Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 474: The Killing Machine

Two days after the enlarged meeting, Iron Axe was ordered to test new weapons.

The new range was on the far side of the Redwater River — the northwest was too exposed to demonic beast approaches, so Roland had placed it on the opposite bank. By the time Iron Axe crossed the steel bridge, the prince’s guards had already strung hemp rope and red flags around the perimeter and set checkpoints at either end of the bridge. No unauthorized entry. The precaution was deliberate. His Highness took these tests seriously.

Every guard Iron Axe passed gave him a friendly nod, the easy acknowledgment of men who knew him. He noticed it each time without quite ceasing to notice it. He remembered the first weapons test he had attended: a nobody, five years into a life he had arranged for solitude, known only to a handful of huntsmen in the Old District who had no particular use for his archery and no particular opinion of where he had come from. In the rest of the town, the fact of his Sand Nation origin still arrived before he did — in the careful stillness of people who didn’t know whether to trust him, in the way conversations would shift when he stepped into them.

He had expected to live that way until demonic beasts or old age took him. He had not expected Roland Wimbledon.

The hand-selection, the first flintlock in his hands, the transformation of the militia into the First Army and then the Second — each change coming faster than the last. His promotion from Head of the Hunter Squad to Commander of the First Army, which had still not entirely felt real until the day he walked into a room and the men stood up for him without being told. And beyond everything else: His Highness’ open welcome of witches, which had brought Lady Drow Silvermoon back into his life. He had thought that particular door closed forever.

For all of this — the trust, the recognition, the repair of something he had been carrying for years as grief — he had sworn allegiance deep in his chest, where it could not be retracted.

In the center of the range, he found His Highness Roland, Chief Knight Carter, and — unexpectedly — several Sleeping Island witches.

“Iron Axe reporting, Your Highness.” He saluted.

“Good — everyone’s here.” Roland held out two long guns, one to Iron Axe and one to Carter. “These are new prototypes. Limited supply — take turns.”

Iron Axe turned the weapon over in his hands. It resembled a revolving rifle but had no cartridge drum. He thought, briefly, that it might load through the muzzle like the oldest flintlocks.

“It’s called a bolt rifle,” Roland said. “Smokeless gunpowder, 8mm caliber — smaller than the revolving rifle’s 12mm, but considerably more powerful.” He flipped the weapon and demonstrated in one smooth motion. “Ammunition feeds from the front of the trigger housing. Each clip holds five rounds. Unlike the revolving rifle, it can’t fire continuously — you’ll need to manually eject and reload between shots.”

Iron Axe shot a full clip.

The recoil was heavier than he expected — each shot drove the butt hard into his shoulder — and the report was louder than a revolver. But where five revolver rounds through old gunpowder would have thrown up a wall of smoke that cost him his sight line, there was nothing in front of the muzzle now. Just a clean view downrange.

He lowered the rifle and considered it honestly.

The improvement from flintlock to revolving rifle had been transformative — rate of fire, accuracy, everything. The bolt rifle felt like a step sideways. Its most obvious problem was the rate of fire: with a revolver he could keep pressure on a target while standing, never breaking his stance; with the bolt rifle, the manual reload broke the sequence each time, raising the gun, repositioning, acquiring the target again. In the close street fighting at Longsong Stronghold, that pause would have been dangerous. He told Roland this without softening it.

Carter said the same thing.

Roland nodded as though he had expected both responses. “You’re correct. It’s not a substitute for the revolver. But it has an advantage the revolver doesn’t.” He turned. “Andrea — come show them.”

The blonde witch stepped forward. She took the rifle, reloaded it with practiced ease — she had used it before, clearly — and raised it toward the targets at the far end of the range.

Three shots. Three wooden targets fell, in sequence, at a distance that made Iron Axe’s instinct tell him the result was impossible before his eyes confirmed it. The targets were small — no larger than his thumbnail at that range, their thin support sticks barely visible. She had hit the sticks, not the boards. From four hundred meters.

Carter made a sound.

“Andrea’s derivative ability gives her complete proficiency with any weapon she uses,” Roland said, smiling. “But the ability acts on the weapon, not the projectile. She’ll hit a target ten meters away if she throws a stone at it, but if she throws a live bird at the same target, the ability simply doesn’t apply.” He let them absorb this. “The bolt rifle has a longer effective range than the revolving rifle. With Andrea as a marksman, the combination becomes something else entirely.”

Iron Axe looked at the three fallen targets. He thought about what it would mean to have that kind of reach in a defensive engagement — not the close street fighting of Longsong Stronghold, but a prepared position, a clear field of fire, an enemy that had no corresponding answer.

He thought: killing machine was not quite the right phrase for it.

Then he thought: perhaps it is exactly the right phrase.

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