“Flash powder, then.” Viera’s faced twisted in thought, and Marcus found himself watching her hands to make sure she didn’t remove a finger. “What is he going to do with that much flash powder?”

This was the third convoy they’d ambushed, with the same result. The Patriots had taken possession of nearly all the larger buildings along the Green Road, but they weren’t fortifying them as Marcus had expected. They ought to be blocking up the entrances, loopholing the walls, that sort of thing. Instead the actual defenses seemed to have been delegated to the seedies, who were throwing up barricades in the streets with a great deal of enthusiasm but little actual military skill.

And flash powder was flowing, from the mills north of the city through a seemingly endless chain of wagons, all destined for one building or another along the road.

“Presumably he wants to blow something up,” Marcus said.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Viera said.

“I don’t know.” Marcus shrugged. “Hide barrels of powder in the buildings by the side of the road, wait until the army is marching up it, then set them off.”

Viera rolled her eyes in a way that was becoming depressingly familiar. “How much would that actually accomplish? You’d collapse a few buildings, maybe hurt some people with flying bricks, but he hasn’t got that much powder. As a trap, it’s not worth much, not the way he’s setting it. If he really wanted to do some damage, he could bury it under the road—with as much as we’ve seen, that would leave quite a crater when it went off.”

“Even that wouldn’t be enough to stop Janus,” Marcus said. “He might wreck a company or two, but that’s not going to make a difference in the long run.”

“Exactly.” Viera shook her head. “I don’t know what he thinks he’s playing at.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s doing?”

“He must have some engineers.” She pursed her lips. “If I were him, I’d think about bringing down the Grand Span. That would keep Janus off the Island for a while.”

Marcus paused for a moment, taken aback. The Grand Span was part of Vordan City, and had been since before he was born. It was a monument to the foresight and perseverance of the builders, a triumph of modern science, bridging a distance long thought to be impossible. The idea that Maurisk might destroy it to gain a temporary military advantage seemed almost sacrilegious.

“Do you think he’ll do that?” he said after a moment.

“From what you’ve brought me, there’s no evidence that he’s going to try. It’s a big bridge, and all stone. He’d need a lot of powder, and the preparations would be pretty obvious.”

“He might be worried people wouldn’t stand for it. The seedies might turn on him.”