Chapter Four

My Logic Pathways declared this to be the penultimate decision point. For some reason unknown to me, they tagged it as the most important. I could have left her behind. I could have deceived her and bound her. I could have done many things. I did none of them.

Instead, I had found a way.

I had only one hand. I had only one functioning leg. I could not climb. The children couldn't pull me. I had a rope, an arm, and a leg. Schematics, tolerances, and weights raced through my head. A solution formed.

I flexed my arm, pulling myself up half an arm length. When my fist touched my shoulder, I snapped my arm back straight, giving me six inches of slack for less than a second. In that moment, I twisted the rope around my wrist once. It snapped back taut...

...with me six inches higher.

I had found a way.

***

I had to get her moving. I had a duty to her mother, and to her, to protect her from Cartwright and his slavers. I racked my brain searching for some way to get her moving. When a solution struck me, I felt foolish for not seeing it sooner. "If we have a traditional funeral, and her body cannot be taken by animals, will you come along quietly?"

She looked at me, fear in her eyes. "You're trying to trick me."

"No. I will give her a traditional funeral. Her body will not be vulnerable to desecration. Then we will leave as quickly as possible."

She bowed her head. "If you do that, I'll do what you want."

"Get with the other girls. I need you out of the way for a moment."

She shoved herself to her feet and trudged over to the wagon. With her safely out of the way, I started working. First, I gathered Mrs. Jennings up in one of the tarps, placing her beside the wagon with the girls in. I pulled the three cages together, tipping them over to rest on their sides. The wagons carrying them cracked and broke apart as the cages toppled. Gasps and whispers filtered from my cargo wagon when I lifted one of the other two wagons clean off its wheels. It was a difficult lift, more because of the balance required than anything else.

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The gasps turned to outright squeals when I tossed the wagon atop the three upturned ones. It crashed to a halt, cracking and breaking to fill the gap in the center of the cages. I lifted the second spare wagon and limped carefully as close to the center of the pile of wood and iron scrap as I could get. Slowly, doing my best to keep it from breaking, I upended the wagon, dropping its contents into the pile. I heard glass shatter as the slaver's stockpile of booze broke. I set the wagon upside down on top of everything. The bottom of the wagon was now a platform, resting roughly six feet in the air, with a jagged mess of wood, oil, alcohol, and fabric beneath it.

The girls looked on silently as I retrieved Mrs. Jennings’ body, then carried it carefully back to the pyre. They might have thought I was being reverential, but my hand was acting up again. Even her light weight might escape me if I hurried. With the departed in place, I had a bout of inspiration. I collected the slavers' remains and tossed them into the base of the pile.

My preparations complete, I limped back to the wagon. My hip had proved to perform better under a great deal of weight than it did unencumbered. That was good. When I reached the wagon, I addressed Evelyn formally.

"Will you light the pyre?"

"What are you doing?" As much fear as curiosity colored her voice. I needed her curiosity. I used her mother to banish her fear.

"Your mother fought for you. This is a traditional Scandinavian funeral for fighters. Her remains will not be desecrated."

Anger suffused her voice, driving away both fear and curiosity. "Why did you put... them... in it too?"

I could use anger. "Her fallen enemies will light her way."

"What do I do?"

"Is there a container of lamp oil?"

She shuffled through the gear, came up holding a glass bottle full of viscous amber liquid.

"Hand that to me. See if you can find a bottle of whiskey and a rag."

While she went looking again, her fellow girls looking on in awe, I took the oil in my good hand and lobbed it underhand onto the wagon. It shattered when it hit, spreading oil across the body. I watched as it oozed around to fill the spaces beneath Mrs. Jennings' still form. When I turned back around, her daughter had the rag stuffed into the neck of a bottle full of clear liquid.

"It's moonshine. They didn't have any whiskey in this cart."

I pulled out a match and struck it against the hub of my chosen wagon's front axle. When it burned strong enough, I held it out, and Evelyn dipped the rag into the flame. It caught immediately, the flames licking rapidly up to the neck of the bottle. She held it out to me, and I nodded toward the piled wagons. She threw overhand, blue flames trailing behind the bottle, spreading instantly the moment it shattered against her mother's pyre.

"We have to go. Now."

She stared at the pyre, nothing else in her world at that moment. I walked around to the tongue of the wagon, grabbed it up, and pulled. One step, another, and the wagon rolled behind me. I spared a glance down; my boots left dents in the ground deep enough to lose a cat in. The slavers would have no problems tracking us. Our only hope was that they couldn't catch me.

With that thought in mind, I set my shoulders to the old, worn leather of the tack and pulled in earnest.