The inner courtyard had one new addition at the far wall, a timber target mounted on a wooden stand, man-sized, with a red chalk circle at its center at chest height.

Five captains and forty militia soldiers lined the courtyard in the loose, uneven way trained men stood when they did not yet know what task they were being given. Harr waited near the front with his hands at his sides. Col stood two captains down, watching the bench.

The bench had fifteen flintlock pistols for the demonstration. Ninety more were cased in the storage room off the courtyard and sorted by squad.

Beorn picked up one of the demonstration pistols and loaded it in front of them. He did not explain each step as he worked. He measured the powder charge with the brass measure Wynn had made to the specified volume, poured it down the barrel, seated a cloth patch over the bore, drove the ball home with the ramrod, and primed the pan.

The entire sequence took forty seconds.

Then he aimed at the chalk circle on the timber stand and fired.

The crack slapped all four courtyard walls and came back at once. A grey-white column of smoke burst from the muzzle and the pan vent together, then began to spread and thin. The center of the circle had a hole in it.

At least half of the forty men stepped back a pace before they meant to. A lean captain at the far end had his hand half raised before he caught himself. He said, "What," and nothing more.

Beorn set the pistol on the bench.

"Questions," he said.

Harr spoke first. "What’s the rage?"

"Thirty feet is the reliable range for aimed fire."

Beorn continued. "At fifty feet, a trained man can still hit a man consistently. Past that, individual accuracy falls enough that you fire in coordinated groups instead of aiming at a specific man."

"So shorter than a crossbow for ranged fights," Col said.

"Yes. The crossbow keeps the advantage at distance. This has the advantage in confined spaces. In a corridor or a room, you can aim and fire before the crossbowman has even finished raising his weapon."

One of the unnamed captains, broad-shouldered and still studying the hole in the timber instead of Beorn, asked, "Do we reload after firing?"

"No, you fire the second one."

Beorn explained. "Each man carries two of these. The reload takes forty seconds at minimum, even with training. You do not reload in the middle of a close fight. You fire both, then you draw steel."

"And if both shots miss."

"Then the sword comes out faster."

He waited until the man understood that. "That is why the training covers both. The pistol opens the fight. The sword is to finish it."

The lean captain at the far end said, "Can it go through Greyback plating."

"I do not know for certain."

Beorn considered it before speaking. "A crossbow bolt deflects off the plating because it depends on penetration at a specific point. A ball transfers force differently. It pushes through shock instead of penetration. At this range, against the joints where the plating is thinner, I believe it will do better than the crossbow. I have not tested it against a live Greyback, and I will not tell you it is guaranteed."

He picked up the fired pistol and showed them the open pan.

"In wet conditions, cover the pan between shots. The priming powder has to stay dry. Light rain is manageable, but a heavy storm makes it unreliable. In a Badlands downpour, it is not your primary weapon."

Harr’s eyes moved to the smoke still drifting across the courtyard. "It creates a significant amount of smoke."

Beorn confirmed it. "Fire, move, do not stand there reloading inside it. You work through it."

Col looked at the timber stand. "Will it always create this much noise?" he said.

Beorn nodded. "The first time anyone hears it, they have exactly the reaction your men just had."

He gave a brief gesture toward the soldiers who had stepped back. None of them looked ashamed. They were looking at the target. "An enemy facing this for the first time will freeze for half a second on the opening volley. That advantage is real, but do not plan on it working twice."

Godric stood at the near corner of the courtyard with one of the demonstration pistols in his hands. He had taken it from the bench quietly during the questions and had been working through the loading sequence by hand while the others talked. Now he set the ramrod aside and inspected the lock mechanism.

"What does two per man cost us to produce," he said.

"The limit is powder, not metal,"

Beorn answered smoothly. "Each charge is measured, twenty prepared charges per man. We have enough stock for this operation and the next. The rest will depend when the mine routes reopen."

Godric set the pistol back on the bench, and that ended his questions.

"The operation is in three days."

Beorn said, addressing all five captains. "You get the briefing the day before. What I am giving you now is the tactical context. You are going into buildings and confined spaces. The pistol is for that work."

He looked at each captain in turn. "Three days of training here. I am pulling your squads from rotation for the duration."

The captains took the demonstration pistols from the bench and fired at the timber stand one by one.

Harr’s first shot was clean, the shot of a man with a natural sense for weapons landing on something new without needing to be told twice. Col hit high and adjusted before the second shot. The lean captain hit the outer ring of the circle on his first, reloaded without being instructed, and put the second shot near the center.

The broad-shouldered captain missed on the first, and Beorn gave him one advice. "You are bracing for recoil that is not there." He loosened his grip, and the second shot struck the center section of the timber.

The fifth captain was young. His first shot went wide, and he looked at Beorn with a direct request for advice. Beorn watched his reload and found the problem at once.

The iron ball had been seated too loosely, leaving too much distance between ball and powder. "Firm on the ramrod, not hard," he said. "You want it steady, not compression." The second shot hit the lower part of the circle.

The captains collected the cased pistols for their squads and left.

Beorn handed Godric two from a special bath. They settled into his belt without trouble. He tested both actions once and left without another word. He did not ask about the operation. Three days was the answer he had been given, and he took it as complete.

The courtyard emptied.

Beorn picked up the last pistol from the bench, the one Wynn had fitted to his exact dimensions, the stock shaped for his palm and the metal finished more carefully than the issue batch. The grip was comfortable in his hand, and something reached him just before the thought fully formed.

Powder residue and cold range air from another world, and the stiffness of standing for the first time with something he did not yet know how to use.

He had been nineteen, or close to it, and a man beside him had said to point at what you mean to hit and fire. That was all it had been. The same steady weight in the palm, the same small shift as the stock found its place.

The smell was gone on the next breath. He stood in the courtyard with the flintlock pistol in his hand, the chalk marks around him, and the hole in the timber stand where the first shot had landed.

He put the pistol in his belt and picked up the ledger from the bench.

Three days.