Read Chapter 23: The Double Cross

The order to move came at the last breath of daylight, when the forest shadows bled into one another and the river threw back a copper gleam. Étienne had given up on words. He moved ahead of the column, knife in hand, cutting through the undergrowth with the economy of a man who had done this a thousand times. Behind him, Gagnon led the rangers in a loose file, their boots wrapped in cloth to muffle sound. Bouchard walked at the rear, his eyes moving too much, his hand too often on his pistol.

Étienne did not trust Bouchard. He trusted the rangers' need to survive, which was a different thing entirely.

They reached the edge of the tree line above the fort's eastern wall with the last of the light. Below them, the fort sprawled in the clearing—timber walls, a blockhouse tower, the gleam of a cookfire in the yard. English voices carried up, thin and careless. Roche had not posted double sentries. He was too busy burning the western forest to flush out ghosts.

Étienne dropped to a crouch and studied the wall. The sally port lay beneath the old oak, thirty paces from the northeast corner. He had memorized the approach, the angle of the root system, the way the ground dipped where the tunnel had been backfilled. But the tunnel was sealed. Deliberately. By someone who had known the fort's secrets before the English ever arrived. That thought had not stopped gnawing at him all day.

Gagnon crawled up beside him. "They're thin on the wall."

"Half strength," Étienne agreed. "Roche sent most of them west with the torches."

"Then we go now, before something changes."

Étienne opened his mouth to answer, and then the ground began to tremble.

Not an earthquake. It was a rhythm—horses, many horses, moving fast. The sound swelled from the south, rolling up the river road in a wave of hoofbeats and jingling tack. The English voices in the fort cut off mid-sentence. A bugle blew, sharp and urgent.

Then the war cry went up. French. *Vive le roi!* The unmistakable roar of a relief column throwing itself into battle.

Gagnon grabbed Étienne's arm. "That's not—we sent no word. That's not our men."

Étienne knew it. He had seen the orders in the captain's handwriting. The relief column was not supposed to arrive for three more days. And yet there they were, pouring out of the southern tree line, blue coats and white crossbelts catching the last light as they broke into a charge against the fort's main gate.

The English garrison reacted with shocking speed. The gates swung open and the garrison poured out—not to hold the walls, but to meet the French in the open field. It was a reckless move, a desperate move, and it meant one thing: Roche had decided to crush the relief column before it could siege the fort. He was betting everything on a single hammer blow.

The fort was emptying.

Étienne's pulse kicked. He turned to Gagnon. "Now. While they're all out there."

Gagnon's eyes were wide. "The powder. The captain said they'd blow the magazine when the relief force arrived. This *is* the relief force, Étienne. It's happening now."

The words hit like a fist. The traitor captain had planned for this exact moment. The English would fight the French column at the gate, and then—whether they won or lost—the magazine would blow, taking both sides with it. Or, if the captain had timed it right, it would blow only when the French had pushed through the gates and packed the courtyard.

Étienne scrambled down the slope, motioning the rangers forward. "We don't have time for stealth. We go through the sally port now, we get to the magazine before the fuse is lit, and we stop it."

Bouchard caught up to him, face flushed. "The tunnel's sealed. We agreed—we need another way in."

"The tunnel's the only way that isn't watched." Étienne grabbed him by the shoulder. "We dig, we dig fast, we pray it's only a few feet of collapse. Or we stand here and watch the relief column march into a trap."

Bouchard's jaw worked, but he nodded.

They moved.

The sally port was where Étienne had left it: a patch of disturbed earth beneath the old oak, its roots arching over a depression that had once been an entrance. The rangers set to work with their hands and knife blades, pulling at the packed earth, rocks, and the rotted timbers that had been used to seal it. The sounds of battle rolled over them from the southern field—musket fire, screams, the dull thunder of cannon.

Étienne worked beside them, his fingers raw within minutes. The collapse had been deliberate. Whoever had done it had laid the timbers crosswise and packed the soil tight, the way you would seal a tomb. That took time. That took knowledge. That took someone who had walked this fort before the English ever arrived.

"He knew," Étienne muttered, more to himself than anyone. "The man who sealed this grew up here. He knew every stone."

Gagnon went still. "The Montreal official."

Étienne looked up. Gagnon's face was pale in the fading light.

"There is a man in Montreal," Gagnon said slowly, the words coming out like he was pulling them from his own chest. "A quartermaster with access to fortifications records. He approved the garrison list for this fort before the war. He knew every sally port, every tunnel, every weakness. And he was paid."

"Paid by whom?"

Gagnon shook his head. "I never found out. But he's the one who arranged the transfers. He's the one who made sure certain men were stationed here. Men like the captain."

Étienne's hands stilled on the earth. "You knew this. You knew from the beginning."

"I suspected. I had no proof. You were a guide who had been gone too long, brother to a man in the fort's guard. The captain looked like a loyal soldier. I had to be certain before I spoke."

A ranger grunted and pulled away a final timber. Cold air rushed out of the gap, carrying the smell of old stone and mildew. The tunnel was open.

Étienne looked at Gagnon. Whatever he wanted to say would have to wait. He grabbed the nearest ranger. "You three, stay at the entrance. Keep it clear. If we don't come back in half an hour, you run. You find the survivors in the marsh and you get them out of this country."

The ranger nodded, his face grim.

Étienne went in first.

The tunnel was low and narrow, barely wide enough for two men to crawl abreast. The walls were damp, slick with groundwater, and the air was so still it felt like breathing through cloth. He moved fast, scrambling on hands and knees, the weight of his father's broken medal against his chest. The silver casing was still warm from Laroche's grip, though the deserter was past caring.

Ahead, the tunnel sloped upward. He could feel the fort above him now, the weight of its walls pressing down through the earth. The sounds of the battle outside were muffled here, reduced to a dull rumble that vibrated through the stone.

He reached the end of the tunnel—a stone wall with iron rungs set into it, leading up to a trapdoor. He climbed, braced his shoulder against the wood, and pushed.

The trapdoor gave with a groan of old hinges.

He emerged into a cellar. Barrels lined the walls, and the smell of gunpowder was thick enough to coat his throat. The magazine. He was directly beneath it.

And there was light.

A lantern burned at the far end of the cellar, and beside it stood a man in a French captain's coat, a coil of fuse in his hand. He had been kneeling at the powder barrels, and he straightened slowly, turning to face Étienne with an expression of mild surprise.

"Well," the captain said, brushing dirt from his knees. "I expected you sooner."