Page 11 (1/2)

"At least we caught up to the others before they got much farther into Carthya," one man said

"You idiot, we didn’t catch up to anyone," his companion snarled "They were ordered to wait for us here until Avenia arrived Their king wants to know the cannon is solid before we drag it all the way to Drylliad"

"I wish so it A cousin of unners orse than killed, you know Blown to pieces so their own mother wouldn’t know ’em"

"Hush! If you talk like that, nobody will volunteer to test this one"

"Notof feet, and then he added, "I’ to wait here when the others leave They’ll think it’s a sign I’"

"You’ll be punished if you leave this post"

"But not blown up I won’t agree to test it, and if you’d seen o It’s not like anyone could drag it off, eh?"

Laughing, the men walked back down the hill Onlyridden away I waited in the silence, wondering if it was a trap But when I dared to look, there was only the cannon on the road and the eon that seeing that along if it was needed here for testing, rather than at the camp

Once I determined I was alone, I snuck the rest of the way toward the cannon It was larger than a battle horse and cast in iron I ran h, cool ate the supplies being transported with it

The second wagon carried instrue, and a dozen or s were stacked in the closest corner A few empty sacks lay beneath three or four others that were packed full of black granules

I knehat those granules were When I had been with the pirates, they had captured a ship filled withsupplies When Roden and I left the pirates, we had taken with us a bag of this saht learn unpowder, capable of creating explosions that had never before been seen in these lands

Roden and I decided to test it one night and invited Tobias along, but he flatly refused us and told us ere insane Maybe he was right Even the small aht’ve burned down halfrainstorns for us to build our own cannon He explained how the gunpoould be stuffed down the barrel of the cannon with the raunpoas lit through a fuse, it would explode and the ball would fire out One shot could do all the da ram and destroy fortresses that would take an entire are the course of a war

The proble horse, but on his own he couldn’t budge this weapon an inch Worse still, time was not on my side I had no idea when Mendenould return for their cannon, but I guessed it couldn’t be long

If I couldn’t steal it, I had to destroy it

I closed ht me from his studies The conversation I’d just overheard came to mind, of the soldier whose cousin was nearly killed while testing an earlier cannonwith the test?

Back when I suggested to Tobias that we simply mold a cannon and see if it worked, he had warned er lay in how the ether well enough to withstand the explosion inside, it would fail Perhaps the injured cousin had been too close to a cannon when it failed