He needed Jasak to stand between them and the rest of Arcana, beginning with the men in those bleachers. And truth be told, he liked Jasak. They were enemies, yet in an odd way he also regarded Jasak as a friend. Not a confidante. That was impossible. Nor did Jathmar feel the same easy camaraderie that he’d shared with his fellow survey crewmen. That, too, was impossible.
But Jathmar knew he could rely on Jasak Olderhan. He’d seen enough of Jasak’s interactions with superior officers, during “conversations” where he and Shaylar had been the sole subject of discussion, to know nothing would cause Jasak to deviate from the protection he offered. Watching Jasak’s father and even-or perhaps especially-his mother had merely reinforced Jathmar’s inclination to trust Jasak Olderhan’s word.
Those parents had raised the man who’d courteously but firmly refused every threat, bribe, and offer made in demand of turning them over to the speaker of the moment, in a dizzying and depressingly long line of speakers and tense moments. And that mother had descended upon the court-martial board which had traumatized Shaylar like the gods’ own wrath because Jasak had given his prisoners his word that he and his would protect them from anything. Whatever else might happen, Jathmar trusted Jasak Olderhan’s word, in a world where he could trust no one and nothing else.
So he’d gone to Jasak’s apartments and carefully and correctly taught him how to safely load, fire, and chamber a new round to fire again until convinced that Jasak could perform the drill on his own-safely-with a live-fire demonstration.
And so it was Jasak who strode out to the shooting bench on Fort North Hathak’s target range. Fortunately for him, there was very little breeze today, so he wouldn’t have to contend with bullet drift caused by high gusting winds. It had snowed a little overnight, but the sky was perfectly clear now.
Jathmar watched Sogbourne with a sense of intense satisfaction. The true danger this morning hadn’t been the threat of arming a prisoner in the presence of senior officers. It had been the inadequacy of High Hathak’s shooting range.
Its earthen berms were built to stop arbalest bolts, which had a maximum range of no more than eight hundred yards even from the Arcanan Army’s spell-assisted weapons. They were, to put it mildly, insufficient to stop heavy rifle bullets from a weapon with a maximum range which was four or five times that.
The look of horror on the faces of the Arcanan officers when Jathmar explained the problem during the questioning yesterday had been grimly satisfying.
“A mile?” Sogbourne had gasped. “Your hand-held weapons can kill a man a mile away?”
“There are some rifles that can take down a target even father away than that. Actually, the maximum range of the most recent rifles is as much as three miles, but I’ve never met anyone who could actually hit a target at that range. On the other hand, there are specially tuned weapons-we call them ‘sniper rifles’-which can hit a man-sized target at two thousand yards,” he’d added.
“‘Sniper’?” the count had repeated the Sharonian word carefully.
Jathmar had enjoyed that reaction, as well.
“Yes. The men who use them are called snipers. Their job is to find a vantage point like a branch in a tree or a spot partway up a rocky hillside or on top of a cliff. Once hidden, they locate and shoot specific targets-high ranking officers, artillery crews, soldiers who are particularly effective on a battlefield, or even visiting civilian dignitaries.”
He’d met horrified stares with a cool, level gaze and let the protests roll off his back.
“That’s murder!”
“It’s barbaric!”
“As barbaric as burning a man to death?” He’d raised an eyebrow. “I assure you, from personal experience, I’d far rather be shot from a mile away by a trained sniper than roasted alive.”
The silence in the courtroom had been profound, to say the least. If they’d expected him to be cowed they’d been grievously disappointed. He hadn’t been rude. He hadn’t been aggressive. He hadn’t even been belligerent. But he wasn’t going to roll belly up and let them eviscerate him, either-not yesterday and not ever. Pride was damned near all he had left.
Wringing sweat from the officers of Jasak Olderhan’s court-martial board was a fair accomplishment for a man figuratively in chains. As for the weapons demonstration, Jathmar had suggested stacking up piles of sandbags to strengthen the range’s berms, and now he felt a stir of satisfaction as he noted how high and deep the soldiers of Fort North Hathak had piled them. The targets they’d be using were, according to Jasak, standard military arbalest targets, and the range officer had set up a series of them at varying distances to demonstrate the effective ranges of both the handguns and the rifles.
Now Jasak picked up a scissor-action rifle and carefully loaded it with one round. He used great care in following the drill Jathmar had taught him, loading the tube-fed magazine through the loading gate, working the action to chamber the round, releasing the safety, lifting and anchoring the buttplate in the pocket of his shoulder, aligning the sights and carefully, gently squeezing the trigger.
Jathmar heard a faint mechanical click.
That was all.
Jasak stood uncertainly where he was, not sure what to do next. He glanced over one shoulder, carefully keeping the muzzle pointed down range.
“Jathmar? What happened? What did I do wrong?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, genuinely baffled. “From what I could see, you didn’t do anything wrong. Work the action to eject the cartridge, then lay the rifle on the firing bench and bring me the cartridge case.”
Jasak nodded and followed his instructions meticulously. When Jasak handed him the unfired cartridge, Jathmar frowned. So did Shaylar, peering past his shoulder.
“That’s odd,” she said, gazing down at the cartridge on his palm.
“Yes. It is.” Jathmar scratched the back of his neck. “I’m damned if I can figure it out.”
The firing pin had punched a neat divot in the primer cup, a small metal cup inserted into the base of the cartridge case. Just as it should have done. But the primer had failed to ignite the powder.
“Maybe there was no priming compound in the cup?” Shaylar suggested.
“Maybe.” Jathmar was dubious, despite its being the likeliest explanation. Their ammunition was one thing on which Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl had refused to cut corners when it came down to supplying his crew. Ternathian Imperial Armory case-stamp was the only ammunition he’d allowed them to carry. And Jathmar frowned as he met Shaylar’s perplexed gaze.
“If this was one of those fly-by-night Uromathian brands, slopped together by a manufacturer more interested in profits than turning out a reliable product, I’d suspect something like that. But this is Ternathian Imperial Armory.
“It’s the civilian case-stamp, not the military, but I’ve never-not once-seen a TIA cartridge misfire. Neither had Ghartoun. That’s why he insisted we carry it. Even Barris Kassell agreed, and he’d been in the military before he joined our crew. That’s why most survey crews carry TIA cartridges and reloading supplies: primer cups, powders, and bullets.”
“Well, something went wrong, love,” she pointed out practically, and he nodded.
“Yes, it did,” he agreed, and turned back to Jasak. “Pull five rounds of the correct caliber from five separate boxes of ammunition, Jasak, just to be sure we haven’t got a bad batch. If the rifle doesn’t fire, work the action to eject the cartridge and pull the trigger again.”
Commander of Twenty-Thousand Sogbourne stared intently at Jathmar.
“You think like a soldier,” he said.
“A soldier?” Jathmar echoed. “Hardly, Sir. I don’t know the first thing about the military. Faltharia doesn’t even have an army. We’ve never needed one,” he added, as shock detonated in Sogbourne’s eyes-and Jasak Olderhan’s, as well. Jathmar shrugged. “I’m a good outdoorsman, is all. I’ve spent most of my life in wild country, whether it was a major wildlife park on Sharona or the wilderness of a barely settled or newly discovered universe at the frontier. When your life depends on attention to your equipment, you’re careful with everything related to the weapons you count on. You develop the same careful habits I’ve seen in Hundred Olderhan when it comes to caring for and using a tool as important as a sword and arbalest…or a rifle.”