Julene held up her metal hands. “I may be near immortal, but I’m not much of a threat. I still can’t touch the Else.”
“That only makes you slightly less dangerous,” Taniel said. His casual manner was betrayed by the tension Vlora could see in his arms and the intensity of his gaze, like a dog with hackles raised. Vlora took a half step back. If this came to a fight, she was so badly outclassed that it was almost laughable. Taniel would be on his own against these two.
“We’re here to destroy the godstone,” Vlora interjected.
All eyes snapped to her. Julene turned her head to one side. “You what?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard you. I just don’t believe you. If you cornered Prime, you obviously know what the godstones do, and if you know, then you have no intention of destroying them. Mortals don’t give up that kind of power.” The wild look in Julene’s eyes was suddenly gone, replaced by a focused gaze and a very distinct air of distrust.
“She’s not lying,” Taniel said quietly. “Both Lindet and the Dynize are looking for the damned thing. We intend on reducing it to rubble before either of them can reach it.”
“You can’t destroy it,” Prime insisted once again. “It’s too powerful. Kresimir made these things to last until long after all life on this planet is extinct. I can’t even pick apart the simplest of the wards surrounding it, and I’ve been doing this for millennia!” Prime’s voice rose in crescendo, and Vlora wondered if he truly had been trying to destroy the stone. He sounded frustrated as pit that even his powerful sorcery paled next to that of a god who’d been dead for a decade.
Julene had grown quiet, returning to her place in the doorway and watching Vlora and Taniel warily. “This is the work of a god,” she said. “You would destroy it just to keep it out of the hands of others?”
“I would destroy it either way,” Vlora said, forcing down her fear and fixing Julene with a look that dared her to question her resolve.
Taniel stepped between them, waving his hand in front of Julene’s face. “Everyone should calm down. If I’m not mistaken, and unless the two of you are lying through your teeth, we should all be on the same side. We don’t want the godstone to fall into the hands of any of the local powers: Hence, it should be destroyed.”
Vlora stared at Julene until the Predeii finally looked away with a sigh. “Agreed,” Julene said.
“Agreed,” Vlora echoed.
Prime still looked uncertain. “How do you propose we destroy it?”
Taniel looked to Vlora, and she suddenly felt foolish for her belief that the invention of a gunpowder maker from Adopest could do what thousands of years of sorcerous knowledge could not. “I intend on blowing it up.”
“We tried that already, years ago,” Julene said. “We piled several carts’ worth of powder barrels on it and lit the fuse. It didn’t do anything but cause a second landslide that we had to clear away.”
“And we tried it on the godstone in Landfall,” Taniel said.
“So why,” Julene said with more than a hint of disdain, “do you think you can blow it up?”
Vlora remained silent, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and fearful. “We have to try,” she finally said. “If we cannot destroy it, then we’ll haul the thing to the coast, put it on a ship, and sink it to the bottom of the sea.”
“And you expect to be able to do that with Dynize and Fatrastan armies crawling all over the countryside?” Prime demanded.
“With your help we could.”
Julene scoffed again. “Don’t look at us. I’m useless without my hands, and this coward might as well be. He’d rather pick up and run than raise his hands to cause bloodshed.”
Prime’s lip curled, but he did not dispute the claim.
Vlora looked to Taniel for reassurance, but he seemed just as uncertain as she felt. His brow furrowed, he walked to the godstone and ran his gloved fingers along the runes, shuddering visibly. “I should have brought Ka-poel,” she heard him mutter. Louder, he said, “Like Vlora said, we have to try.”
“It’ll be a waste of gunpowder,” Julene stated.
“We’re not using powder,” Vlora responded, heading over to a rock and sitting down where she could watch the entrance to the valley. She ignored the others, taking the time to close her eyes and meditate.
It was almost three hours until a convoy of wagons finally appeared, with Flerring sitting in the foremost one. She said something to Burt’s guards, money changed hands, and she continued on through the pass. Vlora went down to meet her and show her the way to the hidden godstone.
“Get working right away. We’ve got one shot at this, and then, if it doesn’t work, we’ll have to figure out another plan.”
Flerring leaned down from the lip of the wagon. “I’ll get to work,” she said, “but you might want to head into Yellow Creek.”
“Why?”
“Because four hundred Riflejacks just showed up outside the town and Burt is getting mighty nervous.”
Vlora thought of the destruction and the rumors that must be swirling about her fight with the other powder mage. She then considered what Olem would do if he assumed her dead at the hands of a bunch of frontier ruffians. “Get started on the stone,” she shouted into her shoulder, sprinting for her horse. “I’ve got to stop a slaughter.”
CHAPTER 55
Vlora spotted her soldiers from the entrance to Nighttime Vale. They’d taken up a position just on the edge of town, where they’d formed into two imposing ranks. Rifles were still shouldered, which was a good sign, but she knew better than anyone how quickly the Riflejacks could open fire from a ready position.
She wasn’t able to see what they were up against until she was almost upon them. Galloping down the main avenue, she steered her horse through toppled carts across bloody cobbles—the aftermath of the fighting between Jezzy’s and Burt’s gangs—and arrived to find about three hundred hired guns and prospectors strung out across rooftops, shop fronts, and barricaded roads. There were about thirty yards between the Riflejacks and the city’s would-be defenders. The Riflejacks had the numbers and the training, but the defenders held the high defensive positions. If this went south, it would go very poorly for both sides.
Vlora leapt from the saddle and crossed a short barricade to where Burt and Olem stood facing each other in the open space between the two forces. “Wait!”
Olem looked up with a surprised expression that passed quickly to relief and then stoicism. Burt let out a heavy sigh and gestured to Vlora as she arrived.
“See?” Burt said. “I told you she was fine the last time I saw her.”
Vlora remembered lying in the dirt, facedown, after her duel with Nohan. “Fine” seemed like a stretch, but she let it pass. “Stand down,” she ordered. “Both of you.”
Olem regarded Burt with a long, thoughtful look, then swept his gaze across the assembled defenders. “We’ll stand down when they stand down.”
Vlora swore under her breath and turned to Burt. “This doesn’t have to escalate.”
“I’d really rather it not,” Burt replied coolly. “The colonel here was just informing me that he would take apart Yellow Creek stick by stick to find you. I told him that was entirely unnecessary. You and I had a deal.”
“And it still stands, right?” Vlora fixed Burt with a long, hard look.
“It still stands.” Burt gestured to the city. “Thanks to you, and one of Jezzy’s men getting trigger-happy, this town belongs to me.” He scowled at Vlora, taking a step back to examine her shoulder and back. “The last time I saw you, you’d been shot.”
“Shot?” Olem echoed. “I thought you said she was fine?”
“Fine-ish.”
“Long story,” Vlora cut Burt off before he could say anything else. “But everyone needs to back off before one of your men loses their nerve and this turns into a pitched battle. Olem, order the Riflejacks to fall back. Burt, will a half mile be sufficient to cool everyone’s temper?”
“It will.” Burt gave a magnanimous smile. “In the meantime, would you join me for a drink? I think the three of us need to talk. Now.”