But the thing about magnets is that they fail during silent storms. They can be turned around, forced apart. Magnets come together—or they don’t. Those are the only two endings, and I’m scared to learn which is ours.
* * *
We turn northwest beneath a high sun. The fleet spreads out, forming a line that will advance on Bedrock, eventually attacking the entire eastern half of the dam. Far beyond the starboard bow, I can make out a needle on the horizon. East Tower. We’ll reach the General’s domain by afternoon.
The dam appears first, little more than a dark line on the horizon. As we close in on it, it takes shape, grows in height. We assemble our wagon’s blast barrel. It has a rear wheel that we can push left or right on the wagon’s deck, changing the aim of the projectile, but for now, the barrel points straight ahead, over the bow. Between the assembled blast barrels at the front of the vessels and the brakes being applied in the rear, the entire fleet has slowed.
“Falcon!” someone screams. It circles high above us, its wings catching sunlight. The sharpshooters unleash their arrows, but to no avail. Someone even fires a mag-rifle, until the Prime scolds them for giving away our position. The shot rings, echoing over the wastes, and the bird screeches at us before tearing north.
He’ll know we’re coming now.
But we’re nearly there. The smudges atop the dam are taking shape. I can make out limbs. Dark Loyalist uniforms. Muffled shouting reaches us. I can’t make out a single word they say, but they race atop the dam, scrambling to positions.
“Load!” the Prime yells as we glide into range.
Stone balls are shoved into the blast barrels. Flints are held at the ready.
“Steady . . .”
We roll onward.
“Steady . . .”
A swarm of arrows unfurl from Bedrock’s dam, some aflame, others dark spindles against the sky. They arch up against the sun and rain back down, hitting the wastes well before us. We’re safely out of range.
“Steady . . .” the Prime screams again.
We’re almost close enough. Almost. A lurching movement atop the dam wall catches my eye—a giant arm swinging. “Catapults!” Someone yells in warning.
“Fire!” the Prime shouts.
“Fire!” I scream.
The word repeats across the decks. Fuses are lit. Powder crackles. The blast barrels buck at the front of each wagon, firing one stone ball after the next. The world screams with noise. I can’t hear anything, not even my own pulse. Our projectiles hit the dam in succession, creating a shower of mud-packed rock.
Then the ground explodes between our wagon and Harlie’s—the boulder from the Loyalist’s catapult—and I’m thrown from my feet.
Rock and rubble rain down. I protect my head, stagger upright.
The Prime is screaming orders from the bow of the wagon, her lips forming the word reload even though my ears can’t hear it yet. Dirt explodes around us, more boulders striking the earth.
“Reload!” I hear her yell, muffled and distant. The troops are already at work, shoving another stone into the blast barrel, pouring the powder.
A new batch of burning arrows rains down from the dam, still not able to reach us, but closer than before. If one of those arrows hits our powder supply . . .
“Fire!”
More blasts from the fleet. But not from our wagon. Our flint striker is splayed out on the deck, stunned, rubble from one of the catapult crashes having struck her.
I scramble forward and pluck the flint from her fingers. Strike it against the stone, aiming for the powder fuse. Sparks fly, miss. I strike again. The Prime gives the order to use the mag-rifles, and as our troops open fire, my ears ring endlessly. The world is so loud it’s gone quiet. A spark hits true, and the powder line goes ablaze and travels into the barrel; then the weapon bucks. I clamp my hands over my ears. When I look up, a new section of the dam wall topples. Loyalists fall, screaming.
Our wagon banks to the left, the starboard side facing Bedrock, allowing our gunners better aim. We’ve nearly come to a halt.
“Reload!”
And we’re at it again. Cramming in another ball, pouring more powder, aiming the blast barrel so we might strike true. In the madness, I’ve become the new flint striker. As I prepare to light the fuse line, a bullet clips the woman beside me. Blood sprays.
We’re now so close to the dam wall that I can nearly make out the faces of the Loyalists along the rim. They’re firing their modified rifles, using whatever powder they have left that wasn’t destroyed in the explosion.
“Fire!”
I strike the flint. Another chain of blasts from our wagons.
This time, an entire section of the dam wall crumbles. Water streams into the wastes, crashing and churning. Filling ruts. Sweeping toward the Barrel by way of a channel that has long been dry. The outpouring of water slows quickly. The General must have diverted aqueducts as we approached. Maybe even closed off the upper dam entirely.
“Wagons one, three, and five, on foot!” the Prime screams, using the barrel of her mag-rifle to point at the gaping opening, where the last of the water trickles through. “Everyone else, reload! Go, go, go!”
I swing the mag-rifle around to my back and sprint for the side rail. As I vault over, I catch sight of Harlie. She’s in the crow’s nest of wagon two, screaming for her troop to reload their blast barrel, and when her eyes find mine, she smiles. She is glowing and triumphant, completely in her element.
I’m in freefall—mid-jump—when shadows flicker across the dirt. A new round of burning Loyalist arrows. They hit Harlie’s wagon—one, two, three—and the explosion throws me sideways. I crash into the wastes, the wind knocked from my lungs. Gasping, ears ringing, disoriented, I stagger to my feet.
Harlie’s wagon is flipped, broken in two, a gaping hole where the powder was stored, splintered wood burning everywhere.
Chapter Forty-Two
“Harlie!” I scream, stumbling toward the wreckage. “Asher?” I trip on a body in the dirt—no, a torso and head. The woman’s face is charred and half burned off, her legs missing. I turn away, gag, then force myself forward, toward the burning shell of the wagon. The prow and a small section of the mainmast are the only parts still recognizable. “Asher!” It’s just splintered wood. An inferno. An entire wagon reduced to a pyre.
He’s gone.
He can’t be, but he is.
I sink to my knees. Another wagon burns farther down the line. People jump from the vessel, escaping just before it explodes. I can smell burning flesh, singed hair.
Someone grabs my arm—the Prime.
“He’s gone,” I mutter. “Him and Harlie. Everyone on that wagon.”
“Then make their deaths matter,” the Prime grits out. “Make your anger into a fuel, or it will consume you.”
Tugging me roughly behind her, we race toward Bedrock. Our troops are running for the dam, some of them dropping as they go, others reaching the breached section of wall and scrambling over the muddied rubble.
I follow the Prime, driven forward only by a deep-seated drive to live. Catapulted rocks hit behind us. Arrows strike around us. We sprint past bodies, the wastes running red. I look for Asher among the fallen and see him everywhere—torn apart, bleeding, eyes ghosted and wide.