Too loud, Asher mouths. He jerks his head back toward the way we’ve come. He’s worried about the activity in the main pass, that the shot will draw other Loyalists to us.

I reach for the rifle anyway, only to realize that in my hurry to take it off the Loyalist at the pyre, I never took his powder horn. I’ve been carrying an unusable weapon.

Asher stoops, his fingers grazing over rubble along the chasm floor until he turns over a relatively smooth rock that fits nicely into the sling’s pouch. Biting his bottom lip in concentration, he stands and begins to swing the sling overhead, building momentum. By the time the guard catches the movement and turns toward us, Asher has let the stone fly.

Its aim is true.

The rock clips the Loyalist on the side of the head, and he drops like a sack of potatoes. He’s unconscious, maybe even dead.

I stand there, stunned. I hate slings. They take years of practice to master, plus an ungodly amount of patience, and even after carrying one for most of my childhood, I brought down only a few quail with the weapon. Swinging a sling alerts your target of your presence, and aiming accurately is virtually impossible. If you don’t hit your mark on the first try, you’ve lost your advantage, usually your prey, too. When we were kids, Asher was even worse with a sling than I was, and now he’s struck down this Loyalist as easily as blinking.

I’m still staring as he rushes forward and checks the man. “Knocked out,” he whispers, then hooks an arm beneath the blanket hanging against the rock face and draws it aside. A gaping dark hole waits behind the material. I shuffle nearer, and a breeze touches my cheeks.

“There are iron mines to the northwest,” Asher explains. “The tunnels were dug for easy transport.”

I glance down at the Loyalist. His brow is bleeding, his chest rises and falls shallowly. I peer back into the tunnel. “Shouldn’t it be guarded by more men?”

“Everyone’s been pulled off to sweep the Barrel.”

I hesitate. The tunnel is wide, but I wonder what will happen when we get deeper. Will we be hunched to half height? How will we see? How long will we be stuck in the darkness, and what will we eat once we are? It’s not like I had the opportunity to pack supplies before I ran.

“I know someone who can help you,” Asher insists. “Someone who can help them.” His eyes flit in the direction of Bedrock.

I picture Bay in that tiny cradle. Brooke, Wren, Pewter. Alder. Vee. All of them. I picture the dam and the knife that was drawn across my mother’s neck.

“Who?” I ask.

“She’s called Kara the Prime. She runs Powder Town.”

“The last free place in the wastes?”