place on a stool placed at one end of a trestle table, the rough equivalent of a “high seat,” and nodded to the tender of the beer stall, who made a great ceremony out of knocking in the spigot on the special keg on the counter and starting to pour the brew.
She was rather pleased that she hadn’t needed the help of her Elementals all that much, which made the victory feel thoroughly earned. It had been a bit grueling; she’d needed every bit of her concentration.
She actually didn’t remember anything much except the shots that she had taken; when she was participating in a shooting contest, she concentrated on her targets to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. This had been one of those contests with clay plates strung up on a framework and an allowance of a single bullet for each plate; that was a good bit easier than actual targets. She was the only one who had cleared her frame of every plate, every time. The last contest had been a sort of shooting gallery with an actual target pulled across the field by a clockwork mechanism. All of her shots had been grouped in the center; her opponent’s had been in the first ring.
She settled down at the table with six of the other marksmen, who had watched eagerly while the keg was tapped and the enormous steins filled and handed round. She knew better than to just sip at hers; no man would ever take anything but hearty gulps, and she needed to make sure every one of her mannerisms was masculine. So she feigned to drink twice as often as she actually swallowed, and no one noticed because they were too busy enjoying themselves.
She turned to a polite tap on her shoulder. “Gunther, lad! It was a damn good thing for you that each round was twenty shots!” said an older man in a well-worn hunter’s gear, with a badge of a boar’s head and a tuft of pheasant feathers on his hat. The grin on his face said that he really wasn’t being serious, which was fortunate; other marksmen bested by “Gunther” had muttered darkly about pacts and haunted clearings.
Giselle chuckled. “What, did you think I was a Freischutz?” she asked, referring to the old legend of the hunter who makes a deal with a devil to cast seven magic bullets—the first six would hit whatever the hunter wanted, but the seventh was under the devil’s control. . . . “Well, at my eighth plate, I proved you wrong, eh?”
“So you did!” The old man lifted his stein in a toast. “Well, aside from having an eagle’s eyes and the steadiest hand I ever saw, how did you become such a good shot so young?”
Giselle thought about the hours and hours she had spent, not only practicing her marksmanship combined with her Air Magic, but learning to defend herself with knife, staff, club, and far more exotic weapons. Mother had insisted on that, and as it turned out, there were many Earth Elementals more than willing to serve as trainers. Satyrs in particular thought everything but pistol and rifle practice were great fun, and were expert archers, staff-fighters, and just as skilled with sword or club. And they were not in the least inclined to treat her gently on account of her sex.
But obviously she couldn’t mention any of this. So instead, she just shrugged. “I am poor, and have been all my life,” she pointed out. “If I miss, I don’t eat.” And certainly, the worn condition of her own clothing testified to that poverty. Her gear was actually secondhand, passed down from one of the younger fellows of the Bruderschaft. It certainly lent credence to her story of poverty.
“Ah, well then, I am glad to have lost to a fellow who is in need of the prize,” the older hunter replied, clapped his hand on her shoulder and went to get himself a refill.
As the sun went down, the dancing began in earnest, as did the eating and drinking. Fortunately for her growling stomach, which was not convinced that beer was food, some of her fellow hunters were inclined to beer-induced generosity. A pretty serving girl brought an enormous platter of grilled sausages, fresh bread, mustard and sauerkraut that had been ordered by one of the others at the table. He magnanimously paid for it all and invited them all to share in it. Giselle picked up a fork, stabbed