The camp was carved into the side of a mountain, hidden beneath layers of smoke and frost. The air always tasted of iron, sulfur, and damp stone. The sun barely touched the valley floor, and when it did, it brought no warmth.

  I was eleven, maybe twelve. Time blurred underground.

  The overseers wore iron collars—not to mark rank, but as reminders. They too had once worn chains. Their status had been bought with cruelty. The true masters—the dwarves—rarely showed themselves. But their presence was everywhere. In the walls. In the rules. In the fear.

  I shoveled slag, broke rocks, and hauled ore like the rest of the half-starved crew. But because of my human blood and my skill with the common tongue, I was given more freedom than most. I became a messenger, a carrier, a pack mule, errand boy, skinner, carver, tanner—for the workshops and the hunters. I was not free, but I could move. I could breathe fresh air. And I could listen.

  That’s when I met him—Master Caveshield.

  A dwarven gunsmith with arms like stone pillars and a beard stained with soot and oil. He was the camp’s powder master. He and his apprentices spent their days mixing explosive charges for the mines and crafting weapons for the guards. He cursed in three tongues and treated apprentices like dull blades. But his forge burned hotter than any other, and he knew his craft.

  To most, he was terrifying.

  To me, he was opportunity.

  No one noticed when I lingered near the doorway or swept too slowly by the forge. No one paid attention to the half-orc boy crouched near the powder barrels, silently memorizing the shape of molds and the ratios of grain. They never imagined I understood the arguments between Caveshield and his apprentices.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  But I did.

  Thanks to my mother, I could read and write. I knew how to listen. And I knew how to wait.

  I began doing the work others wouldn’t. Fetching tankards. Cleaning the hearth. Sharpening worn files. The dwarves thought nothing of it.

  Then, one night, while stacking firewood, I saw it—my first real look at a dwarven flintlock pistol.

  Not the crude flintlock pistols the human bandits had used. No—this was compact, elegant, heavy in the grip. The lock was tight, the steel frizzen fitted clean. A weapon not just built to kill—but to endure.

  The flame of curiosity inside me caught like dry tinder.

  In secret, I began my work.

  I collected scraps—bent nails, broken hammer heads, rusted springs. I stole bits of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter—never enough to raise suspicion, just enough to learn. I “borrowed” parchment from the apprentices’ station and copied diagrams from Caveshield’s manuals. At night, by tallow candle, I studied them in a hollow behind a loose stone near the latrines.

  My first attempts were shameful. A warped barrel. A splintered grip. A lock that sparked but never caught.

  But failure was a lesson.

  My hands blistered. My lungs burned. But I learned.

  I shaped a barrel from an iron pipe. Forged a crude flintlock mechanism, with a hammered cock and makeshift springs. I bored the touchhole with a ground file and hammered out a trigger from scrap iron and leather strap.

  Then came the test.

  I waited until the blasting teams lit the charges for several new shafts. Perfect cover. Explosions were expected.

  I packed the powder, rammed a lead ball down the barrel, stuffed it with cloth wadding. I pulled the cock—and aimed at a dummy I’d built from straw, leather, and rope.

  The miners ran from the shaft.

  Fuses hissing. Sparks falling.

  KABOOM!!!

  The mountains roared.

  I pulled the trigger.

  The flint struck the frizzen. Flash. Smoke. Thunder.

  BANG!

  The ball punched through the dummy, sending straw flying into the dark. The smoke curled around me like a cloak. My ears rang for hours. My fingers trembled.

  Not from fear. From triumph.

  No one suspected. They thought it was a faulty blast. Just another boom in the deep.

  But I knew better.

  That was the first spark of my freedom.

  And so I began to plan.

  A hidden shaft. A buried chamber. Supplies smuggled bit by bit.

  I had made fire speak.

  Now I would make it scream.