Sword of the Bright Lady (48 page)

And he was. He and Karl stood together in the shop, looking over Jhom's creation. It had taken a dozen smiths ten days to make the first gun, but only because they were still learning how to work in an assembly line.

He ran his hands sensuously over the rifle. It was absurdly heavy, since he hadn't been sure of the strength of his steel or his powder, but it was beautiful. It was clean and smooth, straight and even. It was
machined
.

It made him think of home.

“Excuse us, Pater,” Jhom said. “Now that we've made it, perhaps you can explain it. Dereth says it's a kind of pipe, but we don't understand what the grooves are for.”

After they had milled the tube from its raw casting into a precise diameter, they'd carved out six grooves that made a complete twist from beginning to end inside the barrel.

“That's what makes it a rifle,” Christopher said. “Rifle,” he pronounced for them. “You all might as well get used to the word.” He opened the breech and closed it again with a smooth click.

“How does it work?” Gregor asked, always interested in weaponry.

“I don't know,” Christopher said. “I mean, I don't know if it does. We'll have to test it. You need to make a bench to hold it and a string to pull the trigger. If the tube fails, it will blow up in your face like a stick of dynamite.”

They all knew that word, now. Tom had a new nickname, from all his mining. They called him Booming Tom.

Karl took the rifle. “Have a little faith in your smiths. Give me a charge.”

Christopher had explained the basic theory of firearm operation to Karl many times now. He was trying to write a manual, and Karl was the one who could tell him if his instructions made any sense to a farm boy.

“Karl, it's dangerous,” he objected, and then sighed. That comment guaranteed the young man would go through with it. In defeat he handed over the small box of rounds that Fae had manufactured.

Everybody filed outside. Christopher couldn't help himself—he told Karl to pick a safe backdrop, despite the fact the veteran was a crack shot with a crossbow. He already knew how to safely handle a missile weapon.

“It's gonna be loud, isn't it,” said one of the apprentices as Karl loaded the rifle. Christopher grinned and the crowd laughed. Everything Christopher did was loud.

“That stump,” Karl said, pointing. He raised the gun to his shoulder as the crowd backed up a few steps and covered their ears.

“Pull it tight,” Christopher warned. “It kicks a lot more than a crossbow.”

Karl sighted down the barrel and squeezed the trigger. As usual, Christopher was shocked when it actually worked. Fire and smoke and deafening noise came out of the barrel, and dirt kicked up a foot to the left of the target.

Karl was displeased.

“The sights are off,” Christopher told him. “No surprise there. We'll need that bench to zero them in.”

Christopher could tell Karl was slightly mollified because he changed the subject. “It seemed louder,” he said. “The sky-fire is loud enough and makes lights besides. Why is this one louder?”

Christopher decided not to try to explain the concept of sonic booms. The good news was the sharp crack meant his bullet had broken the sound barrier.

“That means it's working,” he told Karl.

“But how much damage does it do?” Gregor asked as Karl, like all young men everywhere, reloaded the rifle while glaring at the stump.

“I don't know,” Christopher said. He'd patterned it after the old Sharps .50 caliber from the Civil War, which he knew had become popular with big-game hunters afterwards. “It's supposed to kill large animals.”

“It probably won't kill me in one shot,” Gregor said. “Let's try it out on me.”

Christopher was too stunned to speak at first. “Absolutely not,” he finally got out, grabbing the knight's shoulder before he walked over to the stump.

“Why not?”

Christopher was hard-pressed to answer. Why shouldn't he let one of his friends shoot one of his other friends with a buffalo rifle?
Because it's insane
didn't seem like it would convince these lunatics.

“It might kill you in one shot. I don't know, Gregor. It might be that strong.”

Gregor nodded, dubious but not completely reckless, while Karl took another shot at the stump. He hit it this time, sending a shower of splinters into the air.

Gregor wasn't overly impressed. “I would have survived that. But still, a strong weapon, I agree.”

“There's really only one way to tell,” Karl said, turning to one of the smiths. “Your uncle has a bull ready for slaughter, does he not?”

Christopher had no idea how Karl would know such a detail, but the man nodded.

Work was over for the day, apparently. His shop emptied, the younger men running ahead. By the time they got to the farm in question, a crowd was gathered around it.

The bull was in a fenced pasture with its herd. It watched silently while the farmer drove the cows out. Then it walked to the center of the pasture and pawed the ground.

“It's almost like he knows what's going to happen,” Christopher said, saddened and surprised at the same time.

“He does,” Karl said. “He is old and wise, for a bull.”

“He has had a good life,” the farmer said to the crowd, reciting some kind of formula. “But now he must contribute to the greater good.”

“Who comes to end his days?” the farmer asked, and a number of men with spears moved up to the fence.

“Whoa,” Christopher said. This was no painless slaughter, this was a bullfight. Dangerous to the men and inhumane to the animal. “You can't do that. Just put him in a stall and use a sledgehammer.” They could get an adequate ballistic report by shooting the carcass.

“We cannot,” the farmer said. “He already knows.” After a second, Christopher realized the man was talking about the bull.

“He'll not let us drive him to slaughter, Pater,” said another man. Then he grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “city folk.”

“So the lot of you are going to go out there and stab him?” Christopher asked.

The crowd was mystified at his horror.

“Of course,” the farmer said. “We are no knights, to face the bull in single combat.” The man apparently thought that what Christopher was objecting to was their ganging up on the bull. Christopher was at a loss to cross the gulf. “Unless Ser wishes to do the honor,” the farmer added as he nodded respectfully at Gregor.

“Not particularly,” Gregor said. This was the cue Karl had been waiting for.

“I will.” He jumped the fence.

“Karl, you idiot! Get back here!” Christopher was terrified. The bull was huge. Gigantic, even.

“Would you like assistance?” Gregor called, grinning. He always approved of courage, even the suicidal kind.

“Not yet, Ser,” Karl answered.

Christopher wanted to argue some sense into the young man. What if the rifle misfired? What if he missed or the gun couldn't kill a creature of that size? There were a thousand things that could go wrong. This wasn't a scientific test; it was a spectacle.

And a compelling one. The crowd was mesmerized, all attention on Karl.

“Karl,” Christopher called, knowing it was futile.

“Have a little faith,” Karl called back, and then he bowed to the bull.

The animal snorted, pawed the ground again, and lowered his head in return. Karl brought the rifle to his shoulder, aimed at the bull.

“To arms,” he said, and the bull charged.

The massive creature pounded across the pasture in a growing thunder of hooves, its head bowed and its terrible horns pointed directly at Karl. Christopher panicked and closed his eyes. A buffalo skull could bounce a .30-caliber rifle bullet. Who knew what powers this strange world had given this beast? And what madness made Karl think he could hit a moving target with only his third shot from a rifle?

Karl waited until the last second, letting the bull get so close that missing was hardly an option. The gun barked, and Christopher opened his eyes in reflex.

The animal sank to its knees like a battleship, majestic but silent, two paces from where Karl stood. It fell in a heap and did not twitch. Karl had shot it right between the eyes.

“I wouldn't have survived that,” Gregor said, finally impressed.

The crowd watched in a subdued murmur, staring at the white cloud of smoke as it dispersed, as if it bore a message they might comprehend if only they studied hard enough.

“I don't understand,” Gregor said, on the way back to their own village. “It does not seem like magic but more like a weapon. Striking the bull in the head seemed important. It's as if it matters where you aim it.”

“Well, of course,” Christopher said. “How could it not matter?”

“A wand of missiles does not care. It never misses, regardless of how you aim.”

Great. They already had magical guns.

“Mine does,” Christopher conceded dispiritedly. “It's not a magic weapon. It's just a better version of a crossbow.”

“The smoke and noise are not desirable,” Gregor argued, “but then, it does possess more power than even the biggest arbalest.”

“And it reloads faster,” Karl added.

“Still, if you think to change the world with expensive, noisy crossbows,” Gregor said, “then I fear you are in for a bit of a disappointment. Why not arm your knights with wands of missiles?”

“What knights?” Christopher said, confused. “And why don't they arm all the men with these wands, if they're so great?” He was upset that magic equivalents to guns already existed and nobody had bothered to tell him. True, he hadn't exactly asked, but still.

“The knights you promote to wield your rifles,” Gregor said, equally confused. “Unless you are going to squander such weapons on your mercenaries, like you have plate and masterwork swords.”

“The rifles aren't for the mercenaries. They're for the boys.”

Gregor got it. “I see. Very interesting. Yours are not as good as magical wands, but you'll have a dozen of them.”

“Not
my
boys,” Christopher said in exasperation. “All of them. The whole draft.”

Gregor blinked.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh my.”

Karl actually snickered.

Gregor finally said good-bye.

“I wish you well, Pater,” the blue knight said, “but I think I'll get no more tael in your service.” He was joking, of course. He wasn't really in it for the money.

“As long as you stay in your own lands,” Lalania explained, “you should be safe. Bart's allies seem to have deserted him; you no longer have anything the guild wants to steal. And I do not feel you are a danger to the people. At least, not intentionally,” she clarified. “Your shopkeepers are now busy all week. I am unable to explain how your taking their money makes them richer.”

“So you want to know my secrets? Very well, but someday I will come to your College seeking my own answers and expect you to pay.” Christopher grinned at her, but the more he thought about it, the less it sounded like a joke. He really did want to talk to whatever passed for a scholar around here. Wizards and priests just didn't seem interested in mundane ideas. “They use my paper like gold. I suspect you had a liquidity problem, not enough gold pieces to go around. And since prices are fixed, deflation can't correct it. And you won't allow forgery”—the classic medieval solution to illiquidity—“or adulteration of the metal. So short of digging up more gold, there's no way to increase the money supply.”

“That's what monsters are for,” Gregor said. “We import their gold, though not at prices favorable to them.”

“That only lines the pockets of the lords,” Lalania said. “It doesn't help the peasantry.”

“It does if the lord spends it,” Christopher said. “In fact, if he spent more than he had, that would help too, at least temporarily.”