Northern Isendel
212
“Fire!”
Sav lit the fuse on the back of the cannon, clapped her hands over her ears, and stood back, watching carefully. A moment of quiet as the spark burned down, reached the steel tube, and then
crack
The practice target—an old fort, long since abandoned—shuddered and splintered in one spot, the mortar crumbling and loosing the enormous stones from their hold together. A solid hit. Whistles and a lighter thump and shudder indicated a mixed rate of success from the other two, a half-breath behind her station.
“WRONG!” Arjuvh bawled, surprisingly loud and deep for his minuscule size. They joked that all of his body size had been turned into sound instead—at least, when they were out of his hearing, not a great distance after his many years building and manning cannons. Which was another common joke within the unit: How do you talk to Arjuvh? Through horn signals. (One did not get drafted into the military for their sparkling wit.) “Too slow! Temios! I saw that twitch! Minara! Too far! You didn’t secure the cannon well enough for the recoil and it slewed sideways! Sav! … not as bad as last time. Now once more! And RIGHT this time, the army can’t afford to pay for your incompetent wasting of your balls!”
Glowing with the praise, Sav scrambled to grab another cannonball blank from the pile of practice rounds while the rest of her crew pushed the cannon back to the front of its recoil trench, swabbed the inside of the tube, and prepped the alchemical mixture for the next shot.
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