“You sure about this?” Jonkins’ voice indicated that he, himself, was anything but. Five days had passed since Jack had once more gained access to the contents of his laptop and phone, and they’d all been very busy.
“Just cover your ears,” Jack warned as he shouldered the heavy rifle. “There’s this thing called tinnitus that you do not want to learn about.” He’d long since stuffed his own ears with wadded cheesecloth gauze and wrapped a band of linen around his head with more of it folded several layers deep and clamped against the sides of his head in lieu of the earmuffs he’d need to make soon if he was going to keep up with this sort of business.
A dented rank eleven cuirass hung from a wooden cross on the far side of the testing ground, salvaged from the one of the bandits who no longer needed it, and canted to one side. The range was, Jack figured, around fifty yards, and they’d lined and stacked a number of wooden crates filled with sand behind the target. Just in case.
There were already several deep dents in the steel, despite having a mid-tier anti-piercing enchantment in its upgrade slot.
He sighted carefully down the irons and squeezed. The rifle went off with a thunderous boom!
Jack was rocked back by the heavy recoil in spite of having been braced for it, struggling to hold the muzzle from going completely vertical. He’d fired .50BMG rifles that were gentler. The wooden post rocked, and the cuirass jumped violently, ringing loud beneath the chamber’s roof.
“Damnation!” Jonkins exclaimed. After only five shots, he was already heartily tired of the noise, and each successive one seemed louder than the last. “And you say your folk use these things all the time?”
Jack nodded absently as he approached the target. “I used to consider a hundred rounds just an afternoon’s relaxation.”
He grinned wide when he’d closed to within three or four yards of his target. He could already see that the half inch bullet had gone through the breastplate. Looked clean, too.
“Here it is!” he called before realizing Jonkins had followed him. “Here it is,” he repeated in a more conversational tone, which nonetheless bore considerable excitement.
The heavy conical bullet had gone through the breastplate with barely a divot and lodged its entire length in the back plate, although it hadn’t... wait a minute, Jack leaned in and peered closely at the dent from the outside. “The armor caught it,” he said, “but it cracked the steel. Any ideas what that would equate to, rankwise?”
Jonkins was shaking his head in wonderment. Had he not just seen the results of Jackson’s creation with his own eyes, he’d not have believed such a thing was possible. To think that something built by a simple blacksmith could do this to lower mid-ranked enchanted armor. He leaned in beside the hero and examined the deformation. “You’re asking what rank monster you’d be able to kill with that thing?”
Jack nodded again.
“Depend on the monster,” Jonkins scrubbed at his chin. “But probably upwards of rank twenty, I’d hazard.”
“About what I thought,” Jack nodded. “Still....”
“You’re not thinking of loading it even heavier, are you, you lunatic?” Jonkins croaked.
“Not right away,” Jack shook his head. “I mean, I’m pretty sure the heat treat on the action is good for more pressure, but not completely sure. Given that, I think I’d rather not be holding it when we test with a heavier load.
“I’m thinking we build a stand to clamp it down to, hide behind something stout, and pull the trigger with a long string. You know, just in case.”
They weren’t using black powder, so Jack was playing it by ear with the loads, working up slowly. When Albrechtus the alchemist had seen the formulae on Jack’s laptop, he’d chuckled and shaken his head. Apparently, pyrotechnic agents on Mund hadn’t followed exactly the same trajectory as they had on Earth.
He’d instead come up with, once he’d recognized what properties Jack had been after, a few different concoctions that he’d claimed would give the charges more power at a lesser pressure and a cleaner burn. Which claim he’d followed by rattling off a long list of calculations and ingredients that had made Jack’s head start spinning.
Jack had simply listened, nodded, and started carefully working up loads from laughably safe to mildly dangerous. And finally, today, relatively dangerous. He figured he could tiptoe towards reasonably dangerous and make heavier bullets go faster, but he’d need to fix the guns to some sort of mount if he expected anybody but mid-ranked gifted to be able to handle them. And he had plans.
“Okay, he said with a grin. “Once more to see if it’s repeatable, or if we just hit a soft spot. Hey, you want a go?”
Jonkins shook his head so violently he nearly dislodged his nose.
“Sissy,” Jack laughed as he eared back the hammer and pressed a percussion cap down over the nipple.
* * *
Jack rode cautiously, allowing Ebon to pick his pace through the waist high grass while Chi ranged ahead, high up where she could scan the terrain. He was already wearing his armor. They were actively looking for trouble this time, and he wanted to be ready when they found it.
Chi? She was back in her devil girl outfit. She claimed it was better suited to her style of battle than anything Mundian she’d acquired during her stay. He just hoped she’d bothered with panties this time. He didn’t need any distractions. She’d ditched the drugand’s jagged backed sword and was carrying a rank twenty-five glaive Jonkins had scared up somewhere.
They’d been at it all day, and were well to the west of Mokkelton, nearly to the county border, scouting north of the highway. Just the two of them. Three, if one took Ebon into account. Tiarraluna had demurred; not quite ready to bury the hatchet. Or possibly, yet too ready to bury one where it might not belong.
Bob had made himself scarce before they’d finished eating breakfast, claiming the rifle hurt his ears. Sometimes Bob forgot that Jack knew he wasn’t really a dog. Jack hadn’t believed him for a minute, of course, but hadn’t pressed. Truth be told, it was nice to get clear of the gabby godling once in awhile.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The crew of the warding wagon from Perrynton had reported an attack by creatures Jonkins had later identified as rock rams as they’d been about their business of refreshing the wards along the highway between their city and Mokkelton. Which, much to Jack’s surprise, was a thing cities did periodically despite the capitol having abandoned them.
The highway’s wards, combined with those worked into the wagon itself, had kept the creatures at bay, but not before they’d breached the roadway itself and injured one of the guards, all of whom were ungifted. The monsters had to be dealt with, and quickly.
A bounty had immediately been sworn out. Three rock rams, fifteen gold rondels, guaranteed. An additional five rondels would be added for each additional ram, if any such existed. Jack had jumped on it with both feet, and not for the gold.
Jack watched Chi fly and strained to scan his surroundings with Detect Life. For such large creatures, the rock rams had left surprisingly little trail, and the two of them had yet to see any sign. They were well past where the teamsters had reported their encounter.
Chi suddenly broke left and dove. She leveled out just high enough he could still see her, gliding in a wide circle before climbing once again and waving her glaive. She’d found them.
Jack looked hurriedly around. This wasn’t an ideal location to face off against creatures that were supposed to be the size of buffalo and armored like APCs. He wanted some high ground, or at least a good sized rock to hide behind. She was waving again and moving east. He noted the direction of her path and the glaive’s blade, and turned Ebon to follow, giving him his heels.
They met up at a break in the prairie she’d noted earlier in their search. “This okay?” she asked Jack as he rode up.
He looked around. “How many’d you see?”
“Four,” she said. “According to Identify, they’re ranks twenty-six up to twenty-nine. Looks like a great ram, a juvenile ram, and two ewes.”
He nodded. “What can you do with the ewes? If you need to?”
She laughed. “With working wings and without the collar?” she flashed an alarmingly fangy smile. “Sweetie, I can take them all out without breaking a sweat.”
He gave her an eye. “Don’t.”
She shrugged, still grinning. “You asked.”
“Can you give me some rough ground to work with?” he wondered. They’d spoken of many things over the past week, but hadn’t delved all that deeply into her elemental capabilities.
“I can probably raise you a dirt barricade to hide behind,” she said. “But it’ll only be dirt, not rock. And I don’t think those things will be overly inconvenienced by a dirt wall.”
He was going through his memory of the entry in the bestiary Jonkins had shown them. The things were the size of a buffalo, powerful, fast, and could jump like big assed rabbits. Fine. He looked to Ebon. “This is going to be loud. You probably want to get some distance. But keep your eyes open. You see me wave, you get your hairy butt back here on the double. I’m not about to stand a charge if I don’t stop them a good ways off.”
The spirit snorted and trotted off southward.
“Okay,” he said, twisting the spike of a shooting stick into the ground before him. “Go bring ‘em in.”
“Go bring ‘em in, what?” she smiled mock sweetly.
He looked up from the stick. “Go bring them in, please,” he growled.
“You’re adorable when you’re grumpy,” she said as she took to the air.
He finished screwing the shooting stick into the ground and laid the forearm of the rifle in the fork at its top, testing for height. Nodding, he grounded the butt and reached into the shooting bag he’d had made in Mokkelton. He brought out six of the paper cartridges he’d prepared back at the guild hall. Five of them went into open topped pockets sewn to the outside of the bag, and the sixth, he loaded into the chamber.
Percussion caps, he kept in a separate pouch, given his reluctance to inadvertently blow himself up. They were a bigger problem, being both more difficult to stage, and orders of magnitude more fiddly. The examples he’d had Smitan cobble together for him had tabs on them, like little cup handles. The tabs slid through slits in the shooting bag’s strap, where the ends could be folded up to hold them in place. To use them, all he had to do was grab the body of the cap and pull it clear.
It remained to be seen whether this would work out in practice. Or, more accurately, in combat, since he’d been practicing plenty. After all, it hadn’t been done on Earth during the age of the caplock, and they must’ve had their reasons. But he figured it was good enough for the small scale they were operating at.
He could see Chi in the distance, diving and climbing, waving the glaive about. She was getting closer. He brought the rifle to half cock and capped the nipple. Now all he could do was wait.
He took a cloth from his belt pouch and wiped his forehead. He’d never been much for big game hunting. None of that African safari stuff he’d read about in the gun magazines. Biggest thing he’d ever taken was an elk, and it had just been standing there, not charging him. Unaccountably, he wondered what rock ram tasted like.
Chi vanished behind a hillock, and when she rose up again, there was a big grey locomotive hot on her tail. It leapt into the air and nearly brushed her trailing foot. That had to have been a forty foot jump! Chi executed a barrel roll and smacked it on the nose with the butt of her glaive before soaring once more.
Jack could see the great ram clearly now, along with the juvenile. It was bigger than he’d expected. No sign of the ewes yet. He wasn’t going to wait. He laid the rifle’s forearm in the fork of the shooting stick, took his stance, and sighted down the fine peep. He’d initially meant to start shooting closer in. He hadn’t exactly gotten his DOPE sorted for long distances. But those things were really moving, and he wasn’t in any mood to be trampled.
He made his best guess at bullet drop based on what his smart phone app had predicted, and squeezed. The rifle thundered and the barrel lifted clear of the shooting stick. He was working the action even as the barrel fell back, giving the chamber a good blow to clear any sparks before jamming the next cartridge in and slamming the action closed. He was squeezing the cap onto the nipple as he looked back up.
The juvenile had stumbled and gone down, thrashing. One shot hadn’t been quite enough. But it was no longer charging, so he set his sights on the great ram and squeezed the trigger. The rifle thundered once more.
Something was wrong with his eyes, and he felt dizzy. He struggled through the reloading process, his stomach churning. What the hell was going on?
Once more reloaded, he beheld the great ram. It was almost on him! A great, bloody splotch marred the grey pelt just below its massive head. Less drop, then. He squeezed the trigger.
The next time he looked up, the rock ram was just standing there, about thirty yards out, head hanging. It took a faltering step and collapsed. Jack stared at it for a good thirty seconds, throat dry, hands shaking. Hell, his whole body was shaking, and he felt kind of faint.
He looked past the bulk of the dead rock ram and saw Chi standing beside the juvenile, finishing it off with her glaive. Job done, she took wing and joined him.
“You look awful,” she said worriedly once she’d landed. “Are you alright?”
“No,” he answered shakily. “Something’s wrong.”
“They weren’t that scary,” she chided, looking nervous.
He shook his head. “They were, but it’s more than that. I dunno. It’s like... I think I need to sit down.”
Chi grew concerned. She took the heavy rifle and laid it aside as Jack all but collapsed to the ground where he stood, shaking like a leaf. “Here,” she said, withdrawing a canteen from her bag and passing it to him. “Drink something.” she put a hand on his forehead as he took the canteen. “You’re burning up!” she exclaimed. “What did you do?”
Ebon came trotting up without having to be called while Chi was trying unsuccessfully to determine what might be wrong. At a loss, she helped Jack up into the saddle and lashed him in. With a quick glance over her shoulder towards the rams, she turned back towards him. “Just hold on, sweetie,” she crooned. “I’ll be right behind you.” To Ebon, she ordered, “get him back to town and to the wizard as quickly as you can. I’ll follow as soon as I clean up here.”