Elemental.
Her sylphs were talking to it—and it had its eyes fixed on the Indian’s. He interrupted the conversation that was still going on between Captain Cody and the other man, and said a few sharp, excited words. And pointed.
At her.
Before she could back away and run, all three of them were striding toward her with purpose in every step. They literally surrounded her so she couldn’t move, with Captain Cody and the man in the suit talking excitedly and gesturing at her.
Their German was . . . terrible.
She shook her head, trying to convey that she didn’t understand. All that accomplished was to make them repeat themselves, only louder this time, as if by volume alone they could make her understand. She looked from Cody’s face to the other man’s and back, only getting more bewildered and starting to feel more than a bit desperate.
Then the Indian interrupted them with an abrupt gesture and a single word. They fell silent, and waited, expectantly.
The Indian pointed at her, then mimed something. After a moment, she understood what it was—he was carefully aiming, and shooting, a rifle!
He pointed at her again. Was he asking if she could shoot? The way he spread his hands afterward seemed to indicate that was just what he was doing, so she nodded, and mimed shooting her rifle.
That got the two men even more excited, if that was possible. They started babbling at her until the Indian snorted in disgust, and that seemed to remind them that she couldn’t understand a single word they were saying. But Captain Cody seized her by the wrist and pulled gently. The Indian made shooing motions in the direction he was trying to take her.
“Go with them!” all three sylphs urged. “Go with them! They want to see what we can do!”
She might have been frightened, and indeed, perhaps she should have been frightened, except that it was clear to her, and more importantly, to her sylphs, that these men meant her no harm. If there was one thing that an Elemental Master came to trust, it was the instincts of her Elementals, for they saw deeper than any mere human could. Maybe if I had been paying more attention to them, I would have left before the Hauptmann found me. . . .
Captain Cody’s grip on her wrist was not so tight that she couldn’t have pulled away if she wanted to, but with her own Elementals telling her to do what these men wanted—well it would have been foolish not to do what they said. She didn’t know why the sylphs wanted her to shoot for them, but perhaps . . . perhaps she could get a meal out of it if she impressed them, and maybe a bed in one of the tents for the night. That was certainly worth a few shots at a target, given the shrinking of her finances. So she let Cody lead her to a part of the camp where a target range had been set up, with the other two men following behind. There was a backstop of logs, against which there was a row of paper targets. There were stationary targets, and also a crate of clay targets meant to be tossed in the air. Behind the backstop was the canvas wall; it occurred to her that these people must be very sure of their own aim to know that any misfires would go into the logs and not to either side, through the canvas and then . . . hitting who knew what!
She didn’t have her own rifle with her, but the Captain motioned for her to wait and went off to a nearby tent. He returned with a rifle, a carbine of some sort. It was somewhat more sophisticated than her own piece, and much newer, but after several moments of looking it over and miming to Cody he should demonstrate its action, she was satisfied she could handle it creditably once she got it sighted in on the stationary targets. She raised it to her shoulder for her first shot and glanced at the Indian.
He gave a slight tilt of his head in the direction of the three sylphs, and the sketchiest of nods. So, he intended that she “cheat?” Very well, then.
You may help me, she thought hard at them. The bullet must—
“We know!” crowed the white-winged one. “This will be tremendous fun!”
This gun was lighter than hers, so she braced herself for a bigger “kick.” Kickback