#61 - This Scorching Antique!

Teel clutched his mug of steaming hot tea and squinted at these horribly active young men and women as they broke camp, but left their bags piled on the ground sheets for a short round of target practice.

Once the Horse Guard stopped for the night it was too dark for any such thing and they did their training in momentary increments in the morning, around breakfast and breaking camp.

Teel’s own kit was already to be strapped behind his saddle but the Captain was beckoning him up to the line scratched in the snow.

“You have a musketoon, M’sieu?”  How polite.

“My uncle’s, M’sieu.”

“Would you be willing to lend it to His Honour Ahrimaz?”

Ahrimaz looked startled at that.  Of course, as Emperor he’d never had to think of buying or inheriting a weapon.

“Certainly, Captain.”  He drew it and offered Ahrimaz both it and the powerhorn.

“Thank you, M’sieu,” he said, not at all absently, and took it.  “What do you want me to shoot," he asked the Captain.

A man-sized paper was being tacked to a tree close by and the Cylak, all with their bows, leaned back against their packed bags and just watched. The Captain waved a fur mitten at it.  "That."

Ahrimaz expertly rammed a charge home, raised an eyebrow at being offered a ball as ammunition and set the round home, raised the short barreled carbine across his forearm to brace it.  The flint rasped and the gun boomed, the hole in the target in the left abdomen.

It is astonishing that he hit anything with a strange weapon, especially a muskatoon.  The Captain hid her astonishment well and then clamped her jaw tight as Ahrimaz thrust the empty weapon back in Teel’s direction and snarled at her.  “So you’ve hazed me and found I can fire an antique like that.  Give me something that my grandfather wouldn’t recognize!”

“M’sieu,” Teel said mildly.  “That is the finest weapon out of the gun shops of Innéthel and I’ll thank you not to impugn my family’s bequest to me!”  The finely carved walnut stock and the tooled brass bit into his hand, even through the palm of his mitten as his hand clenched.

Ahrimaz stared at Teel and then at the Captain who nodded at her soldiers -- who presented arms with a ‘crack’.  He stared at the snap locks and flint locks and matchlocks, flared muzzles and 'tulip-stem' barrels... stared at them all.  “You don’t have smokeless powder?  What the scorch are you doing?  You distill mineral spirits don’t you?”

“Smokeless powder?  What are you talking about?”

Teel ran the cleaning cloth into the barrel of his weapon, quite glad that his own marksmanship wasn’t being called into question.  “I believe that there might be some difference between the worlds when it comes to military invention, Captain.”

Everyone looked at Teel, who shrugged.  “It makes sense.  Empire.  Wars… lots of military spending.  Here our last war was nearly fifteen years ago.”

The Captain shook her head.  “Scorch my precious pink ass.  Gunsmith!”  The man presented himself with a snap of his bootheels.  “We’re setting out now, you lot,” she snapped.  “Ahrno, you ride next to this Ahrimaz of ours and ask him everything he knows about carbines and musketoons in his world.  Scorching antiques? All day if you have to.  All tomorrow or as long as he knows ANYTHING you don’t, clear?”

“As ice on the river, Cap.”

“Good.  We don’t really have time for this nonsense." Ahrimaz bowed to the Captain and to James, both.  "Teel, I did not mean to insult you or your family.”

“No insult taken.” He coughed and holstered his carbine in its saddle holster, swung up on the borrowed horse.  “If you need, this antique is at your service, M’sieu!”  He resolved to ride just behind Ahrimaz and the gunsmith in the hopes of hearing their conversation.

“Teel…” Ahrimaz stared at him and Pel clapped him on the shoulder to encourage him to move.  “Later.  We have leagues to go today.”

“And several days thereafter, M’sieu.  Look, Ahrimaz, just keep telling us about this stuff from your world, all right?  You don’t need to take it personally that we haven’t developed the same things at the same rate.”

“Blast.  You’re right.”

The coronshion thundered ahead into scouting position and everyone was now mounted.  A whistle and they moved.  “Urgent,” Ahrimaz said in an almost dazed voice.  “This is urgent and it’s why we’re freezing our nethers off in this snow!”

“Introduce me when we meet them, hmmm?”

“Ass.”

“Thank you.”