caught up to the others before they got much farther into Carthya,” one man said.
“You idiot, we didn’t catch up to anyone,” his companion snarled. “They were ordered to wait for us here until Avenia arrived. Their king wants to know the cannon is solid before we drag it all the way to Drylliad.”
“I wish someone else was testing it. A cousin of mine was nearly killed when the last cannon exploded. The gunners were worse than killed, you know. Blown to pieces so their own mother wouldn’t know ’em.”
“Hush! If you talk like that, nobody will volunteer to test this one.”
“Not me anyway.” There was a shuffling of feet, and then he added, “I’m not going to wait here when the others leave. They’ll think it’s a sign I’m volunteering.”
“You’ll be punished if you leave this post.”
“But not blown up. I won’t agree to test it, and if you’d seen my cousin, you wouldn’t either.”
“All right, let’s go. It’s not like anyone could drag it off, eh?”
Laughing, the men walked back down the hill. Only minutes later, I heard their horses being ridden away. I waited in the silence, wondering if it was a trap. But when I dared to look, there was only the cannon on the road and the empty hitch. Behind them was another wagon that seemed to be carrying supplies for the cannon. No sense in bringing that along if it was needed here for testing, rather than at the camp.
Once I determined I was alone, I snuck the rest of the way toward the cannon. It was larger than a battle horse and cast in iron. I ran my hand along the rough, cool metal, and then ducked behind it to investigate the supplies being transported with it.
The second wagon carried instruments for the cannon’s use, including a ramrod, a sponge, and a dozen or more cannonballs. Tightly woven bags were stacked in the closest corner. A few empty sacks lay beneath three or four others that were packed full of black granules.
I knew what those granules were. When I had been with the pirates, they had captured a ship filled with mining supplies. When Roden and I left the pirates, we had taken with us a bag of this same substance so that we might learn more about its power and potential. Tobias told us it was gunpowder, capable of creating explosions that had never before been seen in these lands.
Roden and I decided to test it one night and invited Tobias along, but he flatly refused us and told us we were insane. Maybe he was right. Even the small amount we used downed several trees and created a fire that might’ve burned down half my kingdom if we hadn’t been saved by a passing rainstorm.
In the days after, Tobias began creating designs for us to build our own cannon. He explained how the gunpowder would be stuffed down the barrel of the cannon with the ramrod, followed by the heavy iron ball. When the gunpowder was lit through a fuse, it would explode and the ball would fire out. One shot could do all the damage of a battering ram and destroy fortresses that would take an entire army to topple. Even one cannon could change the course of a war.
The problem was that I had no hope of stealing it. Mystic was a strong horse, but on his own he couldn’t budge this weapon an inch. Worse still, time was not on my side. I had no idea when Mendenwal would return for their cannon, but I guessed it couldn’t be long.
If I couldn’t steal it, I had to destroy it.
I closed my eyes, trying to recall everything Tobias had taught me from his studies. The conversation I’d just overheard came to mind, of the soldier whose cousin was nearly killed while testing an earlier cannon model. Why? What had gone wrong with the test?
Back when I suggested to Tobias that we simply mold a cannon and see if it worked, he had warned me that the danger lay in how the metal was cast. If it wasn’t thick enough, or welded together well enough to withstand the explosion inside, it would fail. Perhaps the injured cousin had been too close to a cannon when it failed.
The problem was that the cannon in front of me looked very thick and very strong. It would take far more than a normal burst of gunpowder to destroy it.
Then I smiled. No, a normal burst wouldn’t be powerful enough. But who said it had to be limited to that?
I opened the closest sack of gunpowder and scooped a generous portion into the barrel, then rammed it into the breech. Once I was certain it was packed in tightly, I replaced the ramrod and scoop exactly as they had been before. I started to close up the sack, then realized I was passing up an enormous opportunity. I scooped as much gunpowder as I dared to steal into an extra bag, then refastened the bag and made my escape back to Mystic.
Unless they carefully checked their cannon, Mendenwal had no idea they were now testing a loaded weapon.
I rode away, retracing my ride back toward Avenia. Less than an hour later, as I reached the arch of another gentle hill, the ground quaked violently enough to startle Mystic to his hind legs, and a thick plume of black smoke rose into the air several miles behind me.
I turned to look back and grinned. Avenia and Mendenwal were still terrible threats to Carthya. But they no longer had a cannon.