Free Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima

horses, and they rattled into motion. Behind her, she heard one of the blackbirds make a rude joke, and the rest of them laughing.
    Her ears were sharp as her hawk’s eyes. Her da claimed she could hear candy rattle into a jar from a mile away.
    She heard the horses moving, slowly at first, accelerating into a drumbeat that dwindled as the distance between them grew.
    â€œScummer,” Mick whispered.
    Beside her, Byram let out a long, shuddering sigh. All of his cockiness had drained away.
    As they mounted a small rise, Jenna reined in the horses and looked back. The moon had risen yet higher, and the riders cast long shadows behind them as they reached the bridge. Even at that distance, Jenna could hear the faint clatter of hooves as they hit the decking.
    Byram stirred beside her. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “That was a close call. Guess it’s just as well it didn’t work. If that bridge had blown, we’d be on our way to gaol.”
    â€œHang on.” Jenna watched as the last of the blackbirds rode onto the bridge. She saw a glare of light, oddly silent, followed by a distant boom, and then another right on its heels. The bridge crumbled, pitching men and horses into the gorge, leaving a jagged hole where the span had been. A plume of dust rose, glittering. On the far side of the bridge, a small cluster of survivors spurred forward, collecting at the edge of the cliff.
    A primitive joy filled the void inside Jenna that had opened when Maggi and Riley died. Jenna tried not to think too hard about why she liked to blow things up and watch them burn.
    Byram hooted and pounded Jenna on the back, his skepticism forgotten. “Did ya see that, Flamecaster? Did ya see it?” Even Mick was grinning broadly.
    Jenna was glad the surviving blackbirds were on thefar side of the bridge. She couldn’t tell whether Clermont was among them, but she had a feeling he was. He’d seen them—he’d seen all three of them, and now he’d be looking for them.
    With any luck, though, he’d be looking for a boy named Munroe.

7
ODEN’S FORD
    â€œYou never come to see me these days unless you’re on your way to kill someone,” Taliesin said.
    That was close enough to the truth that Ash didn’t dispute it.
    The Voyageur had her back to him, had not so much as looked at him, but she always seemed to know him by his step, or the smell of him, or because he was so simple and she so clever that she could tell what he was likely to do on any given day.
    â€œI’m a second-year at Mystwerk now,” Ash said. “There’s much more work than last year. The masters and the deans keep us busy.”
    â€œI see,” Taliesin said. She squatted barefoot between therows of carrots, expertly lifting them with her digging fork and sliding them into her carry bag. Taliesin Beaugarde might be dean of Spiritas, but she never put on airs. The contrast between the healer and the humblest master at Mystwerk was striking. Wizards were arrogant by nature, and Taliesin had her feet planted firmly in the earth.
    Ash had been fighting his private war on Arden every summer since his father’s murder. Every marching season he traveled the south, working as an itinerant farrier. Farriers were welcome everywhere they went—in army camps, in cities, at every farm along the way, in the stables of the highest-ranking thanes—everywhere there were horses.
    Farriers didn’t excite suspicion like other strangers did. Most had to travel from place to place in order to find work. It was a natural fit for Adam Freeman, a native of Tamron. Young as he was, his work was top of the line, and so his services were in great demand. He was good with horses, after all.
    He was also good with poisons, garrotes, and the small daggers known as shivs. Poisons were his weapons of choice. Courtesy of Taliesin, he used compounds no one had ever heard of, that no southern healer