Anichka looked at the table. She had no clue how deep under the city she was, nor did she particularly care given the welcome and the offer. "All of them?"

"All of 'em. I did everything I could to make them as light as possible so you could carry more. Why bother with swords and shields when you can pack ten pistols?" Tinpot picked up the first of the special guns in his claws. "See, I thought that the handle was too much weight being wood, so I replaced that with more mithril, but even so, it accounts for a quarter of the weight. Trav showed me how to hollow it out with a stretched square pattern, and that helps, but I thought to myself, Tim, why don't you put another barrel on there?"

Picking up a second of the twin barreled pistols, Tammy couldn't help but feel these kinds of weapons wouldn't be fair for anyone to be on the wrong end of. "They are very light for how much death they could deal." She looked over at Anichka and drew back her lips for a feral grin. "Did you try making the other idea?"

"It's ludicrous." Walking to the end of the table, Tinpot lifted the two final pieces free of their leather holster. "They are heavy, and ugly, and are going to ruin someone's—well, a lot of people's day. Filled with more shot and powder than any other pistol we've made, these should work exactly how you asked."

"They're still lighter than I feared they might have been. You should try carrying Annie's rifles." Setting the shot-pistol down, Tammy started lifting up the leather holster and fitting it around her waist. The heavy buckle, she knew, would need to be tight for it to not shift too much.

"Trav also had us work on some leather dusters for you both to hide at least some of all this."

Reaching for one of the two leather vests, Anichka lifted it up and over her head, settled it into place, and started stocking it with pistols. "Three million gold. I guess it needs to be guarded, but this might be overkill."

"Would you trade the gold for anything?" Tammy was pulling on her own vest and reaching for pistols.

"Let me think. I have you, I have a friend who gives me guns, and I have a city full of people I trust. Nope." Each of the pistols needed to be tied to a string that was attached to the vest. Anichka adjusted the strings of woven leather so they were just long enough that she could hold the pistols with her arm fully extended and, when she let each go, they fell to hang around her thighs. "It's another job."

"You're doing better than I would. A million gold is enough to live like a noble for the rest of your life." Tinpot laughed and held out one of the dusters to Anichka. "Three? Three buys you both that and lets you be wasteful with it."

Gesturing to her chest, Tammy talked over Anichka's laughing. "Gold doesn't buy this and gold doesn't buy a city that accepts you for who you are. We've been looking for a while, and Northridge is for us."

"And now we have to leave it. But we'll be back." Anichka tugged the big duster coat around her shoulders and let it drape closed at the front. The leather was slightly stiffer there, hiding the bulges of the guns under it. "We can't afford to bump into anyone."

"If they're that close, and we don't trust them—" Tammy patted the belt she had the two shot-pistols in.

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Four wagons, each riding so low on their sprung axles that it was obvious the huge things were filled to the brim with something heavy. Each had four big horses yoked to them. There were two more wagons. The one at the front held a squad of Northridge soldiers, each having become a better-than-normal shot with their rifles. The one at the back only had one elf in it, and she was nervous.

Riding horses hadn't been something Tammy had ever found enjoyment in, but here and now she was given little choice. She looked over at Anichka and nodded. "You ready?"

"Yeah. What do we really know about that merchant at the rear?" Having a last minute addition was a little unsettling given their circumstances, and led to Anichka being on edge.

"Merchant. Rolled in about a week back with goods to sell. Trav purchased most of it. She's getting him a cannon."

"Really? We could have—" Anichka snapped her mouth closed as the wagons rolled forward and the merchant in question drew even with them. "Don't worry, ma'am. Nothing is stupid enough to mess with us."

Eliza was about to reply with something pithy and relaxed, when a shadow passed them. She didn't need to look up, but did anyway, and tried to pin down the fear before it showed on her face—not that it worked.

"You'll get used to Penelope," Anichka said. "Nicest dragon I've ever met." Clucking her tongue, she urged her horse to keep pace with Eliza's wagon.

"How many dragons have you met?" Eliza asked, the fear on her face tempered by morbid curiosity.

Laughing, Anichka gave her horse's neck a rub. "Just one!"

When she caught up to Anichka, Tammy reached out a hand so they could make physical contact. "You're being rough on her. She's just a merchant."

"She's also an outsider. I trust everyone in that city, who fought and bled and died with us. I trust the dungeons and everyone living in them. But, she's not part of Northridge." The feel of Tammy's hand in hers made Anichka smile, though. "It feels weird. I'd trust a beggar from Northridge more than I'd trust the King's Guard."

"That's nothing new. No one but the king trusts those assholes." Tammy winked at Anichka. "Come on, Annie, she's only a merchant. There's nothing dangerous about her."

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"I'll trust her to want every coin in our wagons. That's literally her life's calling, Tam." Tilting her head up, Anichka watched as Penelope swooped overhead again. Her confidence in Penelope was mostly real, but something about having a dragon overhead—a creature that was a predator of kin like her—made her want to find a cave somewhere and hide until she was gone. It made her statement about trusting everyone in the dungeon feel like a lie, but she still did. "Can we keep an eye on her anyway?"

"We don't need to, remember? Our job is to keep an eye out for highwaymen." Tammy rolled her shoulders and nodded forward. "We have about a month of travel ahead of us, regardless."

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Each morning, Eliza would wake from her own sleeping spot amid the tools in her wagon, walk up to where the soldiers were camped, and she'd share a meal and describe the roads ahead. She'd kept notes, of course, of the road. It always worked out well to know how to leave a town the fastest, and even if it wasn't as quick as riding a talisman, it was far less obvious. The big wagons that the dungeon had commissioned continued onward and she was right behind them.

It wasn't a huge leap for her to figure there was something heavy in them. They'd loaded each wagon out of sight of anyone she could bribe or beg. It was obvious what they'd be hauling. She wanted a look inside to be sure, of course, but four huge wagons full of adamantine were practically a king's ransom.

It took eleven days for them to cover the distance between Northridge and Far Reach. Once in the city, Eliza parted ways with the caravan and headed for an old warehouse that was used by her cover organization. The moment she was inside the large doors and her eyes had adjusted, she began speaking—a full report. She didn't know the person taking it down, but when they started hesitating at some of the wilder facts, she glared at them until they resumed writing. "And, where is my cannon?"

"It's probably at least a week out. The railway line is damaged, and they're hauling it here behind a cart."

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The news made its way to Tammy and Anichka a little later, once they arrived at the railway station in the city. "That will add over a week to this. Do we wait here for the railway to start running, or push on?" Tammy asked.

"We push on. There's nowhere to store this safely in the city, and if word gets out there are four heavy wagons sitting somewhere, prying eyes and grasping hands will come to investigate." Anichka hated the decision, but she'd been given strict instructions to keep the wagons moving. "Come on, let's get rolling."

With a quarter of the day remaining to them, they pushed out the south gate of Far Reach and headed deeper into the kingdom.

"At least the road's better," one of the cart drivers muttered around the campfire that evening. There was no more light but what their fire was putting out, but fully half the guards were seated around it eating the stew that'd been made.

"Tam?"

"Yeah, Annie?"

"Let's sleep on top of a wagon tonight." Anichka had been getting a strange feeling ever since leaving Far Reach. "I keep—"

"Feeling you're being watched?" The asker was the sergeant of the guard squad, Thomas Brave. "Got it too. I'm going to double the watch tonight. Holler if you hear anything."

It was hard to sleep, when Tammy and Anichka finally got comfortable on the flat, box roof of what was usually the second big wagon of their caravan. What was worse was waking up, with the moon overhead, to the sound of movement near the next wagon back.

Tammy raised a digit to her mouth and woke Anichka with one hand over her partner's mouth. They made eye-contact briefly, then each nodded. They were soon crawling slowly to the back of the wagon, each having opened up the front of their dusters, when a shout went up.

"Who goes there?!" one of the guards called.

The movement got louder, and the women shielded their eyes a moment as alchemical lights got tossed into the vicinity of the rear two wagons. There were ten men that Anichka could see, and she suspected more that she couldn't. "Brigands!"

Tammy was moving before Anichka shouted. Their rifles had been set beside them on the roof of the wagon, and she had the first checked and passed to Anichka in short order.

Weeks of shooting from a high wall had let Anichka get used to her guns. Even more practice with the new mithril ones let her fire the first round of the engagement and account for one brigand. The shout of shock from the attackers made her lips curl into a smile. "Next."

Taking the first rifle back, Tammy passed Anichka the second gun and she got to work priming the first one for her. "Use pistols until I've got this one ready."

Nodding, Anichka had a target-rich arc of fire. One of the brigands, who was shouting commands to the others to charge at the guards, fell to her next shot, just as the guards themselves started adding their own rifle shots.

When Tammy didn't have her third shot ready, Anichka drew a pistol from her vest, aimed, and fired first one shot, then squeezed the trigger a second time to fire another. "I like these. You ready, Tam?"

Tammy had barely finished loading the gun and passed it over. "How was the aim?"

"The pistol? Good, but there's some drop at this range." Anichka lifted the reloaded rifle to her shoulder, aimed down the sights and steadied her breathing, then fired again and passed it back. She drew another pistol while Tammy worked to reload, lining up another brigand who was taking cover from the guards shooting, but had left themselves wide open to her high-angle.

"Do they have guns at all?" Tammy asked.

"If they did, they're not using them." After the initial shots of the guards, they'd been mostly quiet. Anichka could assume they were reloading, and it was confirmed when shots other than her own started ringing out again.

A roar split the night, and then screams. Brigands started running in all directions, and Anichka was covering them to see if they might rally.

When a huge quadrupedal wolf stepped out from behind the wagon, its mouth dripping with gore and its big tail wagging, it was such a relief to Thomas. He was already thankful for Tammy and Anichka having the foresight to get some high ground, but when the idiots had opened a wagon and freed one of Travis' wolves, it had been a whole other problem for the attackers.

The commander of the guards looked around at the scene and let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, half of you, with me. The rest keep watch and try to not shoot us."

Tammy reloaded both the rifles and set them down beside Anichka, watching as her partner cleaned and reloaded her pistols. "The wolves were a good idea."

"And the lights. Lit them up nicely for me." Anichka waited for the all-clear, for the wolf to be loaded back in the wagon (after many pats from the guards), and for her own nerves to calm. "Nice work waking me, Tam."

Yawning, reaching for the covers, Tammy curled herself back up beside Anichka. "Mmm. I never thought I'd still be this sharp. After the constant shooting back in the siege, I got used to constant noise." When she poked her nose under the covers, Anichka was already asleep.

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