From Restitution: Fire and fury:<\/p>\n
“The cannon roared. Smoke billowed. A tongue of flame licking out from the muzzle as the ball shot forward, a dark blur against the pale winter sky.
\nIt struck the wooden wall with a sound like God’s hammer.
\nAnd punched straight through – a fusillade of wooden splinters peppering the woodland beyond.
\nThe ball did not shatter like it was supposed to. So it did not spill its deadly cargo of Greek Fire. It just went… straight through. Out the other side, disappearing into the brush beyond with a crash of breaking branches.
\nSilence.
\nThomas felt something cold settle in his chest. “It didn’t break. There is no fire.”
\n“The walls of the ball must have been too thick, my lord. Perhaps that is why it felt heavier,” Ned said quietly. “As I said, variability. It made it through the barrel fine, but…”
\n“Load this one. Now,” commanded Thomas as he thrust the second ball at the assistant.
\nThe lighter ball went into the cannon. Thomas watched Luis from the corner of his eye. The alchemist was sweating despite the February chill.
\n“Fire.”
\nThe cannon roared again.
\nThis time, the sound was different. A grinding crack, a shriek of tortured metal. The cannonball collapsed in the barrel like a crushed egg, and a viscous brown mixture spurted from the cannon’s mouth. No ball, and no fire, either.
\nFor a heartbeat, nothing happened.
\nThen it ignited.
\nThe smell hit first. Sulphur and pitch and something else, something acrid that clawed at the back of Thomas’ throat. Limp orange flames spread across the damp grass like spilled wine, burning reluctantly, producing more smoke than heat. The stench was choking, unholy.
\nNed’s assistant stamped at it with his boots. Within moments, it was out, leaving only scorched earth and a lingering reek of hellfire.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Restitution: Fire and fury: “The cannon roared. Smoke billowed. A tongue of flame licking out from the muzzle as the ball shot forward, a dark blur against the pale winter sky. It struck the wooden wall with a sound like God’s hammer. And punched straight through – a fusillade of wooden splinters peppering the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predestination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}