54

While we were getting ready to travel, one of Iqbal’s kids—the older boy—noticed a particularly deep flaw in the head of the hammer. The rest of us had been too busy congratulating ourselves and deciding what the Company would do once we brought the Captured forth from the plain. The boy got his father’s attention. Iqbal summoned Runmust and me.

Being old folks, it took us a while to see what the boy meant. Us having bad eyes and all.

“Looks like gold in there.”

“That would explain the weight. Doj. Come here. You ever hear anything about this hammer being gold inside?”

Iqbal began prying with a knife. A fragment of iron fell away.

“No,” Doj said. “Don’t damage it any more.”

“Everybody calm down. It’s still the Key. Doj, study it. Carefully. I don’t want all the years and all the crap we went through to go to waste now. What?” Weapons had begun to appear.

“Look who’s here,” Swan said. “Where did those guys come from?”

Slink and his band had arrived. I exchanged looks with Slink. He shrugged. “Gave us the slip.”

“I’m not surprised. We screwed up here. He knew somebody was out there.” Suruvhija still had the red scarf draped over her shoulder. “Folks, we need to get traveling. We want to get across the bridge at Ghoja before the Protector starts looking for us.” From the beginning I had pretended that getting across that bridge would give us a running chance.

I told Slink, “You guys did a great job at Semchi.”

“Could’ve been better. If I’d thought about it, I’d’ve waited till they damaged the Bhodi Tree. Then we’d have been heroes instead of just bandits.”

I shrugged. “Next time. Swan, tell that goat we’re going to eat it if it don’t start cooperating.”

“You promise?”

“I promise we’ll get some real food when we get to Jaicur.”