The Road to Hell # Hell's Gate 3

by Weber, David

  Jasak was explaining his plan to the officers of the court. Jathmar watched their faces, predicting an outburst at any moment. That outburst came twenty seconds later.

  “Are you mad, sir?” Count Sogbourne demanded incredulously. “Allow a prisoner to touch—to operate—a terror weapon? In the presence of the Commandery of Arcana and the entire War Ops and Intel Committee? Including your own father and Speaker Skyntaru? Not to mention us? Are you mad?”

  The “us” in question was the glittering row of officers selected to try Jasak, who remained perfectly calm and formally at ease.

  “Jathmar Nargra is the most appropriate person to demonstrate these weapons, Sir,” he replied in a patient, firm tone. “My father, by the way, concurs with that opinion, because Jathmar understands their function and operation far better than I do. And he’s not going to commit suicide and leave his wife alone to face a lifetime of imprisonment, either, I assure you!”

  His argument made perfect sense to Jathmar, but no member of the court was likely to care very much what he thought. For that matter, they didn’t seem overly impressed by what Duke Garth Showma thought, either.

  Under the circumstances, he wasn’t surprised when Sogbourne insisted Jasak conduct the demonstration. In fact, they’d all expected that reaction, and Jathmar had spent two and a half hours the previous evening coaching Jasak on how to load and operate the rifle and handgun they planned to use today. Jasak had already fired each type of weapon, but that had been weeks and eighty-five thousand miles—and a multitude of universes—ago. Firing a weapon someone else had loaded, just enough times to realize its true power, was hardly sufficient preparation for a demonstration of this kind.

  So Jathmar had coached him, resisting the fleeting notion of teaching him an incorrect technique that would cause the Commandery to dismiss the guns as unreliable and far less effective than they really were. It was so tempting he could taste it, but he couldn’t do that without putting Jasak at risk of serious injury, and he wouldn’t—dared not—risk the death of Jasak Olderhan.

  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.”

  Sogbourne’s eyes narrowed slightly. “There’s a great deal of interesting information in what you’ve said. Very well, Hundred Olderhan, pull the ammunition from different boxes and let’s see the results.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Jasak returned to the shooting bench. He pulled out the ammunition. Loaded the rifle with great care. Lifted it to his shoulder. Took careful aim. Pulled the trigger. Worked the action. Pulled the trigger again. The result was five mechanical clicks, five perfectly punched primer cups, and zero fired rounds. When Jasak recovered the rounds from the ground and brought them over to him, Jathmar stared at the unfired cartridges in baffled consternation.

  “It can’t be the ammunition,” he frowned. “Did you bring any of the reloading tools out here with you, Jasak?”

  “We brought one of everything we found in your camp. Including the loaded gear bags.”

  “Good. I need to see them.”

  Jasak escorted Shaylar and Jathmar out to the shooting benches, since she insisted on coming along. Commander of One Thousand Solvar Rinthrak, another of the officers from Jasak’s court-martial, also insisted on following them, and while the others watched closely, Jathmar used the tools in the reloading kit Jasak had brought to pry the bullets out of the cartridge cases. He tipped out the powder, piling it up on the table, then used a punch to remove the priming cups. He felt squeamish about doing that to “live” primers. There wasn’t enough explosive compound in a primer cup to do real damage, but the very idea of hammering on a primer that hadn’t been fired went against the grain.

  Once he’d removed all five primer cups, he tipped them over in his palm and examined them closely. There was nothing wrong with them. The dried film of liquid explosive used as priming compound coated their interior exactly as it was supposed to. That film was shock sensitive, igniting under the sharp jolt of a firing pin, and he could see the primer painted into the cups. There were no voids, no spots where the coating was thinned out to let bare metal show through.

  They should have fired.

  Shaylar echoed that thought aloud. “They should have fired, Jathmar.”

  “It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying a hell of a lot, considering where we’re standing, right now.”

  Shaylar had the temerity to chuckle, which startled Sogbourne into staring at her.

  “Well, it is funny,” she told him, meeting his rather hostile scowl with a smile. “We see things that are flat-out impossible every day. Every hour. Even the way the bathroom works is weird enough to raise gooseflesh. But even with all of that, I have to agree with my husband. Those cartridges should have fired. But they didn’t. And that’s just as impossible as anything we’ve seen in your civilization.”

  Sogbourne’s scowl shifted into a thoughtful frown.

  “Maybe I did something wrong?” Jasak suggested.

  “I was watching you very closely and I didn’t see you do anything wrong. Certainly not wrong enough to cause this.” He held up the five unfired cartridges, then added the first one Jasak had tried to fire to the pile. “One might be a fluke. But six…” He shook his head. “I don’t know why, but they simply failed to fire, and they should have.”

  Gadrial, who’d been sitting quietly in the row of chairs reserved for witnesses, called out a request to join them.

  “Yes, please, Magister Gadrial.” Sogbourne nodded. “Perhaps you can explain what’s going on.”

  She crossed quickly to the shooting bench and stood beside Jasak while Jathmar explained the problem.

  “How are they supposed to work?” she asked.

  Jathmar glanced at Shaylar, who shrugged. He started to refuse, but then he returned her shrug, instead.

  Why not? he thought. They can’t duplicate a formula that tricky to make from a generalized description.

  So he explained the process of manufacturing the liquid explosive, explained how and why the spark from a tiny, controlled explosion caused the powder charge to burn, generating gas that was confined in such a small space that it pushed with terrific force against the place of least resistance: the bullet, which was merely held in place by a small crimp in the metal rim of the cartridge case. The one thing he didn’t explain was the ingredient list for the priming compound and powder. He preferred to keep that secret for as long as he could.

  “It’s a very simple, very basic process of chemistry and physics,” he finished the explanation, “but the manufacturing process is something I don’t understand very well. I’m told it’s difficult to make some of the ingredients and the steps in combining them are very complex. Even small variations can ruin a batch. But I’ve given you the basics as I understand them.”

  When Sogbourne glanced at Shaylar, she said, “Don’t look at me. Jathmar knows more about it than I do. I can shoot a rifle or a handgun and I’ve learned how to reload cartridges, but I don’t have the slightest idea how they make the components.” When Sogbourne looked at her with a clearly skeptical frown, she said, “Does a non-Gifted person have to understand how the spells that operate a cook stove are put together? How and why they work? Does a non-Gifted person need to know every single line of the incantations that run a slider chain or operate the controls that heat or cool your house?”

  “Point well taken.” Gadrial nodded. Then she grinned. “Very well taken, in fact.”

  Sogbourne glared at Gadrial and Shaylar with a belligerent air, then he muttered, “Oh, all right. Point taken.” But his eyes remained suspicious.

  “So the primer explodes, which causes the powder to burn, which creates pressure?” Gadrial asked.r />
  “That’s right.”

  “How much pressure?”

  “It varies from one type of gun to another and it varies from one type of ammunition to another.”

  “Why?” Sogbourne asked, frowning again.

  “When the length of the cartridge case changes, you can either pack in more powder or be forced to put in less, depending on whether it’s larger or smaller. The size of the grains of powder and the number of those grains determines how much pressure will develop inside the case. Beyond that, some gun types are more robust than others, which means you can safely add more powder to a cartridge, generate higher pressures, and end up with higher speeds for the bullet when it leaves the gun barrel.