Free Claimed (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #4) by Lindsay Buroker

don’t take that as a license to sleep on the job. With all the pirates I’ve heard about down south, I’ll need a good security man watching the skies for me.”
    Cedar smiled, though not quite with all his heart, as he regretted chickening out and not asking what he’d truly meant to ask. “I understand.”
    Kali stood up and handed him her grappling hook. “I also need someone who can chuck this up there and catch it on some rocks. Are you up for the task?”
    “Yes, but if I pull that rockslide down on us, I hope you won’t curse me too much from the grave.” One of the snakes slithered around the edge of the pit, eyeing them. “Although at least I would bury the rattlers along with us.”
    Kali thumped him in the chest with the back of her hand. “I wasn’t talking about the future with you so you could think like that. Look.” She held her hands out flat in front of her side-by-side, then tilted one down at an angle.
    Cedar looked up, twenty-five feet up. “Ah, there’ll be a big crack up there now, won’t there?”
    “Get to hooking it. That snake is giving you the eye.”
    Cedar tied his rope to the end of the hook. “You sure he’s not eyeing you?”
    “You’re a much bigger meal.”
    He took some time setting up his throw, not wanting to have the hook miss and clunk back down on a snake’s head. Talk about irritating the wildlife...
    He tossed the hook, aiming a bit farther behind the edge, figuring the claws could catch on the way back. It clanked as it landed on the stone floor up there. He tugged it carefully... and let out his breath when it caught.
    “Easy,” Kali said.
    Cedar was glad to know he made it seem so. He opened his mouth to tell her to climb up first, but a noise drifted down into the pit from above. A scrape and then a clunk. It had nothing to do with his grappling hook, which had already settled into the crack.
    “Did you hear that?” Kali whispered.
    Cedar nodded. “Someone is coming.”
    When he had imagined setting a trap, he hadn’t been thinking of having himself in the middle of it. He shouldered his backpack and, hoping his boots still smelled of kerosene, darted over a snake to grab his katana. It had landed point down in one of the skeletal ribcages. He had no more than plucked out the weapon when an angry hiss filled the pit.
    “Look out,” Kali whispered.
    Though she kept her voice low, urgency flooded the words, and Cedar spun around in time to catch the snake’s head rising. Fangs flashed and the maw darted for his leg. He cut down with the blade, intercepting the attack. The katana sliced through the sinewy body, sending the head flying across the pit. It smashed into the rock wall and landed between two other coiled snakes. More rattles stirred.
    Cedar would have cursed, but there was no time. He lunged for the rope.
    “Hide the light and follow me up,” he whispered, already climbing.
    Worried about the riled rattlers, he would have preferred to send Kali up first, but there was just as much trouble up there. He could hear footsteps now, men walking toward the pit. More than one man. The glow from the flash gold disappeared, and he felt Kali’s weight on the rope below him. By now, all the snakes were rattling, the noise reverberating off the walls.
    Climb fast, he urged her mentally, wanting her out of their reach. He didn’t speak, though. Light had come into view above, the flame of lanterns, more than one.
    “Someone’s got the rattlers agitated,” a man said.
    “Must be excited about their dinner,” another man responded. They sounded like they had already started into the excavated tunnel. They would see Kali’s hook any moment now. He had to take them by surprise first.
    Cedar paused a couple of feet below the lip, tightening his grip with his left hand, the harsh twine biting into his calluses, and eased his Winchester out with his right. He almost chose the katana, but if they spotted the hook, they might stop back in the tunnel, out