Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) by Eric Asher Page B

was right, but the thought of the remote trigger not working made him shiver. That would mean someone would have to light a fuse by hand. He knew enough about mining to know there were a thousand little things that could go wrong with that.
    Worrying wouldn’t fix it. Jacob opened his backpack and pulled out a length of blasting coil. Even if they had to light a fuse, they’d still need the coils in place.
    *     *     *
    Charles eyed the ring of explosives. It was the third ring they’d set up and mounted with a receiver and blasting coil.
    “We used six bombs on each,” Samuel said. “We’re going to need more charges.”
    Charles nodded. “You aren’t wrong. We’re going to have to drop onto the outer supports from up top.”
    Samuel blew out a breath and turned to Charles. “Are you insane? How can we possibly drop in from somewhere else, loaded down with explosives, without getting detected.”
    “It’s more than that,” Charles said. He rubbed his hands together. “I don’t know if we’ll all fit. The crawlspaces around the cross supports are going to be short and tight.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “I’m saying it should just be me and Jacob. Don’t even start. I know you don’t like it, and neither do I, but he’s the only one here I trust with these triggers.”
    Jacob swelled with pride at the old man’s words, but he knew he didn’t know as much as Charles.
    “I know,” Samuel said. “I know. Let’s just get it over with.”
    “We’ll finish the last ring and then head for the safe house. Once we know if the trigger will work, we’ll make our plans from there.”
    “And if it didn’t work?” Samuel asked.
    “Then things get interesting.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    “G eorge!” Gladys said for the third time, ever more irritated with the royal guard’s ability to ignore her.
    “Yes … Princess?”
    “How many more of these things do we need to make?” She looked at the workbenches full of shells and bullets and gunpowder. Having so much of the explosive in one place, and indoors no less, seemed like a terrible idea. She still remembered when the old factory in Midstream had gone up like the Burning Forest. It had been beautiful but tragic. Many people lost their lives.
    George ran his finger along the top row, counting the massive cannon shells. They’d been assembling them for two days now with help from some of the other Midstream tinkers, though it felt like years. It was unbelievably boring. Gladys wished she were with Alice, exploring the lost city of Belldorn, but she knew the tasks from Archibald were important.
    “Twenty rows deep,” Gladys said when George started counting down.
    George nodded. “Twenty deep, almost fifty across. We are close to one thousand rounds.”
    “No wonder I’m bored,” Gladys muttered. “How many more could they possibly need?”
    “You never know, until you run out.”
    “Sometimes I hate you, George.”
    George smiled. “There is something your father used to say to me, and to your mother, when we would complain of our boring lives. ‘Be thankful for the calm, for the storm will take everything away.’ I will take those words to my grave, Princess, for they are some of the truest I have ever heard spoken.”
    “Now I’m bored and depressed.”
    If Gladys was being honest, she wasn’t as bored as she had been when the other two tinkers were still in the room. She’d felt like she needed to conduct herself in the ways of the Midstream Court, and that certainly didn’t involve heckling George.
    “Are we going to take these to the warships soon?” Gladys asked.
    “We will let the other tinkers take them, as not everyone in Bollwerk even knows who they are.”
    “Safer?” Gladys asked.
    “I think it will be, yes.”
    She sighed and set another brass shell on the scale. The counterweight sat flush with the workbench’s surface until the tiny grains of gunpowder began to clink and shift as she poured them through a