17 #2

The prisoners already had their plan.

A column of white smoke rose above Bren.

Isolde counted three breaths.

On the northern slope, Ovel appeared in a gray cloak with her red hair loose. She raised a tube. The first flame burned on a rock.

“Iria!” a soldier shouted.

Twelve men left through the north gate.

On the coast road, Pela rode in another cloak. Her tube ignited beside a ditch. Eight guards ran toward her.

A third figure passed behind the bell tower.

Prefect Belor climbed onto the oven platform.

“Bring archers!” he ordered.

Neira’s mother began sawing the rope.

Ancia removed the channel grate.

“The duct comes up behind the oven,” she said. “Room for two.”

“You and Neira,” Isolde decided. “Get to the prisoners.”

“Where are you going?”

Isolde pointed to the main current. The channel continued beneath the square to the grain depot.

“To the crossbows.”

Kaoran followed her in. They moved bent over while voices raced above. Belor had sent half his force after different appearances. The remaining soldiers held rooftops and corners.

The prefect kept eight archers beside the oven.

“Execute the first,” he ordered.

A guard put the rope around the baker’s neck.

Neira’s mother stopped sawing.

The movement would have caught the man’s eye.

Ancia waited inside the duct, four paces away. She could see the blade hidden beneath the prisoner’s fingers.

Neira put a hand on Ancia’s back.

“Now.”

They both came out through the ash opening.

Ancia struck the guard’s ankle. Neira caught the baker before he fell. Her mother cut the main rope. The seven prisoners separated as agreed. Three ran toward the shed. Four pushed a firewood cart across the oven entrance.

Belor came down from the platform.

“Seal the square!”

The archers turned.

Isolde lifted the grain depot’s grate. Kaoran came out first and found a staircase. They climbed to the upper floor. Sacks reached the windows, which overlooked the rooftops.

Four soldiers guarded a winch. From there, they tightened ropes connected to the heavy crossbows. A blue net rested inside a box.

Kaoran studied the mechanism.

“They’ll use it when they see fire.”

“Then we give them fire up here.”

Isolde took out a small tube. She heated the stone and left it beside the opposite window. Flame appeared behind a sack.

“Upstairs!” a soldier shouted.

Two came in with weapons ready. Kaoran waited beside the door. He brought the first down against the frame. Isolde deflected the second’s sword and struck his forearm. The man dropped the weapon. She pushed him into the sacks.

“Stay down.”

He saw her left hand and the slight bend of her leg.

“Iria.”

“You’ve seen three today.”

The soldier tried to rise. Kaoran sat him down again with a look.

The other two cut the blue net’s rope. The mechanism dropped from the ceiling. Isolde had calculated that they would launch it toward the flame. The net passed through the opposite window and opened over an empty yard.

“Now,” she said.

Kaoran threw a hook around the winch. He pulled with his body weight. The wooden base tilted. Isolde cut the main rope.

The square’s crossbows lost tension.

The archers fired their own weapons. One arrow struck the firewood cart. Another pierced Ancia’s cloak. Neira took her mother behind the oven.

Belor raised a sword.

“Anyone helping the accused takes their place!”

A door opened.

Bren’s potter came out with a shovel. The tavern woman appeared with a pot of boiling water. Three quarry workers took the south street. The soldiers had entered their houses in the night and taken seven neighbors. Everyone knew who might stand in the next line.

The prefect watched the square change.

“The regency will punish every family involved.”

“You’ll have to learn plenty of names,” Neira’s mother replied.

Cori appeared on the local office roof. She held an open book.

“He’s written them already!” she shouted. “Forty-two families. The list was prepared before the posters arrived.”

Belor looked at his secretary.

“Get that back.”

The man climbed a ladder. Cori threw the first pages toward the square. Wind spread them over roofs and street. The villagers read their surnames. Beside each were assets, escape routes, and a confiscation amount.

“Forgeries!” Belor shouted.

Jesa entered through the coast gate with The Stubborn One painted on a wooden shield. Her two sailors drove the wagons that had blocked the road. They had emptied out the stones and sent the wagons downhill. One lodged crosswise against the palisade. The other struck the registration booth.

“I know forged manifests well,” she said. “That book looks expensive and authentic.”

Six soldiers were returning from the coast road behind Pela. The woman left her horse, exchanged cloaks with a neighbor, and entered a side door. When her pursuers arrived, they found four women dressed in gray.

“Which one?” one asked.

“The tall one,” another said.

Neira joined them. She was the tallest.

“Here I am.”

Ancia came out behind them with her hammer.

“Here too.”

The confusion lasted two heartbeats. It was enough.

The villagers knocked weapons down with shovels and clubs. Jesa closed the coast gate. Pela released the Guard’s horses. The animals ran toward the watering trough.

Belor retreated to the platform.

He drew a blue plate from beneath his coat.

“Anyone who moves burns with her!”

The instrument had a copper ring and three stones. Isolde felt it searching for her core. It also sought the lit tubes around Bren. The multiple signals confused the needle.

The prefect turned the ring.

The flames on the slopes grew. Ovel had activated another tube beside the north road. The officer sent four soldiers that way.

Isolde came down from the depot.

Kaoran followed her down the stairs. They reached the square as Belor pressed the plate against Neira’s mother’s back.

“Make Iria come,” he said.

The woman’s wrists were marked by rope. She looked at the gray cloaks, the posters, and the flying papers.

“You’ll have to ask more politely.”

Belor pressed the center stone.

Isolde advanced from the oven street.

Her hood was low, her hair hidden. A bandage had replaced the torn glove. She limped after the mine. The poster’s description captured few of her features.

“Let her go,” she said.

The prefect turned.

“Name.”

“You’ve filled the village with one.”

“Confirm it.”

Isolde looked at the eight women. Each held an exit. Some carried extinguished tubes. Others had changed cloaks. The villagers knew the plan and added variations of their own.

“The woman you want appeared in the north,” Pela said.

“I saw her heading down to the sea,” the baker added.

“She went into the office!” Cori called from the roof.

“She was beside the oven,” Neira’s mother said.

Belor raised the plate.

“The fire will decide.”

He activated the three stones.

A blue wave spread over the square.

The tubes answered from five points. Ovel’s flared on the slope. Another burned beside the stone mill. The third lit an irrigation ditch. The fourth remained inside the depot. The last stayed in Ancia’s hands.

The needle spun until it broke.

The blue metal expelled a discharge. Belor lost the weapon. Neira’s mother fell to one side.

Isolde caught the plate before it hit the ground.

Cold ran up her arm. She closed her core and turned the ring against the pulse’s direction. The instrument’s red vein split.

Belor attacked with his sword.

Isolde took the blow on the plate’s edge. The blue metal shattered. A shard pierced her left bandage. The prefect raised his weapon again.

Kaoran came in from his blind side. He struck the wrist with his staff.

The sword fell.

Belor tried to draw a knife. Neira’s mother struck his hand with the piece of rope and an iron ring.

“I was here too,” she said.

Isolde put the short blade beneath the prefect’s chin.

The soldiers in the square stopped. They had villagers before them and apparitions on every road. The northern line was still waiting for a woman who had already disappeared. Those on the coast road were chasing a riderless horse.

“Order them to lower their weapons,” Isolde said.

“A hundred men will come.”

“Today your men are scattered between the square and the roads. The villagers control the gates and know these streets.”

“The Crown—”

“Darian governs as regent. The accusation bears your signature. You chose the seven names.”

Belor looked at the book in Cori’s hands.

“I was following an order.”

“You can read it aloud.”

The prefect closed his mouth.

“Lower your weapons,” he ordered at last.

One archer obeyed. Then another. The decision spread slowly. Three soldiers held their swords until the north-road officer returned and saw the square occupied by the villagers.

“Where is Iria?” he asked.

Eight voices answered from different places.

“Here.”

The man dropped his bow.

The oven rope burned on the stones. All seven prisoners were alive.

* * *

The fighting ended before the plan could be called a victory.

Ovel came from the slope with an arrow in her shoulder. A tube had rolled into a tanner’s shed and set a wall alight. The villagers formed a bucket line. Jesa took the medicine toward the oven. Kaoran tended the wound.

Isolde entered the burning shed with Ancia.

Smoke closed off the ceiling. Two goats were still tied inside. The tanner’s daughter was trying to free them.

“Out,” Isolde told her.

“My father needs those animals.”

Ancia cut one rope. Isolde took the other. Her left hand bled beneath the bandage. The knot resisted. She used the blade and led the goats toward the door.

A beam fell behind them.

The tube had been left far from the straw, extinguished according to plan. The blue wave reignited it, and a soldier kicked it during the pursuit. Their calculation had reduced the danger, and a family could still lose its livelihood.

Isolde concentrated the fire in a narrow strip. She guided it toward the stone wall while the villagers soaked the wood. The task required attention to every spark. Her wounded fingers shook.

“Left!” Ancia shouted.

Isolde gathered a flame reaching toward the roof. She closed it against the ground.