Freedom Fire Read online

  A New York Times Notable Book

  NPR Best Books of the Year

  School Library Journal Best Books of the Year

  New York Public Library Best Books of the Year

  Washington Post Best Books of the Year

  Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year

  American Indians in Children’s Literature Best Books of the Year

  “Older fascinatingly blends thunder-lizard thrills with lesser-known but important aspects of American history…. Readers will adore Magdalys Roca…. There’s another installment of this mind-bendingly original series coming, sure to be eagerly awaited.”

  – The New York Times Book Review

  ★ “Epic … This high-energy title is perfect for middle graders, with its strong female protagonist, a fresh perspective on history, helpful notes and resources, and an honest portrayal of the complex topics of race and gender.” – School Library Journal, starred review

  ★ “Delightful historical fantasy … Rooted in real events and attitudes, and appended with facts about the time, this fast-paced adventure makes for a memorable tale in which numerous characters of color take the lead. ”

  – Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Dactyl Hill Squad has everything a reader could possibly want in a middle-grade book: action, adventure, magic, humor and dinosaurs. Magdalys is the same kind of young, engaging and flawed protagonist as Philip Pullman’s Lyra – a character readers can’t help but love even when (especially because) she’s frustrating. An entertaining and wholly fulfilling series opener.” – Shelf Awareness

  “This book is true fire. It is everything I didn’t even know I needed.”

  – Jacqueline Woodson, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

  “This is the story that would’ve made me fall in love with reading when I was a kid.” – Tomi Adeyemi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Children of Blood and Bone

  “Older’s uprising of sheroes and heroes grips, stomps, and soars from start to finish.” – Rita Williams-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of One Crazy Summer

  “Dactyl Hill Squad is an engaging, lively adventure with a heroine I wish I were, in a world I didn’t want to leave.”

  – Jesmyn Ward, two-time National Book Award-inning author of Sing, Unburied, Sing

  “This incredible story brings history to life with power, honesty, and fun.”

  – Laurie Halse Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of Chains

  Praise

  Title Page

  Map

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One: Night Flight

  Chapter Two: From Across a Moonlit Field

  Chapter Three: The Mysterious Mr. Card

  Chapter Four: Through the Woods and Away

  Chapter Five: Race to the Union Line

  Chapter Six: The Vociferous General Sheridan

  Chapter Seven: Campfire Shenanigans

  Chapter Eight: The Dino Quad

  Chapter Nine: Squad!

  Chapter Ten: A Letter, Finally

  Chapter Eleven: Rolling Out

  Chapter Twelve: Air Attack

  Chapter Thirteen: Up and Over

  Chapter Fourteen: Air Chase

  Chapter Fifteen: Beneath the Canopy

  Chapter Sixteen: Whoa Beans

  Chapter Seventeen: Trip, Tangle, Truss

  Part Two

  Chapter Eighteen: Back at the Lines

  Chapter Nineteen: Battlefield Sisterhood

  Chapter Twenty: War Council

  Chapter Twenty-One: Make Moves

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Flight Preparations

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Reconnaissance Run

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Battle Below

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Rumble and Caw

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Dive

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Rout and a Run

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Catch and Carry

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Flight

  Chapter Thirty: Darkness Over the Deep

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirty-One: Crescent City

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Ambush Music

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Attack!

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Through These Broken Streets

  Chapter Thirty-Five: The Saint Charles Hotel

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Plans and Partings

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Into the Swamplands

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Atchafalaya Tiroteo

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: JUH

  Chapter Forty: Fire

  Chapter Forty-One: Earthshaker

  Author’s Note

  Shadowshaper Teaser

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  A GLINT OF LIGHT flickered in the darkness below. It was late — the sun had sunk behind the trees hours ago, and it seemed to extinguish the whole world of mountains and sky when it went. Magdalys Roca had lost track of how long she and her friends had been flying southward on the back of Stella, the giant pteranodon, but she was pretty sure she’d never get used to that sense of emptiness that closed in whenever night fell across the vast American wilds.

  But what was that light?

  It had disappeared almost as soon as she’d seen it. A bonfire maybe? A Confederate battle camp? Her heartbeat tha-thumped just a little harder in her ears at the thought. They’d passed the sparkling lights of Washington, DC, a few nights ago, then veered west, and according to Mapper, had passed into Tennessee yesterday. There were Union outposts throughout the state, but it was still enemy territory.

  Stella swooped lower just as Magdalys was craning her neck to see over the huge ptero’s wing. Magdalys smiled. She’d started to get used to the fact that dinos and other huge reptiles could understand her inner thoughts and wishes, but with most of them she had to make explicit requests. Charge, she’d think, and those hundreds of pounds of scale and muscle would lurch and lumber into action. But Stella seemed to have connected to her on an even deeper level. The ptero knew when Magdalys was tired or afraid, knew, apparently, when she needed to get a better look at something.

  There it was — that same sparkle of light in the darkness below. Stella tilted eastward just so as Magdalys grabbed the reins and stood in the saddle, squinting through the night at the dancing splash of brightness.

  “Ha,” Magdalys said out loud. She looked up, directly above the shimmer to where the almost full moon sat perched on a cloud bank like a queen on her throne.

  “The river.” Cymbeline Crunk scooched up beside Magdalys with tin cups of cold coffee in her hands. She took a sip from one and passed the other over.

  “It’s beautiful. Like the moon is keeping an eye on us from above and below. The Mississippi?”

  Cymbeline shook her head. “Mm-mm, we’re not that far west yet. Probably the Ocoee, an offshoot of the Tennessee River.”

  Magdalys had never met anyone like Cymbeline before. At just eighteen, she had become a renowned Shakespearean actress along with her brother, Halsey. Plus, she seemed to know everything there was to know about the war and all the messy politics surrounding it. And she was a crack shot with a carbine.

  Magdalys had gotten so used to seeing the actress dressed up as princesses and fairies (or sometimes kings and demons), it was still strange to see her in a plain button-down shirt and slacks. Her big wonderful hair was pulled tight against her head, like Magdalys’s, and, also like Magdalys’s, it then exploded into a big terrific bun just above her neck.

  It was Cymbeline who’d insisted they veer west after DC. Tennessee had been the last state to secede, she’d explained, and whole swaths of pro-Union communities still resisted the Confederates in every way they could. And anywa
y, all the battle lines in Virginia were liable to explode into action at any moment, and the last thing they needed was to get caught up in a major engagement.

  Mapper’s eyes had gone wide at that — the idea somehow exciting to him — but Two Step, Little Sabeen, and Amaya had all shivered at the thought. Magdalys didn’t really care which way they went, as long as it got them to wherever her brother, Montez, was faster. Montez had been wounded in a shoot-out at Milliken’s Bend during General Grant’s Siege of Vicksburg. One of the other soldiers in his battalion, Private Summers, had sent a letter to Magdalys saying Montez was still unconscious and they were on their way to New Orleans. All Magdalys knew was that she had to get to him, had to make sure he was okay, be there when he woke up if he hadn’t yet, whatever it took.

  Montez was the only family Magdalys knew, really. She’d been dropped off at the Colored Orphan Asylum when she was just a baby along with Montez and their two sisters, Celia and Julissa, neither of whom she could remember very well. They’d been whisked off back to Cuba a few years later and then Montez had joined the Union Army, and the Colored Orphan Asylum had been burned down in the Draft Riots right when Magdalys had found out he was wounded.

  “I was worried at first,” Magdalys said. “When I saw that light below …”

  Cymbeline nodded, a grim smile crossing her face. “I know. These are the Great Smoky Mountains beneath us. An encampment could be anyone at this point.”

  “You think they’d have pteros?”

  “If they do they’re probably not going to be friendly. The only ptero raiders I’ve heard of are on the Rebel side, unfortunately.”

  Magdalys glanced back, found the series of dark splotches in the sky behind them. Exhaled.

  “The Rearguard still with us?” Cymbeline asked with a hint of laughter in her voice.

  Magdalys tilted her head, glanced back at the moonlight dancing in the river below. “Guess they in it for the long haul.”

  About a dozen dactyls had shown up in the sky behind them just as they’d crossed out of New York City. Magdalys and the squad had been scared at first, but the dactyls were riderless, just a friendly escort out of town, apparently. And then they’d stayed along all through the journey across Pennsylvania and Maryland, heading off on little hunting expeditions and returning with small mammals to cook and for Stella to munch on along the way. Cymbeline had dubbed them the Rearguard and they’d become a source of comfort to Magdalys as they journeyed further and further from home.

  The mountain forests opened up suddenly to a long swath of moonlit open fields. At the far end, a pillared mansion with well-trimmed hedges seemed to preside over the clearing.

  Magdalys shuddered. She knew exactly who’d been forced to trim those hedges and clear that land. Something churned deep inside her. She wanted to summon all the giant reptiles of the forest around her and smash those mansions into splintered wreckages. Then she’d set fire to the whole thing and those flames would leap from plantation to plantation, reaping devastation and catastrophe like a burning tornado, with a hundred thousand dinos stampeding in its wake to finish the job.

  “You alright?” Cymbeline asked.

  Magdalys started to nod, knew she must look anything but, and finally shook her head.

  “It’s okay,” Cymbeline said. “Me neither.”

  “I want to burn it all to the ground,” Magdalys said.

  Cymbeline nodded. “Same. Maybe one day we will. But not tonight.”

  Magdalys nodded. She fought to shove that fiery destruction somewhere deep inside herself, realized she was shaking. Blinked a few times, trying to calm herself. She couldn’t concentrate through that blinding rage.

  Away, she whispered to her own fury. Not now.

  The forests rose again and the plantation disappeared into the night behind them but that fire kept rising inside Magdalys. Fire and fear. They were in the South now. The slaver states. Any misstep …

  Magdalys concentrated harder, fought away the flames inside herself.

  Not now. What good did it do her — all that rage?

  “Let’s bring her down for the night,” Cymbeline said, startling Magdalys from her reverie.

  The fires seemed to extinguish on their own, washed away by a sudden flash of uncertainty. “What? It’s only a little past midnight I think. We still have a ways to go before dawn.”

  “I know but … this is new territory, we have to move cautiously now.” A crispness singed the edges of Cymbeline’s words. It was that faraway voice she used every now and again since they’d left New York, a sudden sadness that seemed to swallow her whole for a few moments at a time; then she’d recover and act like nothing had happened.

  Magdalys wasn’t sure how much more cautiously they could move than flying under the cover of darkness and making camp during the day. And anyway, that plantation wasn’t as far enough behind them as she would’ve liked. But she didn’t want to go back and forth about it. “The others asleep?” she asked as Stella glided toward the dark treetops below.

  “’Cept Amaya. She’s keeping watch. There. That’ll work.”

  Magdalys followed the imaginary line from Cymbeline’s finger to a moonlit field amidst the dark maple trees.

  “Out in the open? Are you sure that’s —”

  “Just to land, Magdalys,” Cymbeline cut her off. “We can hike in a little to make camp. I’ll wake the others.” She got up carefully and made her way to the far end of the saddle.

  Cymbeline had never interrupted her before. Sure, Magdalys had only really known her a few days, but she’d come to view the older girl as a kind of sister, especially after all they’d been through together.

  Stella spun a smooth arc over the treetops, the Rearguard falling into formation behind her, and then launched into a sharp dive as the open field spread long beneath them.

  WHERE ARE WE?” Two Step grumbled, sliding down from Stella’s saddle and glancing at the field around them. This was the first time he’d set his feet on land without breaking into one of his signature dance moves, Magdalys realized, watching her friend’s wary face.

  “A whole bunch of mountainous, forest-filled miles east of Chattanooga,” Mapper reported, stretching and helping Sabeen work her way onto the stirrups so she could climb down. “In other words, somewhere near where Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina crash into each other.”

  Behind him, Amaya shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Even while he’s asleep,” Magdalys said. “It’s uncanny.” She’d been the first one on solid ground and was scanning the edge of the forest for movement. Cymbeline had hopped down right after her and immediately headed out into the darkness without a word. Probably looking for a spot to camp, Magdalys figured, trying to ignore the roiling uneasiness she felt.

  “What kind of dinos do they have down here?” Amaya asked.

  “If it’s anything like Pennsylvania and Maryland,” Two Step said, “not many, and what ones there are will be boring and a nuisance.” It was true: Besides some wandering pteros and a few wandering microraptors scavenging for food, they’d barely encountered any reptiles at all since they’d left New York.

  “Boring dinos are almost the best kind of dinos,” Amaya said. “Second only to no dinos.”

  Magdalys tried to remember what Dr. Barlow Sloan had written in the Dinoguide about Tennessee species, but all she could come up with was a typically crotchety paragraph about how North American megafauna tended to get weirder and even more mega the further south you went. A good number of the dinos in big cities like New York had been imported from other parts of the country anyway, so everything was all mixed up, as far as Magdalys could tell.

  “The forests are empty because of the fighting,” Cymbeline said, walking back from the edge of the trees. “Many of the dinos migrated west to get away from all the explosions. And plenty were captured for use in combat or as cargoluggers. There’s a path through the forest up there. We can follow it in some and find a sp
ot to camp.” She picked up a rucksack and headed back toward the tree line.

  “Remind me again why we stopped in the middle of the night,” Amaya said, falling into step beside Magdalys.

  Magdalys shrugged. “Cymbeline said since we don’t know the terrain as well and we’re in enemy territory we have to be more careful.”

  “I thought we were being careful by flying at night.”

  Magdalys didn’t say she’d been thinking the same thing — she just kept walking toward the trees. “Hey,” she said, a few paces later. Behind them, the boys were playing another game of I Spy while Sabeen sang quietly to herself. The Rearguard dactyls spun wide circles in the open sky above them.

  “Hey what?” Amaya said.

  “You never told me what the letter said.”

  Now it was Amaya’s turn not to say anything. Her father was a white man — some big-time Union general, in fact — and he’d raised her, training her like a soldier since she was a little kid. But then the war had broken out and he’d dumped Amaya at the Colored Orphan Asylum and she hadn’t heard anything from him right up until the day the orphanage burned down. A letter had come from the General in the same bundle with Private Summers’s message about Montez being wounded, but Amaya hadn’t been ready to read it, and one of the matrons had kept it and then the Draft Riots threw everything into disarray and they’d thought it was gone forever, until another of the matrons showed up with it just before they took off.

  “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave,” Sabeen sang. “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave.”

  “That song is so grim,” Mapper sighed. “I love it.”

  “I spyyyyyy with my little eye,” Two Step said behind them, “something … that starts with s.”

  “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering — the sky — in the grave.”

  “This game is impossible!” Two Step complained. “There’s only like two things anywhere we go. Stupid trees and stupid sky!”

  “His soul’s marching on!” Sabeen finished.

  “I haven’t read it,” Amaya said flatly.

  Magdalys stopped in her tracks. “What?”

  Amaya grabbed her arm, shoving her along. “Keep walking!” she whispered. “Do you think I want the whole world bugging me about this? You know they’re gonna ask.”