James Maxey: Dragonseed

"We've done it," Burke said as he handed the long rod to Jandra. He winced from the movement. Despite the mobility allowed by the wheeled chair, Jandra could tell his broken leg was a source of agony. He clenched his jaw and drew a long breath through his nose, then said, "It's a fully functioning prototype."

Jandra took the device from Burke. The rod was four feet long and quite heavy despite being hollow. One end was open, slightly flared, sporting a perfectly circular hole almost a half-inch across; the other was fixed to a triangle of wood that served as a handle. The steel was lightly engraved with a scale pattern at the open end.

"So this is a gun," said Jandra, turning the weapon every which way as she examined it. She stared down the shaft bored into the center of the tube. Could this weapon really change the world?

"More specifically, a shotgun," said Burke. "And I wouldn't look down that hole. It's loaded. I've got the safety on, but there's no reason to press your luck. Going forward, I'll remember to mention this before I hand it to people."

"So how does it work?" Jandra asked, examining the trigger.

"It's a flintlock," Burke explained, wheeling his chair around to get closer. He pointed at the small iron hammer that was pulled back, held in tension by a spring. A small sharp splinter of flint was held at the tip. "When you take off the safety and pull this trigger, the hammer snaps shut and the flint strikes a spark into the flash pan, here. That creates a small explosion and lights this fuse, which then triggers the black powder packed into the rifle itself. The black powder is loaded into the barrel from the front and jammed tightly with the ramrod beforehand." He tapped a thin iron rod attached to the underside of the barrel.

"Oh," said Jandra, not certain she could envision the process. She pulled out a small pad of paper from her coat pocket. "This sounds like something I should be writing down."

"I doubt you'll have the luxury of checking your notes in situations where you'd be using this," said Burke. He showed her two white cotton sacks, each about the size of her thumb. "To speed the loading process and to keep the powder compact, I've sewed up the appropriate amount of powder into these bags. Each charge provides a serious kick. The other bag holds small lead spheres and is jammed in front of the charge bag. The explosion will produce an expanding force of hot gas that propels the spheres down the barrel at great speed."

"How fast?"

"The balls of lead will come out of the barrel at about ten times the speed that an arrow flies off a bow. It's going to make a crack like thunder."

"Yowza," said Jandra.

"Yowza?" asked Burke. "I don't think I've ever heard that expression."

Jandra frowned. "I haven't either. It must be something she would have said."

"The goddess?"

Jandra nodded, then sighed. She already had enough problems connecting with other humans, having been raised by a sky-dragon. The fact that her most recent adventures had left her head jammed full of alien memories only added to her sense of isolation and loneliness. Of course, having the memories of a thousand-year-old woman from a far more technologically advanced society had a few benefits. She now knew the long-lost recipe for gunpowder, for example.

Burke looked concerned. He was a member of the Anudahdeesdee, a Cherokee clan dedicated to remembering the secrets of the once dominant human civilization that existed before the Dragon Age. His people had a long history of confrontations with Jasmine Robertson, the so-called goddess, the woman who had altered Jandra's brain.

"So, what are these scale marks along the barrel for?" She was eager to change the subject.

"I often design my inventions to resemble creatures in the natural world, like my spy-owl, my chess monkey, the time-frog, etc. I was going to call the gun the Noisy Snake, but the scale pattern was taking too long, so I gave up halfway. It had no bearing on the function." He shook his head as he looked at the gun. "My grandfather used to scold me for being more concerned with making sculptures than machinery."

Jandra smiled. "Your daughter showed me the spy-owl. I liked the attention to detail in the feathers. You're a talented sculptor. The fact that you've only needed a week to design and build a shotgun from scratch shows that you're an equally talented engineer. "

Burked didn't look cheered by her words. "I'm putting a lot of trust in you, placing this in your hands and sending you outside the fortress. If the dragons capture this and figure out how it works, it could forever change the world. Are you certain you can get your powers back?"

"Nothing in this world is ever certain," said Jandra. "But, the sooner I leave, the better the odds are that no one has taken the genie."

Burke nodded. "Anza's anxious to leave as well. She says she's tired of the way this place smells. She should be here in a moment. Let me-" Before he could finish his sentence, shouting erupted outside the window.

"Get it!" someone yelled.

"Circle around!" a man called out. A dozen other excited voices chimed in.

Jandra went to the window. She raised the pane and leaned out. The action was taking place only fifteen feet below her. A crowd of men were chasing a tiny green earth-dragon. The earth-dragon was the smallest she'd ever seen, barely a foot tall, obviously a child. Unlike adult earth-dragons, wingless beasts who moved in a slow plod, the earth-dragon child was darting back and forth like a jackrabbit. Despite its speed, it was pinned in by the crowd, and quickly found itself with its back to the wall directly beneath Jandra.

The men gathered round, keeping a slight distance as the small dragon opened its turtle-like jaws wide and hissed. Its tiny claws flexed as it took up a defensive stance. Its long, skinny tail whipped back and forth like a cat ready to pounce.

Jandra recognized the leader of the men, a white-haired, bearded fellow named Frost, a blacksmith from the foundry. His eyes were wide and he was smiling, as if chasing this young dragon were great sport.

"Frost!" Jandra yelled. "What are you doing?"

The crowd looked up. Whispers ran among the men. Jandra caught the word "witch" among the murmurs.

"We found this lizard hiding in a cellar! We're going to cook it!"

In response, the earth-dragon yelled, "No eat! No eat!"

Jandra felt her stomach turn at the thought of what these men were going to do. A month ago, the drop to the street would have looked imposing. But, in a process similar to the reshaping of her memories, her body had also been fine-tuned, leaving her with a physical prowess that rivaled even the legendary Bant Bitterwood. She leapt from the window, shotgun in hand, and landed in a crouch between the crowd and the dragon child.

"Back off!" she said. "The new rule is: if it talks, we don't eat it."

The men looked wary. Jandra knew it was due to her reputation as a witch… a reputation that, at the moment, was completely undeserved. Once, she'd commanded the elements, and would have been able to summon a ring of fire to shield her, or simply turn invisible to escape a fight. Unfortunately, she required a device known as a genie to use her abilities, and her genie had been stolen. Until she got it back, her "witchcraft" was nothing but bluff.

She stood, pulling back her shoulders. The green wool coat she wore hung down to her ankles. She hoped that the bulky coat and the thick heels on her leather boots helped hide the fact that the smallest of these men outweighed her by a hundred pounds.

Frost was the largest of them, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, with biceps like hams. His face was speckled with a constellation of scars, pale white splotches from a life spent hammering hot metal. While some of the men looked nervous after Jandra's sudden appearance, Frost didn't show the least flicker of intimidation. He said, "Even if you are Ragnar's sister, you have no authority to declare what is and isn't food."