A Short Time Later

  The procedure for loading and 'firing' Master's weapon was not, as she had made it seem, overly complex. Firearms may be more mechanically complex than any longbow, and require more technical knowledge than crossbows or ballistae to develop, but once they were in the hands of someone capable there was little obstacle Evie could see to their implementation.

  She first grabbed, from a belt wrapped about her chest, the waterproof canister filled with bck powder, and flicked its cap off with a thumb. She put the nozzle to the priming pan, shaking out a small selection of powder, then lowered the cover– called a frizzen, because everything on the weapon had to have some ridiculous name– and dropped the weapon so its rear rested between her feet.

  That done, she moved the powder nozzle to the end of the barrel, dumping bck powder down the barrel while silently counting to three, then stopped.

  A lead ball, which she'd kept pinched between the powder container and her palm, was dropped down next. As its fit was too tight to simply fall to the bottom, Evie retrieved the ramming rod from beneath the barrel, using it to drive the ball down. She stopped when she felt a solid thump from the rearmost section of the tube.

  And now the weapon was loaded. It had taken her a mere thirty seconds. Hardly the obstacle Master treated it as. She hooked the powder bottle on her chest belt and hefted the "butt" of the weapon's stock to her shoulder, one eye closed as she looked down the ridiculous length.

  Menacing her from the opposite end of the weapon was a straw-stuffed target dummy, its metal breastpte glinting in the sun.

  Evie's finger twitched on the trigger, sending the flint-tipped hammer down to the priming pan, summoning a blinding fsh.

  An incredibly brief yet tense moment passed, just enough time to blink, then the fsh was followed by an ear-splitting crack!

  Evie's shoulder was shoved back by the force of the detonation. It wasn't that she cked the strength to resist it, but rather that it was so immediate as to be impossible to compensate for. There was an audible zip! as the ball was unched downrange, then a muffled thump of metal against metal.

  With the white cloud of smoke being blown away by the wind, Hurlish lifted her hands from their protective grasp around Evie's ears. She shaded her eyes to evaluate the target.

  "Hot damn! You blew him in fuckin' half!" The orc bellowed.

  "It would seem so," Evie agreed, returning the 'musket' to its resting position on her shoulder.

  The target, which had been initially positioned fifty yards away, was now pced at both a hundred and a hundred and two yards, the tter portion resting on the ground. It seemed she'd struck centrally enough to cut through the wooden shaft that held it up, sending the savaged breastpte spinning violently away.

  "I believe I used too much powder on that shot," Evie said after scanning the target for herself. "While I did miss the first two shots, they both had much less recoil, and per Master's description, the musket shouldn't be capable of sending chunks of metal flying."

  "Seems like you used just the right amount, to me," Hurlish argued. "That poor bastard's deader than anything I've ever seen."

  "Even so," Evie hummed, moving the weapon ft atop both hands to inspect it for damage, "it is best to be conservative with these tools. What if the weapon were to explode in my hands? We'll have to inspect it for damage."

  "We were gonna do that anyway. Now c'mon, let's get a better look at your kill."

  Hurlish stomped off through the grass without further ado, uncaring that Evie was at her back with the musket. Evie immediately shifted to the side, so that the weapon was not pointing at her lover's lower back. If there was one thing that Master had impressed upon the both of them before they left, it was the tenets of "gun safety." While Master had been taught ten, for military matters she emphasized four in particur, and had all but ordered Evie to treat them as religious dogma.

  A gun was always loadedA gun was never to be pointed at something one didn't intend to destroyA finger was pced on the trigger only when one was ready to fireOne must be certain both of your target and what y beyond it.

  While Evie initially found Master's repetition of those tenets extraneous, having now used the weapon herself, she could understand their logic on a more intuitive level. To know that one errant twitch of her finger might end a life was a disconcerting thing, and she could already see that the lead projectiles would travel far further beyond a target than any crossbow.

  As if her inner self had been determined to prove Master's point, Evie's first shot of the day had missed after she jerked the weapon erratically the moment the flint struck, flinching in preparation for recoil which actually came a moment ter. The spark of the primer had been loud enough to hurt her ears, and the actual shot had nearly dropped her to her knees as the violence of the explosion seemed to drill through her to pierce her skull. According to Hurlish, whose vision had not been obstructed by the subsequent smoke cloud, there had been a puff of dirt and grass nearly a quarter mile downrange of her intended target.

  The second shot had struck much closer, as she was able to better anticipate the dey between flintstrike and shot, but she had still flinched, this time in preparation for the agonizing crack of the gunfire. Only on this third shot, when Hurlish had used her massive hands to cover her ears, had Evie been able to actually strike the target.

  As she approached the ruins of her victim with Hurlish, she allowed herself a small amount of pride. The hole in the breastpte was a gruesome little thing, a chunk of metal blown in at the seam beneath the sternum.

  "Good shot," Hurlish grunted, squatting to inspect the armor. "Fifty yards ain't bad for hitting a single target with a bow, so I'd say this is fine work for your third go." Before Evie could accept the praise, Hurlish turned the breastpte over. What she revealed had the smith whistling low.

  It seemed that the lead ball, much weaker in structure than steel, had shattered upon impact. The evidence was writ rge in the collection of violent dents jutting all across the rear pte of the breastpte, as if someone had taken a blunt hatchet to the interior of the armor. Several fragments had even pierced through the back half of the steel and continued on, likely nding somewhere in the grass beyond.

  Evie crouched next to Hurlish, keeping a careful hand steadying her musket. "I can't– and don't– want to imagine what a living being wearing that armor would look like after such an impact. A brutal weapon, indeed. I can see why the religious authorities of Master's old world attempted to forbid their use."

  "I dunno. Looks like it'd be quick, at least." Hurlish poked a finger at the dents. "Don't have to worry about bleeding out when you ain't got a heart to pump blood. Or lungs. Or a stomach."

  "Ever the optimist, aren't you?"

  "Ah, you know ya love me," Hurlish teased, standing with a huff. She jabbed a thumb towards the table on which their equipment had been id out. "Want to give the others a go?"

  "That is why we're here, isn't it?"

  Hurlish repaired the target dummy while Evie returned to the table, summoning her handkerchief to clean the weapon while she went. Remnants of bck powder were always left behind in the barrel, its ignition far from perfect. As she'd suspected, cleaning the weapon after the third shot revealed far more unignited powder than the first two. Should she use the musket again, she would load only two seconds of powder, for safety's sake.

  Evie lowered the flint hammer and pced the musket gently on the table, moving to the next weapon Hurlish had prepared. This one was nearly identical, wooden stock cradling the iron barrel, but with one difference as subtle as it was critical. When Evie looked down the mouth of the weapon, instead of a smooth tube, there were grooves cut into the edge, spiraling throughout the entire length. That was in fact the very literal only difference between the two weapons, as Master had selected the first musket not for its inherent qualities, but for its ability to be readily transformed into this "rifled" form.

  While the weapon may have been barely altered, the ammunition was of an entirely different breed. Rather than a spherical seven-tenths-inch pellet of lead, this weapon came with a strangely formed projectile. The front of the lead shot was tapered to a dull point, its base conically hollow, and a thick spiral pattern was etched into its rear half. As Master had expined it, the powder would be packed into that hollow cone, and when it was ignited, the pressure would deform the malleable lead outward. This both tightened the seal so that no gas could escape around the bullet, and caused the grooves to catch the barrel's "rifling," spinning the bullet as it sped down the barrel. With extra energy and stability in the shot, the weapon's effective range should be more than doubled.

  Hurlish returned to the table, having shed the breastpte back to its post. Evie picked up the rifled musket and held it out.

  "Would you like to try your hand? You're the one that made it, after all."

  "Eh, I dunno. You're the fighter, aren't you?"

  "Officially, yes, but you're far from inexperienced yourself."

  "I guess, but I barely know what I'm doing. I just hit people as hard as I can, and it usually works out. You're the expert. Besides, Sara's not gonna let me fight, anyway."

  "We have been over this, Hurlish," Evie said, beginning to load the weapon. "You cannot seriously expect to be allowed into combat while pregnant."

  "Why not? Not like I'm gonna die."

  "You do not truly know that, and regardless, it is official policy. Pregnancy disqualifies any soldier from serving, much less Master's wife."

  "Not her wife, technically."

  "Yes, but only as a technicality. If Master had any sense, she would have heeded my advice months ago."

  "Huh?" Hurlish squinted down at Evie. "Your advice? What's that mean?"

  "To marry you, of course. I understand her reluctance to marry me, seeing as I ck the physical capability to say 'no' to any of her orders, but you ck such limitations. That she doesn't wish to py favorites is foolish."

  "But..." For once, Hurlish looked lost. "Why do you care?"

  Evie raised an eyebrow at the orc as she rammed a bullet down the barrel. "Because I care for you, Hurlish?"

  In a delightful reversal of their usual dynamic, it was Hurlish that now blushed profusely to Evie's words.

  "That's... I mean, I appreciate it, I guess, but... we're supposed to be all bitchy with each other, right? That's how it works? We argue and bicker and make up real sexy-like ter that night?"

  "Believe it or not, Hurlish, even I am capable of separating my sexual preferences from my retionships." Evie finished loading the firearm, but paused, turning an eye to Hurlish's growing baby bump. "And besides, you are pregnant. Though Master cims the impulse is a result of 'cultural indoctrination', I firmly oppose the thought of any child of mine being born out of wedlock."

  Hurlish gaped at Evie, even as the feline brought the musket up to her shoulder. When Hurlish failed to do anything other than stare incredulously, Evie nudged her with an elbow.

  "Ears, please?"

  Betedly, the orc moved to cup her massive palms around Evie's sensitive ears. Evie took a moment to aim, consciously bracing herself to prevent the flinches of her prior shots, and pulled the trigger.

  The primer fshed, then a boom echoed across the Tulian countryside. The stiff wind blew the white smoke away in short order, and Evie was satisfied to find her shot had once more found the target, just a bit off its center. Had it been a human, she would have shredded their right lung.

  Evie slipped out from underneath Hurlish's hands, as the orc hadn't immediately removed them. She was still blinking dumbly, trying to parse whatever thoughts were racing through her mind.

  "Are you really so surprised that I feel fondly for you, Hurlish?"

  "I mean, I guess not, but... you said 'your' kid, didn't you?"

  "Of course. We three are going to raise them together, no? I've had more than my fill of noble obsession with blood right, and couldn't care less if the child doesn't carry my features. If one considers the odds, it's most likely that I was present at their conception, regardless."

  "That's..." Hurlish trailed off once more, lower jaw working her tusks up and down. Evie had not expected such a reaction in the slightest. Yes, they had spent months bartering antagonistic remarks with one another, but Evie had thought both of them had been well aware the behavior was in jest. It seemed Hurlish had not been quite as aware as Evie, however, and that was a surprise.

  It also meant, Evie realized, that she had the rare opportunity of being in an advantageous position. Weak as she was for women with muscles, Evie rarely held the upper hand in their attraction to one another, particurly with how rough she wished to be treated. If she wanted Hurlish to properly throw her around, she'd found invoking a certain degree of faux-irritation in the woman to be necessary. Delight filled Evie as she realized the wet-eyed fondness on her partner's face had finally turned the tables.

  Evie set the musket aside, taking a step closer to the orc, so that she was craning her neck to look up from beneath the woman's breasts. She widened her eyes and id her ears ft, affecting her best impression of doe-eyed innocence.

  "I'm shocked, Hurlish. Did you not know that I loved you?"

  "I- I mean, we don't really say it-"

  "Because I do love you. Deeply, romantically, passionately." Evie put a hand to Hurlish's abdomen, feeling the slight swell of her stomach. "I love you as much as I love Master, Hurlish."

  "That's- you don't mean that-"

  "But I do. Had we met in Sporatos, and had the opportunity to truly know one another, I believe the joy I feel in your presence would finally have given me the strength to rebel against my mother, all so I may tie your fate to mine."

  Hurlish's eyes began to glisten.

  "And why wouldn't I? Your body is a wonder, sculpted not by the gods, but by your own unique drive to succeed. Thrown from your home by terrible cataclysm, you not only found a pce for yourself in a foreign nd, you succeeded in ways no one else had, taking pride in work that none could equal. Even as you found yourself assaulted by alien sensibilities, you remained true to yourself, and allowed no compromise in that which was important to you. You are a fairy tale come true, Hurlish."

  With her right palm on Hurlish's stomach, Evie took Hurlish's free hand in her left. "The callousness of your speech has no reflection upon your intelligence, which has no equal in the fields to which you choose to apply yourself. Nearly alone of all those in the world, you are capable of not just understanding the astounding complexity of Master's home, but replicating it. If you wished to, you could have glided through the noble courts of my youth, dazzling mages and lords alike with your intellect, but you never would. You value yourself too highly, more highly than I ever had valued myself before I met you, and would not stoop to their level. For that, too, I love you."

  Evie tilted her head to the side like a confused kitten, feeling the way her tail nguidly swiped from left to right behind her. Hurlish was entirely bewildered, having not expected these words in the slightest. Ever the dutiful soldier, Evie pressed her advantage.

  "You are a beautiful, strong, brilliant woman, Hurlish. How could I not have fallen in love with you?"

  Hurlish stared down at Evie with her mouth slightly open, and if Evie hadn't known better, she would've thought the orc was aghast. For any who were less familiar with Hurlish, it was only the next gruff grumble, barely audible, that would have cleared things up.

  "I love you too, Evie."

  Evie smiled kindly. "I know, dear. I just didn't know we had to say it."

  "Ahh, fuck." Hurlish sniffled once, hard, then groaned theatrically. "Fuck you, Kitty."

  "Certainly," Evie replied, stepping closer, so that their bodies were flush. "But we'll have to put the guns up, first." Evie pressed her ears up into the undersides of Hurlish's breasts.

  Hurlish wiped her nose, then pushed Evie back a bit, so she could get a look at the feline's face. When she saw the grin there, she groaned again, to a different tone.

  "Oh, no. Here we go."

  "It's not that complex, I assure you."

  "You always say that."

  "Because it's true."

  "To you, maybe."

  "Don't worry. It's a role you were born to py."