Dragonseed by James Maxey

without Frost and his friends bothering anyone.”
    Burke nodded. “There’s no point in tarrying. I told Ragnar you’d be gone by nightfall. I’m not sure I have the energy to face him down again.”
    Anza leaned over to hug Burke. She gave him a silent nod as she grabbed her pack and headed for the elevator. Shay noticed the shiny steel tomahawks strapped to the pack. Anza was a walking arsenal, sporting swords, knives, darts, and a sky-wall bow identical to the one Vance carried. Shay picked up his own pack, and the shotgun with which he’d barely had an hour to train. He was impressed with the weapon, but if guns were as deadly as Burke claimed, why didn’t his own daughter carry one?
    He joined Anza and the others on the elevator. As it began to lower, he caught the grim, worried look in Burke’s eyes. He had a feeling that there was some secret Burke was keeping from them.
    Jandra waved and said, “Thanks, Burke.”
    Lizard waved as well, and said, “Strong boss.”
    Anza didn’t wave. She stared ahead, her face unreadable, as the elevator carried them down.

    BURKE SAGGED AS the elevator lowered Anza and her companions from his sight. He’d been in pain ever since his thigh had been broken, but the stress of his confrontation with Ragnar had pushed him to a new level of agony. It had taken all he had to hide his suffering from Anza. He’d always taught Anza to bear her wounds stoically and never surrender to pain. He was glad he hadn’t broken.
    Biscuit stood by the window, watching as the four adventurers left the foundry and marched toward the North Gate.
    “They’re on their way,” he announced. “Let’s get you started on the whisky.”
    Burke flung back the heavy wool blanket that covered his lap. His right leg was thrust straight out before him, naked save for bandages securing it to a splint. The entire limb was blue-gray with bruises. Large chunks of his foot were now black, the flesh dead and stinking. Vicious red streaks ran up his hip into his torso. His fever had been rising every day. If he didn’t act now, the infection would spread into his entire body.
    “The whole leg has to go,” Burke said flatly, as if he were discussing a broken wagon wheel.
    “I sharpened the saw,” Biscuit said, handing Burke a brown ceramic jug. Burke uncorked it. The fumes made his eyes water. “Drink until the bottle falls out of your hands. It won’t take me ten minutes once you’re down.”
    Burke tilted back the jug. Even though it was ice-cold, it burned his throat going down. He wiped his lips after the swig, not looking forward to how many more times he’d need to do that before he passed out.
    “This might take a while,” he said, then hiccupped. “There’s some paper on the desk there. I have something important I need you to take down.”
    “Sure,” said Biscuit, grabbing a quill jutting from an ink bottle. The quill was fiery red and almost 18 inches long, not a true feather but a feather-like scale from the wing of a sun-dragon. In the recent battle, the sky-wall archers had killed dozens of the great beasts as they’d attacked Dragon Forge. An unanticipated consequence of victory was that Burke always had a pen nearby when he needed one.
    “You got some new orders for the boys on the floor?” Biscuit asked.
    “No,” Burke said, taking another swig. He belched in the aftermath. “I might not survive this.”
    “I appreciate the vote of confidence in my surgical skills,” Biscuit said, a wry grin wrinkling the leathery skin around his eyes.
    “There’s something I know that shouldn’t vanish from human memory. I don’t want Ragnar to learn the secret—it’s my only real leverage over him. But I also don’t want this secret to die with me, or with Jandra should she not survive. So listen closely. I’m going to tell you how to make gunpowder.”

    THE FORGE ROAD ran through a landscape of rolling hills and farms, one hundred eighty miles to the Dragon Palace. In normal