A Brother's Price

long before torching the place. They managed to carry out all the small arms, the pistols and rifles, and the Prophets before we arrived. They were trying to move the great naval guns when we rode up, and they set fire to the shop to cover their retreat.”
    She and Raven had been to the Wainwrights’ home several times to see the new weapons tested and to order various guns. While not as prolific as the Whistlers, the Wainwrights had numbered around twenty women and girls with a handsome young husband that they proudly showed off. Not one survived the murderous attack.
    Raven cleared her throat and covered Ren’s silence. “It was easy to track the cannons. Each of the Prophets weighs nearly nine hundred pounds and they are roughly six and a half feet long. Multiply that by eight, and it’s quite an operation to move them. The thieves used two coal wagons and made four trips from the gun shop down to a waiting coal barge. Half the town saw them, but thought it was the Wainwrights’ normal weekly delivery of coal for the forges.”
    Ren took up the story again. “The coal barge with the Prophets and small arms left with its load. There were two more barges waiting for the naval guns. The thieves scuttled them to foul river traffic. It gave them several hours’ start on us. We might have caught up with them if they stayed on the river, but the barge and its tug ran aground, so they started overland.”
    “They ran aground above Heron Landing?‘” Eldest Whistler guessed.
    Ren nodded. “They made a makeshift raft and floated the cannons and other crates ashore one at a time. We found a safe landing and unloaded our horses. Odelia”— Holy Mothers knew what Odelia had been doing— “became separated from the rest of us, and was attacked. We think it was more of a distraction than a planned assassination.”
    “So these guns are still in the area?” Eldest Whistler asked.
    “Is there a reward?” Corelle asked.
    “Do you think the riders will come back?” Jerin asked.
    “The riders were probably hired to delay pursuers.” Ren sought to reassure Jerin. “They have no reason to come back. As for the cannons and small arms, the Queens Justice has found no sign of them.”
    Two of the younger sisters were rude enough to laugh.
    Eldest Whistler stood up, motioning Ren and Raven to follow. “Lieutenant Bounder is a good soldier, but she and most of her command are new to the area. Nor does she have many good trackers under her.” Eldest led them to the small, well-appointed parlor. There she opened the doors on a cherry cabinet, revealing a set of shallow drawers. She pulled out the top drawer and took out a map. She laid the map on a small side table. “How far upriver from Heron Landing did they hit the sandbar?”
    “About five miles.” Raven answered. “Bounder said it’s timberland belonging to the Fiddler family.”
    Eldest Whistler grunted, tapping a section of the map. “I thought it might be there. Look, the river runs fairly straight north to south through all of Queensland, but here, it makes a twenty-mile U east to west, and back again. When you’re on the river, it’s not obvious. The lay of the land fools you; only this ridge lies between the northern and the southern point.” Her finger with a torn fingernail traced a short line over the said ridge. “It’s less than three miles, but unless you’ve walked this straight line, or seen the map, you would never guess you could skip so far downriver so quickly.”
    Ren cursed softly and tapped the downriver part of the U. “I don’t suppose the river is shallow here?”
    Eldest shook her head. “Fairly deep. If they brought the guns to here, it would be easy to load them onto another boat.”
    “Why move them at all?” Corelle asked. “Seems like a lot of work for nothing, when they could hire a boat to go upriver and unload the barge.”
    Eldest threw her a disgusted look. “It would have been stupid to leave them stranded with the princesses somewhere close behind them. Secondly, this confuses the trail. Think of the trail they would have left if they had hired a boat to go upriver to the stranded barge. Every ship captain they tried to hire, the crew of the ship they finally hired, any passengers already on the boat, any ship that passed while they were transferring the load, and Holy Mothers knows who else would have known what ship the guns are now on. The princesses could go downriver until they saw that ship and stop