Deception

Chapter Thirty-Seven LOGAN

The meadow quickly empties as wagons and people rush into the trees. I crawl into the back of the supply wagon and focus on my plan as we rumble our way into the forest.

Frankie returns to tell me the bridge is thirty yards away and that people are already crossing it. His horse pants heavily as he gives me his report, and then he wheels south again to shepherd the people in the right direction.

Thirty yards away. Thirty yards of thick trees, rock-strewn ground, and dense underbrush. We’re never going to make it.

We have to make it.

The consequences for failure are unthinkable.

I just need to buy us enough time to get every man, woman, child, and wagon over that bridge. I pray the bridge is strong enough to support our weight as we cross. We don’t have any other options.

Jodi is driving the supply wagon I’m in. The wheels bounce over roots and bushes, flinging me to the side, and threatening to toss her off the driver’s bench entirely. She hangs on to the reins with fierce determination as I yank the crates I need out from under the bench. Prying their lids loose, I do a quick count.

Fifteen jars of acid. Sixteen of glycerin.

More than enough to blow up a bridge.

Perfect.

“Stop the wagon!” I call to Jodi, and to her credit, she obeys without hesitation. Scooping up a jar of each substance, I leap from the wagon and wave Thom on when he whips his horse toward me. “Go to the bridge. Get everyone across. I’ll be there soon.”

“If you’re going to face down that army by yourself, you’ll need some help. I’m staying.” His voice brooks no argument, but he isn’t going to sway me.

“Thom, go. I’ll be right behind you, I promise.” A flash of Carrington red winks between the trees. They’re gaining on us. I look around quickly. At least forty people still haven’t managed twenty yards, much less thirty. I meet Thom’s gaze. “Save these people, Thom. I need them out of here or I can’t buy us the time we need. Save them. Please.”

He nods and reaches down to haul a struggling woman onto his horse. As he moves to help others, calling out encouragement and instructions, I turn to face Carrington’s army and find Jodi standing beside me, a jar of acid in one hand and a jar of glycerin in the other.

“Get in the wagon,” I say sharply. “There’ll be flying debris. I need you safe.”

She tightens her grip on the jars and sizes up the soldiers racing toward us. “Do I throw them at the same time?”

“Jodi—”

“At the same time?” Her voice trembles, but her hands are steady, and with the first line of soldiers less than fifteen yards from us, I don’t have time to talk her out of her foolish courage.

“No, throw one and then the other. High and to the left. The jars have to shatter against the same spot on a tree trunk. Choose the biggest tree you can reach.”

She nods, and I take a deep breath. The soldiers are ten yards away. It’s time. “Now!”

I whip my arm back, aim for the right, and throw the jar of glycerin as hard as I can. It arcs up, falls swiftly, and shatters against the trunk of a red maple. I hurl the acid after it, just as Jodi’s second jar slams into the same cypress trunk she’d already coated with glycerin.

The cypress explodes in a shower of splinters, branches, and shards of bark the size of my arm. Seconds later, the maple explodes as well, and both trees topple to the ground. A handful of soldiers are crushed beneath the trunks. Still more are bleeding from gaping wounds to their heads, arms, and legs.

None of those who bleed are injured in their vital organs. The Dragonskin they wear sees to that. Still, the path we cut through the forest has been obliterated, and uninjured soldiers must waste precious seconds running around the debris.

We can’t afford to let those seconds go to waste.

“Drive.” I grab Jodi’s tiny waist and toss her onto the driver’s bench. Then I vault into the wagon bed and scoop up two more jars. As the wagon bounces its way across the forest floor, I brace myself against the wall and watch for my opportunity.

The soldiers are pouring over the debris, stepping on their dead and injured if they must. Already, less than ten yards separate us. “Tell me when we reach the bridge,” I yell to Jodi.

The man closest to the wagon meets my gaze and draws his sword.

I heft my jars.

Four more soldiers hurtle out of the trees, intent on flanking us.

I need a little more time. Just a little more time to get safely onto the bridge.

Five more men close in from the other side. All I see in front of me is a sea of red military jackets and drawn swords.

“Bridge!” Jodi calls back.

“Are there any stragglers?”

Two others join the ranks of those closing in on us. Six yards separate us.

Five.

“All clear,” Jodi says. “We’re the last ones. Should we cross it?”

“Get the wagon onto the bridge and then stop.”

The wagon lurches onto a wooden bridge that lists to the left. The boards are the color of fig pudding and feel slippery and soft beneath the metal wagon wheels. Jodi yanks the reins sharply, and we come to a stop. The bridge sways in a jerky, sickening rhythm that fills my head with visions of my people tumbling to their deaths in the river below.

Carrington’s front line is two yards from the bridge.

From us.

A long, flat rock juts out of the ground in front of the entrance to the bridge. I leap from the wagon, aim, and throw both jars at the same time. They smash against the stone and explode in a shower of glass, dirt, and slivers of rock, leaving a deep crater where the rock used to be. The force of the blast throws me against the wagon, and I dive underneath it as debris rains down. The soldiers closest to the explosion are thrown onto their backs, their skin riddled with cuts. The soldiers behind them now have to climb over the injured and carefully skirt the crater without falling off the sheer face of the drop to the river below.

I’ve bought us all the time I can. It will have to be enough.

“Go,” I say to Jodi as I leap onto the wagon step and peer around the canvas to assess the scene before me.

The bridge is a narrow strip of wooden planks held in place by iron pillars that arch over the top of us like a naked canopy. Rust covers every inch of iron and eats through some of the pillars until the metal curls away from its moorings like it longs to reach the water below. Two wagons are still carefully negotiating the swaying planks. Their wheels bite into the rotting wood, making it sag dangerously. Here and there, a board has snapped in half, leaving gaping holes and forcing the wagons to the far side of the bridge, where they slide precariously close to the edge. At least fifty people still struggle to get across—gripping the rusty pillars, skirting the holes, and in general moving slowly enough that Carrington’s soldiers will run them through with a sword before they ever have to worry about drowning.

“Move!” I scream to them. “Go faster or you’ll die.”

Some of them pick up their pace. Some of them don’t. Their heavy packs, their exhaustion, or sheer, abject terror keep them crawling along the bridge at a snail’s pace.

I’m not going to lose them. Any of them.

We’re one third of the way across. Carrington soldiers are skirting the crater and carefully climbing onto the bridge. I leap from the wagon’s step and reach for the first straggler.

“Get in,” I say, and half scoop, half shove a woman with gray hair and stooped shoulders into the wagon. The next two stragglers get unceremoniously tossed into the wagon as well.

I glance behind me and see a line of red-jacketed soldiers coming for us, walking two abreast. The bridge jerks and shudders beneath their momentum, but they don’t hesitate.

“Faster,” I say to Jodi, and race ahead of her to help a man struggling to carry two toddlers. As soon as the wagon pulls abreast of us, we dump the children inside and the man hurries to pick up a woman who clings to a rusty pillar streaked with black.

I look back. Carrington’s men have reached the one-third mark. We’re now a little more than halfway across. We’re never going to make it.

Hoofbeats slam against the planks, and I turn to see Thom riding toward me, his broad face filled with determination. Instantly, I come to a decision. I’d wanted to toss jars of acid and glycerin out of the back of the wagon as we sped to safety, blowing up a chunk of the bridge in our wake. But there are too many people between me and the other side, and the bridge is already too unstable to risk blowing up any part of it before all of my people are on solid ground again.

Jodi and the man who was carrying the toddlers can get most of the remaining people into the wagon. Thom can shepherd the rest across.

I’ll wait here with my jars and my sword and hold Carrington off as long as possible. If I soak the boards with glycerin, it will only take one jar of acid to destroy this section of the bridge. I’m a strong swimmer. If I don’t get injured by flying debris or crushed by metal pillars, I have a chance to survive this.

“Keep going,” I say to Jodi. “Pick up anyone you can fit into the wagon and get to safety.”

“What about you?” she asks.

“I’m going to stop Carrington.”

I grab three jars of glycerin and one of acid, and then move away from the wagon. The lead soldiers are less than fifteen yards away from me. I unscrew the first jar of glycerin and spill its contents on the boards at my feet while the unsteady creaking of Jodi’s wagon wheels fades into the distance.

I’m spilling the contents of the second glycerin jar when Thom reaches me.

“I’ll do that.” His feet thud against the planks as he dismounts. “Give me the jars.”

I shake my head and unscrew the third. Carrington is closing in on the one-half mark. The shudders running through the bridge’s frame are slowing them down, but still they’ll be on me in another minute.

“Make sure all of our people get to solid ground,” I say. “Yell to me when the bridge is clear.”

“And then what? You die?” he asks.

“Hopefully not, but it’s a possibility.” The contents of the third jar arc through the air and splash onto the planks a few yards in front of me.

I need a wide base for this explosion.

Thom grabs the fourth jar from my hands, and unscrews the lid.

“Thom, please. Get on the horse. Get everyone off the bridge.”

“Get on the horse yourself. I’m doing this.” His voice is calm.

“No, you aren’t. I’m a strong swimmer.”

“Don’t figure I’ll need to know how to swim,” Thom says, and the finality in his voice stops me dead.

Carrington reaches the halfway mark and the bridge dips and sways, sending a few of them into the pillars and nearly bringing me to my knees. Thom grabs my cloak and holds me upright. I stare at him, at the pale sheen to his skin, the dilated pupils in his brown eyes, and I realize he means to die.

For me.

“They’re almost here. We don’t have time to argue. You aren’t sacrificing yourself for me, Thom. I have a good chance of surviving. Please—”

“You have almost no chance of surviving, and the group needs you.”

The insistent slap of Carrington boots against the planks comes closer. Thom upends the fourth jar of glycerin and coats the planks behind him.

A sense of sick desperation wells up within me. “The group needs us both. Go back, Thom. Please.”

He meets my eyes, and pulls the sleeve of his tunic up to his elbow. A bouquet of purple-black bruises mottles the underside of his arm.

“I’m a walking dead man, Logan. Let me die with dignity. I want my life to count for something bigger than myself.”

“Thom,” I whisper. My throat closes, and my eyes burn. This quiet, hardworking man deserves better than this. I hold his gaze for another few seconds as gratitude and regret twist through me until I can’t tell the difference, and then hand him the jar of acid. “Your life already counts for something bigger than yourself. I couldn’t have come this far without you. You’re a hero. Even before you blow up this bridge, you’re a hero.”

Grief is a tight band across my chest, and I clasp Thom’s shoulder as Carrington’s soldiers reach the glycerin-soaked planks. Then I lunge for the horse, pull myself into the saddle, and hammer the first soldier with the hilt of my sword.

His partner attacks, sword flashing. I parry, thrust, block, and stab. The horse dances in place, the bridge shudders and moans, and over my shoulder, I see the last of the Baalboden survivors reach solid ground.

I spur the horse into the next two soldiers, hacking and chopping with my sword to build a perimeter around Thom.

“Logan, go,” Thom says. “Go!”

He holds the open jar of acid above his head. The planks around him are a glycerin-soaked bomb waiting for a spark. I kick another soldier into the men behind him, and whip the horse around.

Thom meets my eyes and nods.

I can hardly speak around the grief that suffocates me. “Thank you,” I say, and spur the horse into a gallop toward the end of the bridge.

Ahead of me, solid ground is less than ten yards away.

Behind me, Thom’s voice rises in a tremendous roar of fury.

“For Baalboden!” he yells.

I twist in my saddle and see him throw the acid onto the planks at his feet. There’s a split second of silence as the liquid splashes through the air, and then the bridge explodes, sending a hail of wood, metal, and bodies to the river below.