The Phoenix and the Crow

The Wagon

The group camped in a dry gully bordered by a tangle of shrubs and took shifts dozing on the hard rock ground and keeping watch. Despite her fatigue, Y/N hadn't thought she would be able to sleep, but the next thing she knew, the sun was high above them, a bright pocket of glare in an overcast sky. It had to be past noon. Nina was beside her with a piece of one of the pepper wolf cookies she'd bought in Upper Djerholm. Y/N saw that someone made a low fire, and the sticky remnants of a block of melted paraffin were visible in its ashes.

"Where are the others?" she asked, looking around the empty gully.

"In the road. Kaz said we should let you sleep."

Y/N rubbed her eyes. She supposed it was a concession to her injuries. Maybe she hadn't hidden her exhaustion well at all. A sudden, crackling snap snap snap from the road had her on her feet with her hands held out in front of her in seconds.

"Easy," said Nina. "It's just Wylan."

Y/N hummed, took the cookie from Nina, and hurried up to where Kaz and Matthias were watching Wylan fuss with something at the base of a thick red fir. Another series of pops sounded, and tiny puffs of white smoke burst from the tree's trunk where it met the ground. For a moment it looked like nothing would happen, then the roots loosened themselves from the soil, curling and withering.

"Once the wagon stops, the tree will buy us about fifteen minutes and not much more," Kaz said. "Move quickly. The prisoners should be hooded, but they'll be able to hear, so not a word. We can't afford to arouse suspicion. For all they know, this is another routine stop, and we want to keep it that way."

As Y/N waited in the gully with the others, she considered all the things that could possibly go wrong and how she would find them a way out if push came to shove. Part of her brain reminded herself that it wasn't her job to get them out, it was Kaz's. This wasn't a battalion for her to lead into battle. That's what she'd been trained for. This was a group of spies, criminals, soldiers, and a prisoner. That's what life had trained Kaz for.

The expected wagon slowly came into view and passed them, stopping at the fallen tree as the driver cursed out his complaints. For a long minute, they stood there staring at it. The larger guard took off his hat and scratched his belly.

"How lazy can they be?" Kaz muttered.

Finally, they seemed to accept that the tree wasn't going to move on its own. They strolled back to the wagon to retrieve a heavy coil of rope and unhitched one of the horses to help drag the tree out of the road.

"Be ready," Kaz said. He skittered over the top of the gully to the back end of the cart. He'd left his walking stick behind in the ditch, and whatever pain he might have been feeling, he disguised it well. He slipped his lockpicks from the lining of his coat and cradled the padlock gently, almost lovingly. In seconds, it sprang open, and he shoved the bolt to the side. He glanced around to where the men were tying ropes around the tree and then opened the door.

Y/N tensed as she waited for the signal, but it never came. Kaz was just standing there, staring at the wagon.

"What's happening?" whispered Wylan.

"Maybe the prisoners aren't hooded?" she replied. From where she waited on the side, she couldn't see. "I'll go." They couldn't all bunch up around the back of the cart at once.

Y/N climbed out of the gully and came up behind Kaz. He was still standing there, perfectly still. She touched his shoulder briefly, and he flinched. Kaz Brekker flinched. What was going on? She couldn't ask him and risk giving anything away to the listening prisoners. She peered into the wagon.

The prisoners were all cuffed and had black sacks over their heads. But there were considerably more of them than in the wagon they'd seen at the checkpoint. Instead of being seated and chained to the benches at the sides, they were standing, pressed up against one another. Their feet and hands were shackled, and they all wore iron collars that had been clipped to hooks in the wagon's roof. Whenever one started to slump or lean too heavily, his or her breath would be cut off. It wasn't pretty, but they were so tightly packed together it didn't look like anyone could actually fall and choke.