"I'm not surprised," Boian said. He'd ridden in with five contingents a little before noon, and we were sequestered with him and his cavaliers around his planning table, eating lunch. "As you saw, I'd left extra troops here. From what I understand, your timely arrival turned a pitched battle into a complete rout with over three dozen Sobecks dead and less than a dozen lost on our side."

"With this rout, maybe that will end it." I could hope.

"Maybe," he said. "The dead were mostly the smaller ones who don't fight as well as those bred with humans. I've seen their leader. About as tall as you and as broad as me. He's skilled with his spear, which is iron-tipped. Not many of those around here. What was the sound of his howl? Like our battle when we were coming here?

I shook my head. "Different. Lower pitched, I think, then taken up by a few others."

"This one joins the fight but pulls back after taking out a couple of soldiers or a cavalier. However, he'll let the small ones continue to fight to the death. He's got plenty of them, though we're finding them less and less, so we're getting the upper hand. It might break the rest of them if we could get him."

"That would be nice," Ellie said.

My mind was still somewhat numb this morning, but it was better than last night. I did sleep some, somehow. Oana saw me heading to bed and hobbled behind me until I scooped her up. The Sobeck had twisted her ankle, which the armor didn't protect against much, but at least nothing broke. I pulled her to me, and when I woke, Sorina was pressed against me, and Ellie against her.

This would delay our departure by a couple of days as we needed to be here to lay the dead to rest. Reginar had joined us, though in some pain. He and Cornelia weren't concerned about the delay, so I guessed I shouldn't be, but I was ready to go. I wanted this over.

There was a knock on the door, and Gabriel and Stefan came in with pitchers of beer and a plank of cheese, meats, and bread and poured beer for everyone.

As they went to leave, I waved them to a stop.

"Go sit under the window and listen."

Boian raised his eyebrows, and some of the cavaliers looked them over.

"They'll be out with us, so they can sit quietly, listen, and learn. Now, where were we?"

"Lord Kevin." A cavalier I didn't recognize spoke up. "We're grateful for your arrival. It saved many lives. At the same time, we had prepared. Lord Boian had us bring the women and children within the palisade before the rain started. We'd parked a wagon by the gate to hide the movement and likewise prepared ourselves."

Boian chuckled. "At any hint of storms. This was at least the fourth time we'd done that, but it was worth it. If the Sobecks kept watch, it was from far away because of the burning of the land. Hearths in the homes were cold, so no flames to put everything to the torch."

"Yet all of the troops stayed outside?" I directed that back at the cavalier.

"Not all, Milord. We left a contingent of archers to man the walls if the Sobecks came close and set ambushes to encourage them in that direction."

"Some of the archers are no longer soldiers," Boian continued, "but they'd had the training and occasionally refreshed their training over the years by bringing venison and turkey to the table. We hadn't turned in all our bows and arrows by any means, and the older ones trained some younger ones who could keep their mouths shut." He winked at the boys.

"Lord Boian, that sounds almost seditious," Ellie said, but with humor in her voice.

"To some, it would've been, Maid Elexus," he grinned back, "but I assume I'm in good company based on your training."

"Most definitely," she replied.

In that area, most definitely, but I had some questions, and this forum was too public to ask them. We continued discussing our plans, the boys listening intently to the interplay. As the discussion wound down, it seemed a good time to clear out the room for a more private conversation.

"Gentlemen and Ladies, if you would excuse us, I have some things I would like to discuss with Lord Boian privately. So if everyone else would leave...." I let that hang in the air.

As they filed out, Sinense asked, "Can I stay?"

"No, though Ellie should. Everyone else out."

Ellie looked from me to Boian and back as the door finally shut. She had some ideas about this meeting, and I wondered if it was close to my reasons for it.

"This feels serious, Milord." He mainly dropped his smile.

"That's the thing," I replied. "I don't know whether it is or not. The only things I'm sure of at this point are a knife and your direction of travel."

He looked at me a moment before asking, "A knife?"

"The knife you returned to Teo."

His brow said he didn't understand yet, but I didn't expect him to.

"Ohhh...," Ellie said. "What was Teo's dad...Sir Durkin, I think it was, doing out there on his own, and...and...where were you coming from when we met? I'd been wondering about that, too."

Boian's smile flickered, then came back. "You're right. This could be serious, and I'm not sure how serious it is at this point."

"Care to explain?"

"Possible sedition?" He did look concerned. "Situations have changed in several ways, and that's why I'm not sure."

"Keep going," Ellie prompted.

"You know about the other Burgaviate that broke away several years ago. We met in the tower, you two and me, and that was part of that Burgraviate. They were attacked there and in other places, though not by Sandoval. It was others, human but a little strange. They were taller and more slender than us, with weapons that made explosions and sent pieces of lead into our people. They could reach much farther than our arrows, but they were slow. Their soldiers had to do several different things to make each explosive attack. We were able to take advantage of that."

"You say 'we?'"

"When we got word, we joined in attacking this force. We attacked the wagons that brought their provisions until they stopped coming, but we could never find where they originally came from. It was like you described yourselves. They were simply here. I first thought you came from there, but it sounded like your weapons were more powerful than those."

I looked at Ellie.

"Black powder, maybe," she said, echoing my thoughts. "Flintlock, matchlock, or maybe a form of cap and ball. It doesn't sound like a cartridge weapon."

I nodded in agreement.

"You know what I'm talking about?"

"Archaic firearms," Ellie said. "From a couple of centuries before we were born on our world, though there are some still around for those who want more of a challenge hunting deer, but not as much as using a bow." She smiled broadly at him.

"You, of course, hunt with a bow."

"Of course, but I started with a modern rifle." At his puzzled look, she explained, "More like what Kevin was talking about, where I could shoot bullets as fast as I could aim."

"That's what I was talking about," I added, "but the attack at the keep is something more like it, too. Lord Emil did write you about that?"

"You were near death, and Lauretti snatched you away somewhere, healed you with her magic, and brought you back the same night. The attackers used swords but threw magic balls that exploded, killing people all around. That they wore white underwear that was armor...like yours, it sounded like, though I never told him about yours. Then everything exploded, and another of them got away and threw more of those balls in town, but you caught him later and turned him over to the women in town, and they burned him alive."

I felt myself go pale, and he smiled. "Yes, I received updates every couple of days after I left. He was even Regent for a few days, not a job I'd like. But back to our original attackers. The black powder people, you said? They had two large rifles they rolled around on carts and loaded them similarly, shoving lengths of chain down their gullets. Then they'd explode, throw chains and other metal at our people, and kill a dozen or more. There must've been more of us than they expected. We won, and Lord Kurkurall decided to make himself Crown Lord over his Burgraviate as its own country."

"You didn't stop him?"

"I was his squire. My father was a Primor, but off to the west. Lord Kurkurall made me a cavalier, though after my father became Burgrave of Bacea, I came home. Understand this. The Regent never sent forces to defend Lord Kurkurall, so I feel he was justified to renounce his fealty...to the Regent. He said he wasn't sure about the Realm since they were absent, but he couldn't follow the Regent. Now, he might rejoin Baemardis, but I don't know. With the Sobecks roaming so freely, I haven't been willing to risk myself or one of my cavaliers to make that trip. There are finally fewer Sobecks, so after our next set of forays, maybe the three of us should travel there and meet with him. He'd be more favorable to the two of you."

I took a breath. This brought as many questions as it did answers...a lot more questions. Maybe I should've kept Reginar and Cornelia in here with us, but we could go over all this later.

"Do you have any of the guns...the rifles?"

He nodded, opened a panel on the side of an armoire-like piece of furniture, and pulled out two rifles and a pistol before placing them on the table.

"I'm getting Cornelia," Ellie said and went out the door.

Boian pulled out a belt as I grabbed the closest rifle...well...smooth-bore, it turned out. Muzzleloader with a flash pan and a hammer mechanism. A white rock, chert maybe, instead of flint. I'd only used a flintlock a couple of times...more of that training, I supposed...and the mechanism was similar but different from what I remembered. Thick barrel with a caliber that looked around a half-inch.

The stock was nicely carved and inlaid with bone, and the butt was made of bone. It would look nice in a museum, but in what world? Back home, yes, but here it was anachronistically high-tech.

I picked up the second long arm as Ellie and Cornelia came in, and Cornelia let out a whistle.

"Lord Boian, you've been holding back on us."

"Yes, Milady, but this seemed the appropriate time. I know they work because they were used against us, but I know not how they work."

"And how long ago was this?"

"About fifteen years ago, Milady."

She picked up the flintlock I'd put down while I examined this other one, which had an even larger bore. Shotgun?

"These need a thorough cleaning and inspection. There's a lot of rust in here from not being cleaned. No offense, Lord Boian. You don't know anything about them."

"This one doesn't look too bad," I said.

"I took that to our smithy to see if he could duplicate it, but it was beyond him. He probably cleaned it while he looked it over."

"You don't have the technology or tools to do this yet. I'll want to discuss this with Lauretti. What you have here would move you a couple of centuries into the future, Lord Boian. That's if everything was functional, you could get the supplies you needed, and you were able to reproduce these. I don't see that happening with the limited ore available and lack of skills. When we give jumps, it's usually small ones, like the swords and knives you and the other nobles carry. And my little Maid Oana. She says it was yours."

Boian went back over everything we'd discussed earlier and continued on about Lord Kurkurall's secession, an attempted coup from the northern Burgraviate shortly after, which included the Regent being wounded by an arrow. That caused the confiscation of most of the bows and arrows, which Emil and Boian didn't completely follow. Then there was the attempted coup from the southern Burgraviate against Grigore, which also failed and brought Lord Tiber in as their new Burgrave.

I knew all of this, but Cornelia asked Boian for more details on each, plus went back to the black powder people, as Boian was now calling them.

"As I said, we'd attacked their supply trains and were less fearful of their explosive weapons once we realized how much time went by between their booming attacks, and we were able to overwhelm them by charging into their midst with arrow and spear. We attacked in the rain, and that helped us, too. We could only backtrack them to the river before their tracks were washed away."

"There should be a portal out there somewhere," Cornelia said. "You don't just dump an army into a new world without a way to retrieve them."

"That's what happened to us," Ellie said.

"Yeah, well, Lauretti thought their end was on the blink, so she set you outside. Trust me when I say she feels awful for that, though time and choices were minimal. They were lucky to get out alive. But back to this. It's been a long time, but let's talk about what happened."