Chapter 88: If You Want Peace... (Patreon)

Willem walked into the grand workshop that had often been of during his long talks with Karel. This was the van der Heiden workshop. From the sheer grandeur of the place, it was clear that this was the most advanced workshop in the land. The hum of magic could be faintly felt as mages and smiths worked in tandem to turn the most mystical of metals into workable gear.

It didn’t take long for someone to come out to greet Willem, as had been promised. A shrewish looking man with a tall and thin neck walked up to him, sizing him up. Willem wasn’t dressed especially grandly, and he carried a wooden crossbow at his side. It was different from most crossbows, however, with a large hump where the bolts ought to be placed.

“Welcome to the Heiden workshop. I am Count Rudolph van der Heiden. May I ask who you are, young lord?” the man asked as the clanging of metal echoed throughout the area. “If my people let you in this place, I assume that you have proven status enough to be here. Still, I’d like to know with whom I’m working.”

“I’m the son of Count Tielman van Brugh. Willem.” Willem held the crossbow out. “Straight to business, if we could. Take a look at this.”

The man took the crossbow in his thin, sinewy hands. He examined it for only a few seconds before saying, “I’ve seen one of these before. It’s a repeating crossbow. You can find quite a lot of these overseas, where they’re used for self-defense in the hands of women and scholars untrained in fighting.”

“Points for you,” Willem said. “I bought it cheap from a merchant in the capital. I figured it’d be better than a blueprint.”

“Hmm,” the smith nodded. “It’s not a weapon for breaking shields or felling armored knights—it’s a weapon for putting a dozen bolts into a man before he can cross a courtyard. Easy to handle even if you’ve never trained a day in your life. You mostly see it kept behind doors, tucked under beds, or carried by women traveling the roads. These can loose ten bolts in twenty seconds. When poisoned, against unarmored targets… quite effective.” Rudolph looked up at Willem. “Would you like to give one to a lady friend of yours, perhaps as a gift? Something to keep her safe while she travels the road?”

Willem laughed. “My lady friend certainly doesn’t need my protection.” He shook his head. “No, this is for me. I’d like you to make a far more durable version of this. I want to be able to operate it by the use of aura alone, instead of the lever.” Willam put his hands on the magazine. “And I want you to put the magazine on the bottom of the crossbow, if possible.”

“Magazine, young lord?” Rudolph asked for clarification.

“The place where the crossbow bolts are stored,” Willem clarified.

“That would be difficult to do, because gravity lowers the bolts down into their location at present.” Rudolph removed the top-loading mechanism, displaying that fact.

“Use a spring, then. A coil spring,” Willem said.

Rudolph nodded sagely. “A coil spring… could work.” He looked up at Willem. “And you said that you wanted the mechanism to be operable with aura alone?”

Willem nodded. “That’s right. Ideally, it’ll have a grip at the point where the bolt releases to steady it and aim it like a normal crossbow.”

Rudolph scratched his chin as he held the crossbow in his other hand. “I believe that we could do that, and I believe that we can make it all mechanical instead of employing magic. But if I might ask… why? This weapon would be absurdly weak. If you have aura to power it with, best to simply use aura.”

“You think so?” Willem crossed his arms in amusement.

Rudolph hefted the repeating crossbow. “This won’t be able to pierce iron armor, let alone steel. And finer metals? Forget about it. It would only be suitable for hitting unarmored targets, and even then, it would simply be better to employ aura to chop them to bits. I can make you a sword of mithril, adamantium, or orichalcum. It’ll last you one hundred years.”

Willem shook his head. “I don’t want a sword that lasts me one hundred years. I just want a crossbow that can get me through one war.”

“Well, if it’s your primary weapon, I can’t imagine that you’ll make it through the one.” Rudolph set the weapon down on a nearby workbench. “But… it’s your money. I’ve advised you as best I can. If you still want it, it’ll be 500 gold.”

“750, provided you can deliver it by tomorrow morning,” Willem said.

“Do you have the 250 gold to accelerate things?” Rudolph asked.

“I’ll deliver to your people up front,” Willam promised.

“See that you do. Work won’t start until I have that gold.” Rudolph removed his glove and held out his hand. “Come by tomorrow, then. It won’t have any fancy engravings or anything, but it’ll perform as you wish it to.”

***

Willem turned the solid steel crossbow over in his hands, feeling its weight. It was heavier than the merchant’s toy he had brought in, and solid. Rudolph chose dark, polished steel with reinforced joints at every stress point. The old top-loading mechanism was gone. In its place, a sleek bottom-mounted magazine fed the frame, feeding the bolts upward with pressure from an internal spring he could faintly hear ticking if he listened closely.

The stock was plain, stripped of any decoration, but balanced well enough to aim quickly. It was not beautiful nor elegant, but it was exactly what he had asked for: a weapon meant for war. He had been provided with three spare magazines, and they were easy enough to load up with bolts—only a bit time consuming. However, reloading magazines was as efficient as any gun he’d fired. It had paid to go with the Heiden family. They knew their weapons.

Willem held the crossbow out to the target in front of him and called upon his aura to pull back the crossbow’s string. It was an awkward, laborious task at first, but once it clicked it worked somewhat intuitively. When he readied it, he pressed on the releasing mechanism and the bolt fired outward. It struck into the straw target, and then Willem readied it once more. Every time he drew the string back, he became a bit more efficient at using his aura in this fashion. Before long, all ten quarrels had pierced the straw target. It was a smooth experience—he got what he paid for.

As Willam admired the weapon, he felt a rush of air as something moved past him. An arrow struck deep into the target, going all the way to the back of the arrow where the fletching was. He turned around to see Arend standing there with a bow in the hand.

“Why would you waste your money on that?” Arend asked. He set the bow beside him. It was as tall as he was. “I may not understand the economies that you’re used to, but I understand economies of war. I’ve seen people that can fire five arrows in ten seconds. It’ll be much better than anything that crossbow can produce. You could pierce steel plate with a bow of this quality.”

Willem looked at his commissioned weapon. The beauty of things like this crossbow was that it didn’t require a great deal of training. One needs but hand a man the crossbow, show him how to load it, and he can pretty well much do the rest. If one could get a couple thousand crossbowmen in a line, it won’t matter if they’re not the most accurate—whatever they’re fighting will fall.

That was some of the principle of modern firearms. They didn’t need incredibly elaborate training for foot soldiers to use them well. Willem didn’t know much about shooting a bow, let alone how to be accurate with it. But this? This, he knew how to use. All that mattered was whether or not his other half could be trusted to do his part of the bargain.

***

Ordinarily, by the time someone had such fine control of their aura that they could wreathe weapons in it and throw them, the person was already deeply set into a particular fighting style. It seemed as though the technique that employed the aura bow was one that demanded a very precise control over aura, and additionally a large quantity of it.

But Willem Senior had all the benefits of Willem Junior’s hard work, without the mental expertise to go along with it. He was the perfect subject for mastering the aura bow. And thus, as the rest of the country quietly prepared for their coming battle against Avaria, the Willems did just the same. They were one of a small group that had endured the Eye of the Sovereigns first hand, and thus could call upon that experience in recreating the technique.

Willem Senior has studied the aura bow technique in some detail, as this idea of recreating it had been brewing in his head for a long period of time. He knew that there wasn’t something special about the bows that the nomads had been using, as he’d captured some after the fact and examined them. They were simple recurve bows, with no special material in the string or the bow itself. Additionally, their arrows weren’t unique. The only thing unusual about them was that they had no fletching.

The technique, then, relied on imbuing the arrow Itself with aura. It wouldn’t have been able to create that sort of devastation if it had been the material alone. Somehow, the nomads had strengthened the arrow itself with aura and used that as a devastating salvo. Willem Senior had knowledge of things that could function in that fashion. Shells jam packed with explosives, for instance. Rockets, grenades, mines—Willem Senior helped impart the lessons taught by those weapons to Willem Junior.

Willem may not have been able to understand most of the scientific principles of firearms, but he grasped some simple facts. He knew that the gunpowder contained within the bullet itself propelled it, and tried to emulate that effect in the crossbow. By bunching power at the point where the bolt met the crossbow string, he was able to greatly enhance the speed of the projectile at a cost to accuracy.

The issue of accuracy was easily abated with the introduction of faux rifling. Using aura, he could make the quarrel spiral through the air, greatly enhancing precision. It was somewhat difficult to do quickly, but not excessively so. With those two simple additions, they were already able to greatly increase strength and accuracy. Still, it was incomparable to the artillery-like power that had been behind the aura bows they’d seen in the Eye of the Sovereigns. There was something that they were missing.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to figure out the quirks in the middle of peacetime. They were summoned to the royal palace before they had the chance.

***

Willem stood side by side with the other Six Drakes. They were in the training room in which Hans had lost his hand. Standing in front of them was the king, his daughter, Sarah, Galahad, and oddly enough, Hans. He knew that the man had been making more frequent visits the royal palace, but he didn’t know it was to this extent.

“As many people are probably aware, I’ve been spending the past days preparing for war.” the king looked between them all. “All of you have shown your mettle in the Eye of Sovereigns. I have little doubt that you are sufficient commanders for the task that lies ahead. And that is why on this day, we shall decide the command roles for each of you present.”

“Command roles, Your Majesty?” Levente asked.

“Cavalry Captain. Infantry Marshal. Commander of Skirmishers. Commander of Archers. Siege Commander. Lord Admiral. Marshal of Provisions,” King Arnoud listed monotonously. “My daughter will serve as Grand Commander of the invasion force into Avaria… but each of you will take on prominent roles of your own.”

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