Chapter 30

  Making a piece of the Old West

  Back at the forge--the small furnace roared low, its belly glowing orange as Garrick worked the bellows, each pump feeding the fire’s hunger. The rusted anvil had been cleared of debris, the pitted surface now usable enough for the delicate work ahead.

  Lux stood beside Strenn, the monkey woman’s nimble fingers already sorting through the piles of scavenged scrap. “This piece’ll do for the frame,” she said, holding up a thick plate of iron.

  “Good. Keep it clean—oil it before it pits worse,” Lux replied, rolling up his sleeves. His hands were already blackened with soot and streaked with fine scratches, the kind that came from hours of handling raw metal.

  Luna stood in the doorway, her silhouette framed by daylight. She didn’t speak at first, simply watching him with quiet intensity.

  Lux didn’t look up from his work, but he could feel her gaze on him—curious, evaluating. “You’re supposed to be with the others,” he said, his tone almost teasing.

  “I wanted to see how you’d make these… ‘revolvers’ you spoke of,” Luna replied. She stepped closer, the warmth of the forge brushing against her skin. “We have nothing like this in Greenwood. Our bows, our blades—they’ve been the same for centuries.”

  Strenn let out a short laugh. “From the way he talks, these are gonna be better than bows.”

  “They will be,” Lux said flatly, setting a red-hot bar onto the anvil. His hammer rose and fell in steady rhythm—clang, clang, clang—shaping the first crude cylinder.

  Luna’s eyes followed every motion, the sparks dancing in her irises. There was something about watching him here—focused, deliberate, making something not of her world—that stirred a mix of admiration and something warmer she couldn’t quite name.

  As the frame began to take shape, Lux spoke without looking at her. “This is just the first one. Once we’ve got a working model, Garrick and Strenn can start making more. We’ll arm the fighters first.”

  Luna folded her arms, still watching. “And after?”

  “After,” Lux said, pausing to examine the cylinder before heating it again, “we’ll make sure that when Blackwood comes again, we’re not just surviving—we’re ready.”

  Lux worked on the revolver all say with Garrick and Strenn's help. While luna watched from the corner of the building. Finally the last pin slid into place with a satisfying click. Lux held the revolver up, tilting it toward the forge light. Even in its rough, blackened finish, the weapon felt solid, balanced—ready. Garrick wiped his brow, grinning. Strenn flicked her tail with pride.

  “There,” Lux said, setting it down on the anvil for a moment. “One down.”

  But the satisfaction bled from his expression almost instantly. His jaw tightened. “Damn…”

  Luna, standing just behind him, frowned. “What is it? Did something break?”

  “No,” Lux muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “We’ve got the gun… but no bullets. And without powder, it’s just a club with a trigger.”

  Luna tilted her head. “Powder?”

  Lux hesitated, then tried to put it into words they’d understand. “Back where I’m from, it’s made from three things—charcoal, saltpeter, and… sulfur. It’s a yellow mineral. Sharp smell—like… like the air after lightning, but mixed with rotten eggs.”

  At the mention, Strenn’s ears perked. “Rotten eggs? Oh—you mean egg rock. Yeah, I know that smell. There’s a bunch of it near the old well past the north edge of the settlement.”

  Lux looked up sharply. “You’ve seen it?”

  “Seen it, smelled it, nearly gagged on it.” Strenn smirked. “It’s common enough here. The quarry workers used to hate it—it’d stain their hands yellow for days.”

  “That’s sulfur,” Lux said, a grin breaking through the soot on his face. “If we’ve got that, we can make black powder. Charcoal’s easy, saltpeter… we’ll have to scrape from the inside of old cellars or manure piles.”

  Strenn wrinkled her nose. “Manure? Really?”

  “Yeah,” Lux replied dryly. “You want the bang, you put up with the stink.”

  Luna stepped closer, resting a hand lightly on the workbench. “Then we gather what’s needed. If this weapon can do what you say, it changes everything.”

  Lux looked at her for a moment, the determination in her eyes mirroring his own. “It will,” he said quietly. “And once we’ve got the powder… Blackwood’s men won’t know what hit ‘em.”

  Alright — here’s the continuation with the black powder production scene and a small, playful moment between Lux and Luna woven in.

  Around mid-day after a small walk the smell hit them first—acrid, sharp, and unmistakably foul. Strenn was already crouched by the stone lip of the abandoned well, prying loose chunks of the yellowish mineral from the cracks.

  “There’s your egg rock,” she said, holding up a jagged piece.

  Lux took it, turning it over in his hands. “Yep. That’s sulfur.” He shot a quick look at Luna. “And you were worried we wouldn’t find any.”

  She crossed her arms. “I wasn’t worried. I was… cautiously optimistic.”

  Lux smirked. “That’s fancy talk for worried.”

  Luna rolled her eyes but stepped closer, her voice dropping just enough for only him to hear. “You know, for someone who keeps throwing himself in front of danger, you have a lot of nerve teasing me.”

  He grinned, leaning in just slightly. “That’s the only way to keep you from getting bored of me.”

  For a heartbeat, she froze—caught between amusement and something deeper—before turning away with a faint, almost reluctant smile. “Just… gather your sulfur, soldier.”

  Inside one of the cleared-out storage buildings, Lux spread their haul on a table. He’d already ordered charcoal to be ground fine, and Strenn was busy scraping saltpeter from the walls of an old cellar pit. The air was thick with grit and the faint stink of sulfur.

  “Rule one,” Lux said, glancing at Luna, Garrick, and Strenn, “we mix it away from open flame. Black powder’s as volatile as it is useful.”

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  Luna leaned in. “And this will really give your weapons… the bang?”

  Lux gave her a look. “If we do it right, it’ll do more than that—it’ll give us a fighting chance.”

  Strenn measured the components under Lux’s direction—75 parts saltpeter, 15 parts charcoal, 10 parts sulfur—while Garrick improvised a sifting cloth from burlap. Every movement was deliberate, careful.

  By evening, the first small pouch of coarse black powder sat on the table. Lux held it up between finger and thumb.

  “This,” he said quietly, “is the start of something Blackwood won’t see coming.”

  Luna met his gaze, the playful spark from earlier softening into something warmer. “Then let’s make sure it’s the start of his downfall, too.”

  By early evening everything was ready for a test fire.

  Lux dusted his hands off, nodding to the finished pouch of powder.

  “Strenn, we’re halfway there. Now we need something to put this in—bullet casings.”

  The monkey girl straightened from the table, wiping grit from her arms. “Got it. I’ll get the scrap brass and copper we pulled earlier. I can shape them over the small anvil.”

  “Good,” Lux said. “Make them thick enough to handle the pressure, but light enough we can make plenty. We’re going to need numbers.”

  Strenn gave a quick, sharp nod, then hurried back inside the forge, arms loaded with raw metal. The rhythmic clang of hammer-on-metal started moments later.

  Lux stood in the open space just beyond the settlement’s central square, the revolver resting heavy in his grip. Several of the settlement’s fighters—wolfmen, the goat man, the rabbit girl—stood in a half-circle, curious but wary. Luna watched from a short distance, arms folded, her eyes sharp.

  “This,” Lux began, holding the revolver aloft, “isn’t magic. It’s not a crossbow. It’s not a bow at all. It’s a tool from my homeland that works on one principle—force.”

  He knelt, scooping a pinch of black powder from the pouch, holding it up so the fine grains glinted in the last light of the sun. “This is what makes it dangerous.”

  Pouring the powder into a dummy casing Strenn had hammered out earlier for demonstration, he slid it into one of the revolver’s empty chambers. No projectile—just powder—to keep this first test safe.

  “Watch closely,” he said, cocking the hammer. “This is the sound your enemy hears right before they learn they’ve made a mistake.”

  He aimed skyward and squeezed the trigger.

  CRACK!

  The sound was sharp and alien in the quiet air, sending a flock of roosting birds shrieking from the treetops. Several fighters flinched; Luna’s eyes widened, though her posture remained composed.

  “That,” Lux said, lowering the weapon, “was without a bullet. Add lead, and it hits hard enough to punch through armor. By tomorrow, you’ll know how to load, aim, and fire it yourselves.”

  The wolfman Rath grinned slowly, baring teeth. “I like it.”

  Luna stepped forward at last, her gaze lingering on the revolver, then Lux. “If it works as you say… it could change everything.”

  “It will,” Lux replied, his tone certain. “We’ll make sure of it.”

  Alright, here’s how that scene plays out with the one bullet and Luna’s unexpected reaction.

  Finally.

  The rhythmic hammering from inside the forge slowed, then stopped. Strenn emerged, cradling a small cloth bundle as if it were worth its weight in gold. She approached Lux, opening it just enough to reveal a row of rough but serviceable bullet casings, each capped with a lead tip.

  “They’ll work,” she said. “Might not be pretty, but they’ll bite.”

  Lux studied them, then selected a single round. He didn’t explain why—he just turned it in his fingers, slid it into one chamber of the revolver, and snapped the cylinder shut with a practiced flick.

  Luna noticed. “Only one?” she asked.

  “Trust me,” he said, offering her the revolver grip-first. “Your turn, Princess.”

  She stepped forward, brows furrowing. “Show me.”

  Lux positioned her stance, adjusted her grip, then stepped back. “Aim at the haystack. Squeeze slow—don’t yank.”

  Luna took a breath, sighted down the barrel, and squeezed the trigger.

  BANG!

  The crack echoed through the courtyard like a thunderclap. The recoil jolted her wrist, and with a startled gasp, she let the revolver slip from her hands. It hit the dirt with a dull thud.

  For a heartbeat, everyone froze. Luna’s pulse thundered in her ears; her arms felt like lead.

  Lux bent, picked up the weapon, and spun the cylinder. “And that’s why I only put one round in,” he said, glancing up with the faintest smirk. “You drop a loaded gun, it can ruin your day real fast.”

  Her cheeks warmed—not from embarrassment alone, but from the realization that he’d anticipated the moment and kept her safe.

  Behind them, Rath the wolfman chuckled. “Guess it’s not just the noise that’s dangerous.”

  Luna straightened her shoulders, meeting Lux’s gaze. “Again,” she said firmly.

  Luna flexed her wrist, still feeling the ghost of the recoil.

  “How many of these can we make?” she asked, glancing at the revolver in his hands.

  Lux checked the fit of the cylinder before handing it to Strenn. “Six. With what we’ve got for materials, that’s all we can put together before we run out of iron scrap. After that, we’d need to scavenge more.”

  Her gaze drifted over the courtyard, where the wolfmen, the goat man, and a few of the more able-bodied fighters were watching intently. “Then we’ll have to make those six count.”

  Lux nodded once. “Exactly. One in the hands of someone who can actually use it is worth ten in the wrong hands. We’ll rotate them between the best shots.”

  He stepped forward, motioning Rath over. “You’re first. The rest of you—watch close.”

  Strenn busied herself at the forge again, starting on the next frame. Garrick was setting bullet molds near the furnace. The air smelled faintly of the “egg rock” sulfur Strenn had mentioned earlier, now ground fine and ready for the powder mix.

  Luna stayed close, her eyes not leaving Lux as he began showing Rath how to hold, aim, and fire without losing control. There was something about watching him take this foreign, dangerous weapon and turn it into a tool of survival that made her chest feel tight—not with fear, but with a cautious, growing hope.

  When Rath fired, the sharp crack rang across the settlement again. This time, the revolver stayed firmly in the wolfman’s hands.

  Lux glanced back at Luna. “Five more to make, and a lot of training to do before nightfall.”

  The hours blurred into a steady rhythm of hammer strikes, measured pours of molten metal, and the sharp crack of each test shot.

  By midday, the second revolver was finished, then the third. Lux cycled the new owners through the same crash course—stance, grip, aim, fire. The wolfmen took to it fast, their keen eyes and strong arms steadying the weapon after just a few shots. Korr, though slower to adjust, managed a clean hit on his third try, earning a rare approving nod from Lux.

  Luna kept herself near the firing line, watching every shot, every correction he gave. Each time one of their people hit the wooden target Lux had set up, she felt the knot of fear in her stomach loosen just a little. They were no longer helpless.

  By the time the fifth revolver was cooling on the workbench, the fighters were loading and unloading by muscle memory. Garrick and Strenn worked side by side at the forge, their movements quick and sure. Lyra kept a sharp eye from the wall, her bow always in hand.

  Lux passed the last completed revolver to the final trainee, a scarred wolfman named Dorrin. “Remember—don’t waste your shots. Every pull of the trigger counts.”

  The shot rang out, echoing against the half-ruined walls. For a moment, the air was filled only with the metallic tang of gunpowder and the soft murmur of pride from the group.

  Then—

  A long, low screech rolled through the forest beyond the settlement. It started as a distant wail and swelled into a deafening roar that vibrated through the ground beneath their feet.

  The fighters froze. Luna’s hand instinctively went to her sword hilt. Lux’s eyes narrowed, the revolver still in his grip.

  Whatever was out there had heard them. And it was coming.

  The treeline shuddered. Leaves ripped free and spun through the air as something massive forced its way into the clearing.

  The creature’s scales were pitch-black, each one rimmed in a sickly green sheen that caught the light. Its wings, ragged but powerful, unfurled with a snap that sent dust swirling through the settlement. The hooked barbs along its tail gleamed like polished obsidian.

  Luna’s blood turned to ice.

  Her voice came out as little more than a whisper, but everyone near her heard it.

  “A… Black Wyvern…”

  The color drained from her face. Her grip on her sword trembled, not from fear of battle, but from the memory of watching an entire city burn beneath wings just like those.

  “They can’t be killed…” she said, almost choking on the words.

  The wyvern’s head swung toward the sound of voices, its yellow, slit-pupiled eyes narrowing in on the gathered fighters. A guttural hiss rumbled from deep in its chest.

  And then—another sound. The crunch of boots on dry grass.

  From the right flank, emerging from the same treeline, strode Captain Strider with what remained of his force—leaner now, but still disciplined. His armor was streaked with travel grime, but the man carried himself with the same cold arrogance.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted over the settling echo of the wyvern’s roar:

  “BY THE BARON’S ORDERS—PRESENT YOURSELVES FOR DUE PROCESS!”

  The soldiers at his back tightened their ranks. The Captain’s eyes swept over the defenders before stopping dead on Lux.

  A smirk crawled across his face.

  “And you… Lux… looks like the Baron will have the pleasure of seeing you brought in personally.”

  The black wyvern loosed another roar behind him, its voice rattling loose stones from the walls.

  Luna’s heart sank further. Between Strider’s men and the beast, this felt like the end.