A Perverted Path to Victory

Keo

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The wood beneath his palms was slick with sweat. His fingers wriggled as they tried to find a good grip, but nothing he changed made it comfortable. Miss Evie’s voice floated into his right ear, calm and reassuring.

“Keep your wrist straight. No, straighter. Better. Hold that position. Good. Now pull the trigger.”

Keo nearly leapt out of his skin as the pistol bucked, sparks falling painfully on his bare skin. Though he’d been squeezing it as tightly as he could, the weapon flew out of his too-small fingers, landing in the mud behind him. He yelped and shook his hands to clear them of the white-hot specks.

“That hurt!” He whined. He knew he was whining, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to whine when he was doing what an adult told him what to do, but he couldn’t help it. That had hurt!

Ignoring the gun that had fallen in the mud, Evie took his wrist in her hand with a gentle touch, pursing her lips.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize even a reduced powder charge would cause you pain. Are you alright?”

Keo looked at her with total confusion. Why did she care? Miss Hurlish was nice, but he’d heard Da and his friends talk about Miss Evie when they drank beer together and it was past when Keo was supposed to be asleep. They said she was a noble that became a Warrior, just another evil murderer that killed people for fun. But she wasn’t acting like that. Not around him, anyway.

“Well?” She asked, still keeping a light touch on his wrist. “Was it the recoil that hurt? Or was it the sparks? I saw some land on you, correct?”

He took his arm out of her grip, wiping his sniffling nose with the back of a hand. “It didn’t hurt that bad. I’m fine.”

“If it hurt enough that you dropped the pistol, it’s a problem. I thought the reduced powder load would make it easy enough for you to handle, but apparently not. However,” she stood from her kneeling position, gesturing ahead, “you did hit your target. Good job.”

The edge of the road was a bad place to be for this, Keo thought. Kids weren’t allowed to get near the jungle because of all the bad animals that lived there, and most adults would have been yelling at him to get back. Not Miss Evie. She had brought him right up to the edge of the trees, presenting him with a pistol and a pile of dirt supporting a straw-stuffed pillow, one which now had a small hole in the cloth. She had said that he should be able to protect himself since she couldn’t be with him all the time, which was why she was showing him how to shoot. Keo didn’t know who would be hurting him while his Da was still away though, so he really didn’t like having to do all this.

“Why can’t you show me how to use a sword like my Ma’s?” He asked. “I remember her showing me it a few times and she was really good with it. Even let me hold it and try to swing it, and it didn’t hurt me at all. Why can’t you teach me that?”

“I certainly can, if you’d like.”

Keo blinked. That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. His Da had always said an eight year old boy had no business learning how to fight. That fighting was what had gotten Ma killed, and Keo had better never learn a thing about it.

“In fact, I’d already planned to,” Evie continued. “But it would take too much time for you to achieve the level of skill required for self-defense. We will begin training for that particular form of combat only once I’m confident you know how to handle a pistol.”

Keo bent and picked up the gun. The iron front part was still hot to the touch, so he made sure to grab it by the wooden bits. He wasn’t so sure Miss Evie understood what she was doing. The gun was heavy and hard to use. He had to grip it with both hands and use both his thumbs to pull the hammer down, pushing so hard he shook, and it had also taken him forever to get the powder and bullet down the barrel. It didn’t make any sense for him to be trying to use it.

“Why are you teaching me this, Miss Evie?” He handed her the gun, turning it to hide the muddy side from her. “Are you going to give me one of my own?”

“Oh, no, of course not.” Evie slipped the pistol into her belt. He let out a sigh of relief that she’d missed the muddy mess he’d made. “My wives would never let you carry a firearm around with you, no matter how well I had trained you. But if you are to live with us, you will be around guns at almost all times. Even if you aren’t allowed to so much as touch them, I would rather you understand enough of their functions to not make a dangerous mistake should the worst come to pass.”

Keo frowned. Miss Evie had a weird way of talking, like she didn’t really understand how to say words properly, but she always used such fancy ones. He could barely understand her half the time. After spending a while trying to figure out exactly what she meant, he instead asked her the question that was first in his mind.

“So I’m not going to get my own pistol?”

She smiled kindly. It looked weird on her face. Not because it looked like she was pretending to be happy, but because it looked like she really did mean it. Well, her face always looked weird, what with the way it looked like someone had cut her head in half then not paid close enough attention as they glued it back together, but really, though. The happy smile was the weirdest part. Miss Evie didn’t seem like the type of adult that should be smiling like that.

“Hurlish will make you a smaller pistol that’s easier to handle. We will use it for practice, but you won’t be allowed to carry it freely. As for a sword, I will have to consult with my wives to see if they will allow you to carry one. I doubt they will, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” Keo looked at her doubtfully. “Why do you have to ask them? Aren’t you in charge?”

Evie laughed. “Hardly! If you’d known the path I took to get here, you’d find the idea as comical as I do.”

Keo didn’t think that made sense. As far as he could tell, Miss Hurlish and Miss Sara did whatever Miss Evie told them to do. But maybe that wasn’t the kind of ‘in charge’ she was talking about? Adults loved to change their minds about what a word meant.

“Come now,” Evie said, offering Keo her hand. “Let’s return to the forge so that your evening’s lessons can begin. We wouldn’t want to keep Hurlish waiting, would we?”

Keo put his hands in hers, letting himself be guided back toward the army. He looked at the pistol in her other hand, its right side covered in mud from him dropping it, and frowned. He was supposed to be honest, and they were being nice by taking care of him while his Da was away. Besides, if she hadn’t noticed the mess, she definitely would later.

“...I’m sorry for dropping that, Miss,” he said, looking down. “I know it’s expensive, but I can work for the cleaning money.”

Evie glanced at him, confused. Then she touched the pistol at her hip, eyebrows raising. “The pistol? There’s no need to worry about that. It’s only wood and iron. I was already going to show you how to clean it later this evening.”

“I wouldn’t want to mess it up again, Miss.”

“If you ‘messed it up’ while I was teaching you how to handle it, the fault would be mine alone.”

“My Da said—”

“Yes, yes, your father would have said something repulsive, I’m sure,” Evie interrupted. “He is not here. I am. And I am far more capable of both accepting blame and offering forgiveness than your father ever was.”

“Oh.” He thought that over for a minute. They were still holding hands as they walked through the camp, and several soldiers looked at them, saying things to each other. They always hurried off real quick-like when Miss Evie looked their way, though he could never quite see what sort of face she was making at them. Finally, as they reached the forge, Keo looked back up at Miss Evie once more. “Did you not like my Da, ma’am?”

“I did not.” Her response was sharp, brittle, and she gave it straight away. “In fact, I find myself rather impressed that you speak so fondly of him. I worry that you’re too kind for your own good.”

“He used to be better,” Keo explained, not for the first time. “Before my Ma died. He was a lot nicer back then.”

Miss Evie’s voice stayed cold. “That is no excuse. He married a soldier. He should have been prepared for the possibility of her death. If her passing produced that behavior from him… Well. I have no sympathy.”

“Some of Da’s friends said it was an excuse, though,” Keo argued. He didn’t like arguing with adults, but Miss Evie seemed to want to know everything she could about his Da, so he kept going, even as it made him more nervous. “They said that he would get better, that it was just a tempo… temporar… Um. That he wouldn’t be like that forever.”

“Did they?” Miss Evie peered down at him, a strange look on her face as they entered the forge. “There were people aware of your father’s behavior that did nothing about it? Do you remember their names, or perhaps what part of the camp they stay in?”

“Don’t,” a booming voice called, “answer that question, Keo.”

Miss Hurlish was in the middle of working the portable forge’s bellows, flaring the recently-lit coals to a bright glow. She released the handle and dusted her hands off as Keo walked up with Miss Evie. Aside from the green-cloaked guards that he’d long since stopped paying attention to, they were the only ones in the little circle of forging equipment.

“And Evie,” Hurlish added, “don’t go doing what you’re thinking about doing.”

“But-”

“Not without talking to us about it, alright?”

“Hm. Fine.” Miss Evie released Keo’s hand, holding up the pistol Keo had dropped. “He wasn’t able to handle a weapon of this caliber. You’ll have to make him something more appropriate for his age and size.”

Miss Hurlish’s eyes widened. “You let him shoot a gun?”

“Of course,” Miss Evie sniffed. “I won’t have him be undefended if I am at all able to help it.”

“That’s what the guards are for, y’know.” Hurlish approached Evie, bending down to kiss the top of her head in greeting before turning to Keo. “Well, what’d you think?”

“What did I think of what?” He asked.

“Shooting the gun. Since you already gave it a shot, I might as well hear about it.”

Miss Evie spoke up. “The recoil seemed to be slightly beyond his present ability to handle, and the crystal’s sparks landed-”

“Wasn’t talking to you, babe.” Miss Hurlish knelt down, doing her best to get even with Keo’s face, though she was still a bit too tall. “So how was it, Keo? Was it fun to shoot?”

He screwed up his face, thinking. “Um, not really. It hurt pretty bad, and I got it all dirty in the mud when I dropped it. I’m sorry about that.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I build ‘em to deal with some wear and tear, so they’re supposed to get dirty. How’d it fit in your hand?”

“It seemed rather awkward-” Evie began again.

Miss Hurlish reached up and grabbed her wife’s chin, forcefully shutting her mouth, then nodded for him to speak. Keo looked nervously between the two women, unsure of what they were doing, but decided he better come up with an answer.

“It was too big. I had to use both hands, and I couldn’t really get my finger on the trigger that easy. And that bit at the top, the curved part-”

“The hammer?”

“Yeah, the hammer. It was real hard to push down. And like I said, I ended up dropping it when I actually pulled the trigger.”

“Alright. Good to know.” Miss Hurlish released her wife’s chin, standing up. Keo noticed that Miss Evie’s tail was real low to the ground, swinging from side to side as she stared at Hurlish. He wondered what that meant. Miss Hurlish cracked her knuckles, squinting into the distance as she thought aloud. “Probably gonna do a small caliber. Emcotton rounds, ‘course. About six millimeters, maybe? Ought to finally decide on standardizing a low-calibre round, really. Might have to do some penetrative tests, since it’s at least gotta be good enough for small game and stuff.” She looked down at Keo, grinning. “Alright. Ready to get some work done?”

He looked up at Miss Evie, then at Hurlish, then back to Evie. “Um, I don’t know. Am I supposed to be going with her or with you?”

Evie smiled gently. “I’d expected that you would enjoy returning to your lessons in the forge, but if you’d prefer to return to pistol firing lessons, I could make the time for it.”

I get a choice? That’s weird.

While he thought it over, Keo found himself rubbing his sore wrist. Maybe the gun shooting stuff was a bigger deal, but he wasn’t any good at it. He’d spent a lot more time helping Miss Hurlish in the forge.

“I’ll stay here,” he decided. “I’m a lot better at helping with the blacksmithing than I am shooting a gun.”

“That is what the practice is for, you know,” Evie said. “But I am not trying to pressure you toward one decision or another. I’ll leave you to your work, Keo.” She stepped toward Hurlish, giving the way-bigger woman a kiss, which always looked very silly every time he’d seen her do it. Miss Hurlish had to basically bow down like she was talking to a noble in order to get her head in front of Evie’s face.

Evie departed shortly after, leaving Keo alone with Miss Hurlish. The forge was pretty empty, he realized. None of the other kids had shown up.

“Where is everyone?”

“Told ‘em I’d be too busy today.” Hurlish moved back to the bellows, giving them a few hard pumps. “Which was kinda true. Gonna be doing some stuff that I can’t really let other people see.” Once satisfied that the coals were hot enough, she went over to a locked chest and slipped a key in, popping it open. She plucked a few pieces of metal from the interior, then tossed one underhand to Keo. “Here, catch.”

The piece was small enough that he nearly lost track of it in midflight, which meant he only managed to catch it when he felt it bounce off his chest, slapping his hands over the metal before it could fall.

He held it up, squinting. It didn’t look all that special. A bit of curved metal maybe a couple centimeters thick with a hole poked through one side, the opposite end having a little tooth that stuck out. It had a crystal there, he noticed. Not the quartz stuff that most people used for firestarters or what not, but one of the fancy red ones he didn’t know the name of.

“What is it?” He asked.

“The hammer of your gun. Can’t let many people around here while I work with this type of stuff, since it’s hardened steel. Tulian’s the only place in the world that can make something like what you’re holding right now.”

“Really?” He bounced the hammer in his palm. It didn’t look anything like a normal hammer you used for nails, but that wasn’t too surprising. More dumb adult word stuff. She probably meant the kind of hammer that went on a gun. “It doesn’t look like anything special. ‘Cept for the red bit here.”

“May not look all that different, but that’s dang good steel, tempered and case-hardened, with a ruby spark crystal instead of quartz. Remember how I told you about how iron becomes steel when it has a certain amount of carbon in it?”

“Yeah?”

Miss Hurlish grabbed up some extra stuff from inside the chest, then closed and locked it. “You sure you remember? How much carbon do you need to have in the iron for it to start becoming steel?”

Keo bit his lip, thinking hard. He liked watching and helping in the forge, but lately Miss Hurlish had been trying to teach him the hard stuff, the kind of work that needed you to understand a bunch of numbers. He didn’t really enjoy that kind of learning, even if she said he had to try anyway.

“Um… zero dot two percents of carbon, but not more than… two percents?”

“Close enough.” Hurlish walked over and knelt down, spreading her palm to show him a whole bunch of loose parts. “The cores of these pieces here are as close as I could get to having zero point two five percent carbon content. Decent steel, but not all that special. I had to do some extra complicated stuff to them to get them hard enough to handle the type of pistol I wanted them to be used on.”

“So that’s why you’re not allowing anyone to come see you work today?”

“Yup. I may like teaching the kids around here, but I gotta have some secrets, don’t I?”

Keo glanced around nervously. “So… should I leave, too?”

One of Miss Hurlish’s big hands ruffled his hair as she laughed. “Nah. Today you get to see all the special stuff that no one else gets to, and we’re gonna start with this: can I see your hand?”

“Sure?” He offered her his hand. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Just see how big I should make your gun,” she assured him. She placed a few of the pieces in his hand, one by one, then nodded to herself. “Alright. Don’t have to change too much, I think. Can ya keep a secret, Keo?”

He nodded solemnly.

“Good. This here?” She produced a tool from one of her belt pouches. It looked like something the carpenters around camp used for shaving wood down a few pieces at a time, but it was made of some weird black stuff instead of normal iron. “This is called blacksteel. It’s just about invincible, and it’s probably the most expensive thing you’ve ever been this close to. Most people only use it for big bad swords and crap, but that’s ‘cause they’re not as strong as me. I turned this bit of blacksteel into a chisel, and it’s my secret little trick.”

That was a lot to think about. He looked at the chisel, trying to find something special about it, but it really did just look like a normal tool that had been dipped in black paint. “What’s so secret about it?”

“The tool itself?” Miss Hurlish shrugged. “Not much, really. No way I’m the first one to turn blacksteel into a chisel. But what makes it interesting is what I can do with it.”

She grabbed one of the pieces of hardened steel in one hand, the chisel in her other, and then pressed them together.

The steel was shaved away like it was made of mud. Miss Hurlish squinted, focusing for a while as she cut into the material, moving her hands in smooth, careful turns. A few seconds and a couple adjustments later, the little rectangle of hardened steel she’d started with was almost an exact copy of the pistol hammer Keo was holding, only it was about a quarter as big. Miss Hurlish took out a measuring tool, inspected the piece a few different ways, then smiled to herself.

“Dang, I’m good. Got it down to a quarter millimeter tolerance on the first try.” She handed Keo the smaller hammer, then started on the next piece, talking as she worked. “So, remember how y’all helped me make those pistols? The ones I sell to people in the army for a whole lotta money?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tell those people about me doing this. You already know that I pretend it takes me all day to make one of those pistols when it really takes me a few hours, but even that’s a lie. If I have all the right metal in front of me to start with, I can make one of those crappy cryslock pistols in about twenty minutes or so.”

Keo nodded seriously. It didn’t sound important to him, but he knew Miss Hurlish thought it was a big deal since she was using her serious grownup voice. Apparently she could tell he didn’t get it, because she paused her work to explain.

“They won’t pay nearly as much for the guns if they know it’s so easy for me to make them. I want to keep them in the dark on that for as long as possible. Also, if they knew it’s that easy for me to make pistols that they think are the best around, they might start getting scared about what I can really do when I put my mind toward things.”

Keo screwed up his face. “Isn’t that lying to them, though? You told me only bad blacksmiths lie to their customers.”

It was Miss Hurlish’s turn to screw up her face. After a moment of consideration, she made a noncommittal gesture. “Alright, sure, y’got me there. But it’s one thing to rip off people you know, your neighbors or your friends or whatever, and a whole ‘nother thing to trick a bunch of rich people into spending too much money on something. When you screw over a normal guy, you’re hurting them pretty bad, and that’s wrong. But when you screw over a rich guy, you’re just helping yourself to the money they didn’t really need. Only thing you need to worry about is not getting caught.”

“Which is why you want me to keep it a secret.”

“Yup.” Hurlish set another piece aside, apparently done with it, and began on another by pulling out a second black tool from her belt pouch. “So what I’m doing here is what I’m gonna start having you help me with. I’m making your pistol right now by modifying some parts from another one I had on hand. It’s a type of gun called a revolver, which isn’t something anyone but a few people know about, and-”

“When’s my Da coming back?” Keo blurted out. He couldn’t have held the question in anymore no matter how hard he tried.

Hurlish’s work slowed. She looked up at Keo, a funny look on her face.

“It’s just that you’re telling me all this stuff all the sudden,” he forged on, letting the words spill out before Miss Hurlish could cut him off, “and you never said any of it before, and Miss Evie has been paying attention to me in a weird way like she thinks she’s my mom or something, and I’m sleeping next to your tent and you put a guard outside, and, and…” He was breathing hard now. For some reason he couldn’t figure out, his throat hurt real bad, enough that it hurt to swallow, but he swallowed anyway and kept talking. “And I guess you all are acting like I’m never gonna see my Da again.” He squeezed the metal in his hands, trying to blink the water out of his eyes. “...Am I?”

Miss Hurlish sighed. She leaned back until she fell on her butt, leaving her sitting down instead of kneeling, then used one thick fingernail to pick out something between her teeth, inspected it, and shook it off her hand. Then she looked up at him.

“No,” she said, real quiet. “No, you’re not gonna see him again. I’m sorry.”

The pain in his throat spread down into his chest.

“Never?” He managed to choke out.

“Yeah. Never.” Miss Hurlish looked away, blew out a big puff of breath, then looked back at him, putting her hands in her lap. “It’s for the best, kid. He hurt you real bad. It wasn’t the first time. and it wasn’t gonna be the last. Sooner or later he’d start hitting you again, but this time he just wouldn’t stop. Not soon enough, anyway. So yeah. You’re not gonna see him again.”

He’d been expecting that. Most adults liked to pretend kids didn’t understand all that much, but they did. From the moment people started avoiding answering the question, he’d been pretty sure Miss Hurlish was going to tell him that he’d never see his Da again, but he’d had to ask anyway.

He’d… he’d expected himself to cry. He wasn’t. His eyes were real watery, he was sniffling like he was about to cry, but… but he wasn’t.

Sooner or later he’d start hitting you again, but this time he just wouldn’t stop.

Miss Hurlish was telling the truth there. He knew she was. He wanted to cry about never seeing Da again, but… but she was right, wasn’t she? He’d been getting worse. Worse and worse and worse, almost every day it felt like.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. He could feel the salty snot of his almost-crying fly back into his nose and down his throat, but he ignored it. He put on the best, bravest face that he could manage.

“Okay,” he said, lower lip quivering. “Okay. What were you saying again? About the steel?”

“Keo…” Hurlish said softly, scooting forward.

He shook his head. “The steel, remember? It was extra hard? And you were gonna make me a gun?”

She looked him up and down, a few tears on her own face too. Not that Keo was crying, it’s just… she was, too. So if he was crying it was fine because if Miss Hurlish could cry he could too, okay? That was fine, it wasn’t embarrassing at all.

With one long arm, she reached out and lifted him up, turning him around and dropping him into her lap. She picked up her tools again, putting her head on his shoulder so she could see.

“So. You might not think that this matters all that much, since I’m the only one strong enough to carve steel like this. But— and this is another big secret, alright?— Tulian’s working on making machines that can cut steel like this too. So if you watch how this part slides against this one, you can see how it works, right?”

Keo sucked in an ugly sniffle, rubbing his eyes with both hands, then nodded shakily.

“Y-yeah. I can s-see it.”

“Good.”

If Miss Hurlish hadn’t meant to wrap him up in a hug while she worked, and this one was just a total accident, he really didn’t mind it. It was a good accident. It had been a really, really long time since he’d had a hug.

She spent a while talking to him about a lot of stuff. He probably wasn’t going to remember all of it because it sounded so crazy, but he tried his best. He watched her fingers twirl a drill back and forth, piercing the hardened steel straight through, and listened to her explain why it was still useful for him to learn about how she was doing this.

Just because he wouldn’t be as strong as her didn’t mean that there wasn’t going to be no way for him to cut metal like she did, apparently. She talked about machines that could spin drills super duper fast, about using steam to lift up a big weight so you could drop it down on top of something instead of having to use a hammer yourself, and how things like that were going to be super common in Tulian soon enough.

She talked about Tulian a lot. About what it was like there, and how it was different from the jungle. She talked about places where there was only grass, no trees, and how you could see for miles in every direction because the jungle just wasn’t there. That sounded too good to be true in Keo’s opinion. Living in a place where you didn’t have to worry about things coming out of the trees? If that place existed, why didn’t everyone live there?

And the language. She started teaching him some of the words that they used. Keo had met a few people that he’d barely been able to understand before, because they were from far enough away in the Empire that they talked funny, but until the mercenaries had come he hadn’t known that there were people who used different words entirely. They didn’t even say them in the right order! It was like talking to a crazy person, but they understood each other just fine, so he knew there was something to it.

Miss Hurlish spent about an hour with Keo in her lap, and she didn’t stop talking pretty much the entire time. It wasn’t long before he wasn’t thinking about his Da at all, if only because she was filling his head with so much complicated stuff he was wondering if it should hurt to try and keep it all in.

All of the sudden, right when it was getting time to either pack it in for the night or light a lantern, Miss Hurlish grabbed him around the tummy and put him on his feet in front of her, smiling proudly as she stood.

“Alright, it’s done. Here ya go, Keo.”

Belatedly, he realized that the pieces she’d been holding in her hand weren’t really pieces anymore: they were a finished gun.

It didn’t look anything like the normal ones he’d seen her make before. She’d said that was because it was called a revolver, that it could fire a bunch of shots one after the other, and that he had to keep it a super-duper secret from everyone else in the army. She held it out to him, smiling.

“Well? What do you think?”

He carefully took it in both hands, expecting it to be really heavy like the other pistol. When Miss Hurlish let go of it, he was surprised to find that it was actually pretty light. Not like a feather or anything, but for something made of metal it didn’t weigh nearly as much as he’d expected. He lifted it up, doing like Miss Evie said and making sure to keep it pointed away from anyone.

“It’s a lot easier to hold,” he said.

“‘Cause it’s a smaller gun,” Miss Hurlish agreed. “I used a lot of the same parts as a normal one, but the barrel is thinner and the chamber is a lot smaller. Still need to rifle it, but it’s technically in working order right now.”

“It’s loaded?” He asked, eyes wide as he pulled his fingers as far away from the trigger as he could get them.

“Ha! No, I didn’t mean it’s ready like that. But you could load it if you had the ammo for it, and you could shoot it, too. Probably won’t be too accurate until we get the rifling in there.”

“That’s the stuff that you said works like the feathers on an arrow, right? The rifling?”

“Close enough.” She looked around to make sure no one was close, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Rifling works a bit different from arrow fletching. Making the bullet spin on its way down the barrel means it’s spinning as it goes through the air, too, which keeps it on a lot straighter line.” She tapped the side of her nose, winking at him. “Not too many people know that, though, so keep it to yourself, alright?”

He looked at the pistol in his hand. It had that red gemstone in the hammer instead of the piece of flint that normal people used. Only the super rich people in the army (or the Powdered Lead, he supposed) had guns that used sparking crystals instead, and his was red, not white. And Miss Hurlish was saying it was his?

“Why?” He asked.

“Why what?”

“Why are you giving me this?”

Miss Hurlish blinked, scratching the back of her neck. “Well, to be honest with you, I probably shouldn’t. Giving kids guns isn’t the best idea in the world. If you don’t want it—”

“That’s not what I said!” He pressed the gun to his chest, though he was careful to keep it pointed up in the air. “I was just… it’s expensive, right? Hard to make?”

“Kinda?” Miss Hurlish shrugged. “You saw how long it took me to put it together right there. Even if it was expensive, I’d still think it’s worth it.”

“What could be ‘worth it’? I don’t help you around the forge that much.”

She gave him a strange look. Like she was sad about having to answer his question.

“It’s worth it to do something nice for ya, kid. That’s all I meant.”

“Oh.” He turned the pistol around in his hand, squinting at its freshly-cut lines. “So… you said it needs rifling? How do we do that?”

She laughed. “That’s the spirit, kid. Let me get some stuff ready, alright?”

Keo nodded seriously. Then he turned around, looking to see if they were still alone, which they were.

“So when you said I can’t tell anyone about it,” he cautiously ventured, “that includes the other kids?”

Hurlish snorted. “Yeah, Keo. No bragging about your new toy. If you want to do that, we can make you a sword tomorrow. How’s that sound?”

Keo licked his lips. To be honest, it sounded too good to be true. But the thing about things that were too good to be true was that if you pointed them out, people might just take them away from you. So he just nodded.

“Yeah. That sounds good, I think.”

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