There Will Be Dragons

CHAPTER THIRTY

Kane was checking one of the horse’s shoes when Edmund entered the barn and he looked up in surprise at the mayor.

“When did they let you out of the cage?” he asked with a chuckle.

“I told my keepers to screw off and die,” Talbot replied with a grin. “I was thinking about taking a ride if you’d loan me a horse and gear. And I thought you might like to ride along.”

“Okay,” Kane said, dropping the horse’s hoof. “I don’t suppose you remember much hot shoeing? I’ve been cold farriering these beasts but I’m about out of decent shoes.”

“See Suwisa,” Edmund said, pulling down a saddle and tack. “I’m pretty much out of the blacksmith business these days.”

“I did,” Kane said, following him out and whistling up a horse. “Hanarah or Arab?”

“Arab if Alyssa won’t mind,” Talbot replied. When the horse was called forward he caught it up and saddled it with ease. “We’ll have to see if I remember how to ride.”

“It’s like sex,” Kane replied, lifting himself into the saddle. “Once you’ve done it once you never forget.”

“And, like sex,” Talbot replied with a grunt as he hoisted himself upwards, “if you haven’t done it for a while, the muscles lose their tone.”

Despite his protests they trotted out of the corral and up towards Massan Mountain, taking a narrow trail up its woods covered sides. The day was clear and just turning to the summer heat but under the trees it was still cool from the morning and the horses were frisky. Suddenly, Edmund kicked his mount into a canter, then a full gallop, charging up the winding trail in a series of hair-raising turns.

Kane tried to keep up but the Hanarahs for all their speed were designed for the flats; the more nimble Arab easily left the larger horse behind.

Finally he debouched into a clearing on a shoulder of the mountain where Edmund was settling his prancing mount. As the Hanarah charged into the clearing the Arab reared, flailing its hooves at the apparent challenger.

Talbot easily kept his seat, grinning from the exhilarating ride and the antics of his mount. “I guess I haven’t lost my touch,” he said as the Arab got all four feet back on the ground.

“You were always a fine knight, King Edmund,” Kane grinned.

“But no more,” Edmund replied with a frown. “Mayor I am and mayor I’ll stay if I have my way.”

“What’s that mean?” Kane said with a raised eyebrow.

“Those damned idiots in the constitutional committee…” Talbot said then shrugged. “We’re going from a nice, clean constitution to something… They want to reinstitute an aristocracy and I can’t stop the momentum.”

“Well…” Kane temporized then shrugged. “I guess it depends on whether you’re going to be the aristocrat or not. How are they going to ‘choose’ them?”

“They’re going for a bicameral legislature; I got them that far,” Edmund replied. “The lower house will be straight population representative, although broken up geographically. The ‘upper’ house, though, they want to be an aristocratic body. I think I’m going to get it to be partially representative. Probably with members chosen by district governments. But some of the representatives are insisting on an aristocratic addition. Give them their due, it’s not all hereditary. But they also want ‘notable persons’ who will have lifetime appointments. I don’t like lifetime appointments in general and I especially don’t like the idea of hereditary appointees having a say in government.”

“What’s their argument?” Kane asked.

“Basically that there are some areas that already determined to have hereditary power transfer,” Edmund sighed. “And we can’t get them to join us unless we factor for it. There’s also the fact that some of the members of the committee recognize that they are likely to be included. Their argument is that it gives a solid means of power transfer that people can identify with.”

“Edmund, bear with me,” Kane said carefully. “But… they have a point. As a society we have had one hell of a shock. People… people are looking for security as much as anything right now. Hereditary aristocracy… has a very secure feeling to it.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Edmund replied. “But it’s also a bad idea in the long term. You know how hard I’ve been working to avoid even de facto feudalism here. There are ‘allies’ that we’re going to be forced to include that have actual feudalism brewing. And that is getting included as well, the permission for feudalistic society. Now, right now that is going to fly. But in time there are going to be areas that have serfs and areas that abhor the concept. That’s a recipe for civil war if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Ouch,” Kane replied. “Good point.”

In the meantime, I’ve a town to defend and that’s what I really wanted to talk about.”

“Oh?”

“I need two things and I think that you’re the right person to handle both. The first is that we need some cavalry scouts and eventually we’ll need some heavy cavalry. Good cavalry is as hard to come by as good archers and good legionnaires. In fact, I don’t think you’ll find it possible; it’s the one arm I’m willing to admit will need at least a few generations to develop.”

“Agreed,” Kane said with a sigh. “And bow archers are even harder. I’d love to have a squadron of them. But this area will never develop the skills; too much woodland, not enough plains.”

“True. But I want you to start working on it. They don’t have to be full, professional quality cavalry, just the best that you can do. Start with the group that helped in the roundup. The main thing I need is cavalry scouts and those just need to be able to find their way around and stay on a horse.”

“Okay, I’ll start with Herzer,” Kane said with a grin.

“Well, you’ll have to discuss that with him,” Talbot temporized and then chuckled. “He’d probably make a damned fine archer from evidence, Jody has been asking to have him back on his clearing crew, you want him for cavalry and from what I saw of him in my forge the other day he’d make a damned fine smith. The only person who’s not asking for him is John Miller who called him ‘a hack-handed idiot.’ ”

“So who gets him?” Kane asked with a smile; the sawmill manager was well known to the old re-enactors.

“He told me he wants to be a legionnaire,” Edmund said with a shrug.

“Does he know about the cavalry?”

“No, but I doubt you’ll change his mind,” Talbot replied. “Actually, I think that once they’re done training, we’ll probably want some of the archers and infantry to get used to riding. But not as true ‘cavalry.’ ”

“Okay, I’ll work on it,” Kane said with another grin. “Even without Herzer.”

“The second item is like unto the first,” Edmund said, starting to walk the horse sedately back down the hill. “I need someone to organize the militia. You can delegate that as you wish, but you’re well known in the ‘fighter’ portion of the reenactors. And I just don’t have time. I have Robert for the archers and Gunny for the legionnaires but I need someone to organize the disorganized militia.”

“Fun, are you giving me the cavalry in compensation?”

“Something like that,” Edmund chuckled. “Again, you can delegate it to others, but I want you to manage it in your munificent free time.”

“Since the roundup I’ve actually had free time,” Kane grumbled. “So much for that.”

“We’ve all got our crosses to bear,” Edmund said as they reached the flats. They were about a kilometer from the fences and that caused Edmund to grin. “Race you.”

“Herzer, you have visitors,” Rachel said, from the doorway of his bedroom.

Herzer looked up and smiled as Courtney and Mike came in the room and Rachel faded away. “Ah, visitors from far away lands,” he said, setting down the book he had been reading. The visit to Edmund’s forge had, not too unexpectedly, taken it out of him and he had suffered a small relapse. But he was feeling well again and getting tired of being confined. Fortunately, Master Talbot had a fine collection of old books so while the time was not passing pleasantly, it was passing.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Courtney asked.

“Never mind,” Herzer chuckled. “I’d say ‘pull up a chair’ but it’s more like ‘pull up the chair.’ I haven’t been getting a lot of visitors,” he continued. “So tell me all the news.”

“How are you feeling?” Courtney asked, instead.

“Fine. I wish they’d let me out of here.”

“You took a really bad hit,” Mike said, leaning on the wall and crossing his arms. “You nearly punched out on us.”

“Yeah, well, that was then, this is now,” Herzer replied with a frustrated tone.

“Trust me, it’s better than working,” Courtney sighed, tossing her hair. “That’s why you haven’t been getting many visitors; we’ve all been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. And having seen a chicken with its head cut off, that now has a whole new meaning to me.”

Herzer chuckled at the image and shook his head. “So, come on, what’s been happening? I understand I missed quite a party at the big slaughter.”

“Yeah, well, we did gorge ourselves for a couple of days there,” Mike admitted.

“But we paid for it,” Courtney said with a shudder.

“Pretty bad?” Herzer asked.

“You know that creek behind the slaughter buildings?” Courtney said and waited for a nod. “It was running red with blood. We ended up with about six hundred carcasses and it was like an assembly line. Hanging them, skinning them, cutting them up, separating out the guts…”

“Offal,” Mike interjected. “It sounds better. Especially when you end up eating it.”

“But we rounded up a lot of feral domestics,” Courtney pointed out. “And tons of food that’s being smoked. And that’s part of what we wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh?”

“The class has been breaking up,” Courtney said. “Emory ended up going to work with Jody clearing land and burning charcoal and Shilan has joined the weavers. We’re in the farming portion of the class but… after that we’re planning on quitting as well and we’re nearly done. They’re starting to parcel out the land for farms and there’s a lottery for the domestics that were captured. Anyone can apply for land and everyone who was involved in the roundup gets tickets for the lottery.”

“You see,” Mike said. “They’re going to take all the animals and parcel them out. There were a lot rounded up, but not enough for everyone to have what they want and everybody wants certain kinds.”

“Am I in this lottery?” Herzer asked with a smile.

“Uh, yeah,” Courtney replied with an embarrassed expression. “And we kind of wondered…”

“What I was planning on doing with whatever I got?” Herzer asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I didn’t even know it was going on, so this is all kind of new.”

“You can apply for a land parcel, too,” Mike said. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. But if you apply for one that is next to ours, I can try to break and work both of them. You have to pay for the land in increasing size of payments. I don’t know if I’d be able to work both of them, but I could try. And if it does work, I can split whatever profits we got off of it with you. And that would give you another source of income. Someday.”

Herzer thought about it for a minute and then nodded his head. “Okay, hang on a second. Tell you what I’ll do. Courtney, there’s a pouch in the cupboard. Could you pull it out and toss it to me?”

She handed it to him and he dumped out the tokens that were in it onto the bed.

“I’m going to go for soldier,” he said, sorting out the money that was in it into full tokens and change. “And from what I’ve been told, everything is going to be issued to me. But I got paid for the day before the roundup, the roundup and three days of convalescence. As a ‘skilled rider,’ no less. So I got a bonus on the roundup.” He pulled out a full token and change and handed the rest to Courtney. “You guys can have whatever I get off of the lottery and I’ll file a land grant alongside yours. That,” he continued, pointing to the chits, “is a loan. There ought to be enough there to get you a few spare farm tools. And a few decent tools might a big difference.”

“Thank you,” Courtney said, looking at the money as if it was fairy gold.

“Aaah, I don’t know about this,” Mike said. “I was going to ask if you could do a loan on the lottery animals, but I don’t know about this…”

“Oh, hush,” Courtney snapped. “Just say ‘thank you,’ you dummy.”

“Seriously,” Herzer said, shaking his head. “You don’t even have to say thank you. Like you said, you’re going to try to work both farms. If you can do it, and I’ve got a feeling you’re going to do well at it, then long term that means that not only is there, as you put it, a little extra income coming in, but in the old days soldiers used to dream of retiring and buying a farm. And I’ll already have one!”

At that Mike laughed and shook his head but he obviously wasn’t convinced.

“And on the cash I said it was a loan. You pay me back when you’ve got the money, but not until you’re free and clear on everything else. I know you’re good for it.”

“Okay,” Mike said, finally, shrugging his shoulders. “With that I can get some stuff that will help out. Woodworking tools, parts for a stump-jumping plow, spare rope. And if the lottery doesn’t work out, we can put it all on a draft animal.”

“So how’s farm life suit you?” Herzer asked, changing the subject.

“Hard,” Courtney replied. “I mean it’s just constant. There’s always something to get done. But…” she shrugged. “I agree with Mike; it’s better than the other stuff we’ve done.”

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I could probably do woodworking or construction, something like that. But you do all of that with farming.”

“Would you go back?” Herzer asked, crinkling his brow. “I mean, if everything suddenly turned back on? If you said ‘genie’ and your genie appeared?”

Mike thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. There are days when I wake up and wonder where I am for a second ’cause it’s all wrong, then it all comes back to me. And, man, those are some rotten days.”

“Yeah, me too,” Herzer said. But there was an odd note in his voice.

“Why am I unconvinced?” Courtney asked with a chuckle.

“Ah, it’s hard to explain,” Herzer admitted. “If I could just throw a switch and turn everything back on and have it go back to the way that it was, would I do it? Yeah.” He sighed again and shrugged. “But. Hah! There’d be days I’d wake up and wonder where I was for a second; then it would all come back to me. And those would be some really bad days.”

“That’s weird,” Mike said.

“Yeah, well, it’s a long story.”

“And one you’re not telling today,” Rachel said from the doorway.

“Oh, Rachel, come on!”

“The term is bed rest, not bed activity,” Rachel said, then blushed. “That wasn’t what I meant to say.”

“I couldn’t tell,” Courtney laughed.

“I am resting, look!” Herzer said, leaning back in the bed. “See. Rest.”

“Do you know what this idiot did the other day?” Rachel asked Courtney.

“I haven’t a clue,” the girl replied with a smile. “What did this idiot do?”

“He helped my father in the forge for four hours.”

“Oh, now that was a good idea!” Courtney said.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Herzer complained. “So I got a little headache.”

“I think you used the term ‘blinding’ at one point?” Rachel asked. “Something about purple spots? Bed rest. Bed rest.”

“Okay, we get the point,” Mike said. “We’re going.”

“Herzer, I’ll write up those agreements and get them over to you,” Courtney said. “Thanks again. Get somebody else to look them over for you and make sure it’s what you want before you sign them. Then I’ll get them registered at the courthouse.”

“Okay,” Herzer replied. “I trust you guys. But if you insist on getting it written down…”

Herzer wasn’t sure if it was by intent to make sure he was in the first class, but the day after Dr. Daneh stated that he was “fully recovered” the first call for recruits went out.

Herzer was at the recruiting station just after dawn the next day, walking up and looking around with interest in the predawn half-light. The recruiting station was a simple table in front of a group of tents, most of which had lanterns hanging in front of them. There were about a half dozen standing around who had beat him there. One of them was Deann.

“Decided to go for soldier?” he said, walking over and sticking out his hand, grinning.

“We were working in the tanneries,” Deann admitted, taking it and shaking it hard. “I decided I had to find something else when the head tanner pointed out that once you lost your sense of smell things got a hundred percent better.”

Herzer chuckled and looked around at the group, which was about half youngsters like himself and Deann and about half older. There wasn’t much physical difference in the individuals, but it was noticeable in little ways, stance, gestures. With modern technology, people didn’t start to get “old” until they were well past two hundred. Herzer wondered how much of that was “built in” and would stick and how much was nannite generated and would go away with the Fall. For now, the “oldsters” seemed to be holding up.

They waited in companionable silence as others filtered up. Deann was the only one he knew by name, but several of the others nodded their heads at him as if they recognized him, which was odd. He was having a hard time adjusting to lots of people knowing him on sight.

“You’re still the talk of the town,” Deann said, chuckling quietly after one of the older arrivals had come by and tapped Herzer on the shoulder wordlessly.

“All I did was herd a few cattle,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“Bull,” she answered with a grin. “I made five chits off of you myself. Nobody thought you’d survive the first tiger. The way you were charging around, nobody thought you’d last half an hour.”

Herzer’s face worked but he didn’t reply because about then the tent flap opened, revealing a figure in armor in the doorway.

“Step up to the table, give your true name, true age and answer the questions,” the figure said brusquely. He stepped to the side as two women took up seats at the table.

Herzer waited for the line to form and took a place near Deann. The process was slow and he realized there was probably going to be a lot of waiting around today.

Finally it was his turn and he stepped up to the table. The sun was up by then and his belly rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t gotten any breakfast this morning.

“Herzer Herrick” he said. “Seventeen.” Barely, he didn’t add.

“Okay, I think I can put you down as experienced with horses and a bow.” The woman chuckled.

“I’m not an expert…” he temporized.

“Not an expert, got it. Do you have any other skills you would like to list?”

“I am trained in individual swordsmanship,” Herzer said. “Enhanced reality training. Some with a spear.”

“And lance,” the woman said.

“Not lance,” the figure in armor said. “That was luck as much as anything. His seat was bloody awful.”

Herzer cast a quick glance at the man. He was an oldster, he had white hair and wrinkles even, but he was a hard-ass, that was clear, wearing a loricated armor, armor made of curved plates that overlapped like the carapace of a centipede. Herzer wanted to dispute his statement, at least mentally, but he really couldn’t. It had been lucky. The man was just being brutally honest. And astute.

“Do you know the fashioning of arms and armor?”

“No, I didn’t even put it on myself in training,” Herzer admitted. “And I don’t know that much about caring for horses. I can ride, though.”

“That is true,” the armored figure said.

“Anything else?” the woman asked.

“No.”

“Step into the tent and follow the directions you are given,” she said, handing him a folder. “Hang onto that,” the woman continued in a rote voice. “You’ve just become a record and that is it.”

Herzer held onto his file and passed through the stations. There was a test of reading and writing, a simple test of strength involving mostly lifting various weights and then a physical examination. He submitted to this last with good grace; at this point he was so used to being poked and prodded that it just didn’t seem his day was complete unless someone told him to stick out his tongue and say “aaaah.” The examiner was one of the nurses being trained by Dr. Daneh who had turned up from time to time during his convalescence. She was a pretty enough brunette with the annoying habit of talking with her teeth clenched. She had been friendly enough during her visits but was professionally distant during the examination. Right up until the end when she chuckled.

“Given that Dr. Daneh did a complete exam a couple of days ago, this one seems pretty unnecessary,” she said, making some notes on a piece of paper and slipping it into his file.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Herzer replied with a smile.

“Well, other than needing some exercise, you appear to be perfectly adequate sword fodder,” she said with a frown in reply. “Do me a favor and don’t get yourself killed. We’ve got a lot of work invested in you.”

“Well, since you care so much, I’ll try really hard not to.”

“Okay,” she smiled. “Through that door.”

Herzer passed through the door into the outside, finally, and saw a small group of recruits milling around, one of whom was Deann. There was a man in mail, light helm and leather bracers who seemed to be in charge of the group and he nodded when Herzer appeared.

“That’s twenty,” the man said. “You lot, follow me.”

The area behind the examination tents was a large, recently cleared, stump-covered field in the northeast quadrant of the Raven’s Mill valley. One end of it had been set up with archery butts at various distances, each with a number at the top, and the man led them to a table where a series of bows were laid out. At one end of the table was a water bucket and a half barrel filled with arrows, the fletchings in multiple colors and patterns. To Herzer’s eye something about the fletchings looked wrong.

“My name is Malcolm D’Erle,” the man said when the group was gathered around. “Today I will be testing you on your ability to draw and fire bows. We’re not really expecting anyone to be able to hit anything. We just want to see how much basic capability you have to draw and fire.”

Herzer saw that, blessedly, there were some gloves and bracers laid out with the bows.

“This,” Malcolm said, picking up one of the larger bows, “is called a longbow or a self-bow. It is so called because, as you can see, it is very long. The reason for its length is that the arrow has more distance that it can be driven by the spring of the bow. Shorter bows have less distance of travel and therefore can impart less energy to the arrow. This type of bow will, for the time being, be the basic bow of the Raven’s Mill Defense Force archers. There are a couple of aspects to it. One is that it is a very strong bow, and difficult to draw. Especially repeatedly as is necessary in combat. The other is that it requires a person who is of normal male height or greater.” He looked around the group and then at Deann. “You, young lady, for example, I don’t think have much of a chance; you’re just too short.”

Deann grimaced at that and growled. “But you are going to give me a chance, right?”

“Of course. Now, does anyone here have any experience with bows?”

After a moment when no one else raised their hand, Herzer did so reluctantly.

“Oh, yeah. The guy on the horse. Where did you learn?”

“I was doing enhanced reality training before the Fall hit,” Herzer replied.

“What do you normally use?”

“During training I used a one-hundred-kilo composite recurve, sir. But my muscles are out of shape and I don’t think that I could handle that in my current condition.”

“A hundred kilos? Well the good news is, I don’t have one that strong so we won’t be finding out if you could or not. I brought these other bows out just to show them to you,” he continued, setting down the long bow. He picked up one of the smaller bows and bent it in his hands. “This is a short bow, which, as you can see, is shorter. It is otherwise similar to the longbow. The major difference is the distance an arrow can be thrown, the damage that it does and the amount and type of armor it can pierce. Mass fire of short bows are useful against groups of unarmored enemies. But unlike the longbow, just about any decent armor, including rivet mail, will shrug it off.”

He picked up another bow that was about the same length but was broadly curved. “This, on the other hand, is a short, composite recurve bow. It is a much stronger bow and has a long draw. It uses sinew backing to give it extra strength. In the case of this one, it is made out of horn and sinew with a thin strip of wood in the middle. It is a very strong bow and quite as powerful as the longbow. However, they are extremely difficult to construct, require materials that we don’t have available and tend to suffer from damp. They were used primarily by steppes horse archers for a reason. The steppes were dry, the bows could be used from horseback and they had the appropriate materials in abundance while lacking much wood.”

“I’ll let you take a look at the other bows as the tests progress. What we’re going to do is take a shot at the target marked with the seventy-five. That is at seventy-five meters.”

He took the longbow and drew an arrow from the barrel, nocking the bow and raising it.

“Note that I bring the arrow to my cheek and push the bow away from me,” he said. “And also, notice that I’m aiming well above the target.” He let fly with the arrow and it sunk deeply into the target on the right of the bullseye near the edge of the target.

“These arrows could be considered a test in themselves,” he said grimly. “They’re the first output of our apprentice fletchers and quite lousy. But all you have to do is get the arrow to the distance of the target. If you can do that, we’ll do some more testing. Those that can’t draw the bow, or even hold it off the ground, will be passed on to the next phase of testing.”

“Can I ask a question?” Herzer said.

“Please.”

“I take it that anyone who passes the test becomes an archer?”

“Both tests. This test and there will be a timed test. You have to draw and fire fifty arrows in ten minutes. If no one can do that, then we’ll back off of the requirement.”

“Can you?” Deann challenged.

In response Malcolm removed ten arrows and thrust them into the ground in a semicircle around him. Then he drew and fired all ten, driving each into the target, several close to or into the bullseye.

“I need to find out which ones were on,” Malcolm commented dryly. “Those apprentices made decent arrows.”

“What if you don’t want to be an archer?” Herzer asked.

“We need archers,” Malcolm answered. “Just about anyone can swing a sword. Archers are practically born, not raised. If you can be an archer, you’re going to be an archer. You can quit but you can’t choose not to be an archer.”

Herzer opened his mouth to protest but then closed it with a clop.

“You start,” Malcolm said, handing him the bow.

Herzer examined it for a moment and then took up a glove that more or less fit and a bracer.

“I used him as a demonstration for a reason,” Malcolm noted. “If you don’t use a glove at first, you’ll turn your fingers into mush. And you’ll never get over the need for a bracer. The bowstring slaps against the inside of your arm with each shot. In fact, metal bracers are arguably necessary for combat archery, although they should have something on the inner side to shield the bowstring.”

“How many shots?” Herzer asked, pulling at the string to get a feel for the draw. He could feel his latissimus dorsae muscle protesting already; he was seriously out of shape. Despite that, he knew he could pass the initial test and probably the “combat shooting” test. But if he did, he’d be stuck as an archer.

“At least one,” Malcolm said from behind him.

“I’d like five,” Herzer replied. “And one ranging shot to get the feel of the bow.”

“Okay.”

Herzer could feel the eyes of the group on him as he drew the first arrow. He raised it to more or less the same angle as Malcolm and pushed the bow away from him, letting fly when the arrow was in-line to the target. It flew past and into the distance.

“Now we realize why I used apprentice arrows instead of good ones,” Malcolm said, dryly. “We’re going to lose a good few today.”

Herzer didn’t comment but simply picked up the next arrow and lowered the angle. He hadn’t considered, before, that he was taller than Malcolm and, apparently, had a longer reach. He drew the bow and fired and the arrow, wobbling badly from poor manufacture, thumped into the lower left quadrant of the target. He drew and fired the next four in succession, if not as fast as Malcolm then with nearly the same success.

“The boy does know how to shoot,” Malcolm said, accepting the bow from Herzer. “Take a break while I run the rest through.”

Herzer got some water and watched the others fire for a bit and then picked up the composite bow and a couple of arrows and went down a ways to another lane. Malcolm’s composite, not too surprisingly, had a slightly higher draw than Alyssa’s but not too terrible. He drove a few of the horrible arrows into the butt and then actually examined one. They had been inexpertly fletched and the shafts were rarely straight. After a moment he realized that he had no idea how to make one, so he wasn’t exactly the person to be criticizing.

He watched as Deann’s turn came up and, sure enough, the bow was far too long for her. She tried to fire it but the bottom kept hitting the ground and one of the recoils from the strike nearly slapped her in the face. After a few aborted shots she gave it over to Malcolm with bad grace and stomped off.

Finally the whole group had finished shooting and Malcolm called a break.

“Okay, Herzer, Rosio, Ngan, Earnest and Maskell, you stay here. The rest fall back until we complete this test.”

“I really don’t want to be an archer,” Herzer said quietly as the others were milling around.

“Why?” Malcolm asked, drawing him aside. “Herzer, damnit, we need archers! You’re trained. And you’ve got the build for it. What do you want to be, cavalry?”

“No, I want to be line infantry,” Herzer said just as quietly. “I can just fail the test. You know that.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” D’Erle asked, furiously.

“No, I’m going to pass the damned thing. And then be a pain in the ass until you send me over to infantry.”

“Do that and I’ll boot you all the way out,” D’Erle warned.

“No you won’t,” Herzer replied, stubbornly. “Because you’re going to need good line infantry, too. Just let me walk.”

“Take the test,” Malcolm said after a moment. “Then we’ll talk.” He raised his head and looked over at the others. “Time to spread out.”

A group of workers came out and laid out boxes with arrows along the lanes, and another archer came out with more bows.

“Rather than have each of you wait on the others, we’re going to run all of you at once. You have to fire fifty arrows and you have to complete the course of fire in ten minutes. Pace yourself. You’re going to get tired. Initially try for twelve arrows per minute. I’ll call the minutes and you’ll have a person handing you the arrows and doing the count. All that you have to do is manipulate the bow.”

“Is that realistic?” Herzer asked. “I mean, in combat are we going to have someone handing us arrows?”

“Most of the time,” Malcolm said with a nod. “An archer is simply the most important member of a team. He’s just there to feed the bow. Others handle the logistics. Each archery team will have at least three people on it, one of whom is just there to feed the archer who in turn feeds the bow.”

“Oh.”

“This is a test of firing fifty arrows in ten minutes so that they at least make it to the ground at seventy-five meters. A fully trained archer will put out two hundred and fifty arrows in an hour at two hundred yards, hard enough to go through plate armor. This is baby steps, boys. Take your positions.”

“I’ll hand them to you steady, sir,” the boy by the arrows said. “And I’ll keep the count. There’s fifty-three in here in case some get dropped or broken.”

“Okay,” Herzer said. “What’s your name?”

“Trenton, sir,” the boy said.

“Just feed me, Trenton,” he said with a grin.

“Prepare to fire,” Malcolm called, lifting a sand-glass.

Herzer took the first arrow and a deep breath.

“Fire!”

It was just a bit like feeding the bow. Herzer had assumed that he would be able to ace the timed fire but in short order he realized just what an incredible workout it was. He was drawing on a fifty-kilo bow so each draw was the equivalent of using his back and shoulder muscles to lift fifty kilos. It was brutal work and he was quickly sweating profusely. He had fired fifteen arrows on the first minute but only nine on the second and he felt himself falling progressively further and further behind. Digging deep down inside he let himself drift, searching for the “zone” and picked up the pace despite the fire that seemed to spread through his back with each additional draw. For that matter, the leather bracer was not enough and each additional slap against his forearm was spreading waves of pain up his arm. He was going to have one hell of a bruise when he was done.

“Last minute!” Malcolm called.

“Twenty, sir!” Trenton said.

Herzer was not about to fail at this point. Forgotten was any interest in line infantry, he was simply not going to fail. “FEED ME!”

From somewhere he got a second wind and began slamming arrow after arrow downrange. He forgot to even try to hit the target and just concentrated on getting them all over the range line. It was getting nearly impossible to do a full draw but he slammed one after another out nonetheless until Malcolm called “TIME!”

Herzer lowered the bow to rest on the ground and stood, breathing deeply, grimacing at the pain in his arm.

“You went two over, sir, sorry,” Trenton said, taking the bow from him and getting a dipper of water.

“Well, one went short,” Malcolm said, walking up to their station to survey the result with a grimace.

“So I passed,” Herzer chuckled.

“Yeah,” Malcolm said with another grimace. “You’re the only one who passed. I told Edmund the test was too tough.”

“And you were right,” Talbot said, appearing behind them as if he had apported. “I thought you were going for line infantry, Herzer?”

“I was told I had to take the test, sir,” Herzer replied.

“And you’re the only one that passed,” Edmund frowned. “How did the others do?”

Malcolm thought about it for a moment with a frown then shrugged. “The average is about thirty in ten minutes, taking Herzer out of the group.”

“That’s still better than crossbow,” Edmund considered. “But not much.”

“Their wind is awful,” Malcolm commented. “I think they might be able to make archers, some day, but it will be a hell of a lot of work.”

“Did all of them make at least thirty?” Talbot asked.

“All but one,” Malcolm admitted.

“Drop the requirement to thirty and continue the testing,” Edmund said. “And you’re going to have to drive them.”

“I will. What about Herzer?”

“I should make him one of your assistants,” Talbot said, looking the still sweating boy up and down. “But I think we’ll go ahead and pass him on to the next testing station.”