To our left, the second wagon is creeping up alongside ours. Harlie shouts orders from its tiller, echoing those of the Prime. She probably shouldn’t be captaining one of the vessels, not given how long the silent storms have waged and how weak they’ve rendered all of Powder Town’s elderly. But she insisted. “They’re my darn invention,” she said that morning, cornering the Prime and the Reaper as the troops boarded the wagons. “I’m seeing them sail. I feel fine, besides. Nice break in the storms. Heart hasn’t been racing since last night.” How long this break will hold is another matter. When the Prime tested a mag-rifle this morning, it fired true. If the storm lull stretches a full day, we might get lucky.

Harlie’s crew immediately goes to work adjusting the sails. I catch sight of Asher on the starboard side, gathering spare rope.

Behind our two wagons, the third is captained by Luce the Reaper, the fourth by Amari the Tender. Bronx the Chemist has stayed behind in Powder Town, the secret to making black powder safe in the recesses of her mind, a group of the Reaper’s soldiers stationed to protect her and the town. The final five wagons are led by soldiers the Reaper selected, such as Saph, who brings up the rear.

There are about thirty of us per wagon, packed in tightly despite construction that scaled up the model we sailed to Eden. That puts our numbers just shy of three hundred. Bedrock is thousands strong, the Loyalist army at least fifteen hundred men. But we have blast barrels and mag-rifles and the element of surprise. They have only their modified rifles and the powder in their horns.

Still, the numbers make me shudder. We need everything to go right, or things will go very, very wrong. They might have already. Who knows why Reed blew the powder early—if he’s safe, or even alive.

As Powder Town disappears behind us, the cheers from the town fade out as well. Cries of good luck to the Prime. Prayers that the Bringer of Life guides the fleet true. Teary farewells shouted to friends and family. Soon it is just our fleet beneath the beating sun and the expanse of waste that separates us from the battle of a lifetime.

We make good time.

By midmorning we’ve safely bypassed Burning Ground and are just a few clicks north of Alkali Lake. We’ll cut north shortly, riding the currents easy the rest of the way to Bedrock. But for now I’m at the side rail, a hand held up to shield my eyes, squinting at my childhood home in the distance.