The very idea was going to deeply offend the more hidebound of the Sothoii traditionalists (and right offhand, Vaijon couldn’t think of anyone who could possibly be more hidebound than a Sothoii traditionalist), and the thought that those weapons were going to be in the hands of hradani was only going to make it worse. Of course, if they’d been paying attention for the last, oh, twenty years or so, they would have realized Prince Bahnak’s Horse Stealers were already fielding heavy crossbowmen with preposterous rates of fire. But the new arbalests Silver Cavern had designed expressly for Bahnak (and for which they had charged him a pretty copper, Vaijon knew) had heavier pulls than even a Horse Stealer’s arm could span with a simple goat’s foot. Their built-in, integral cocking levers were geared and cammed to provide their users with a heavy mechanical advantage, which allowed for a pull many times as powerful as any bow’s could possibly be. Not to mention the fact that once spanned, an arbalest could be held that way far longer than any archer could hold a fully drawn bow, which gave the crossbowman time to aim carefully. Indeed, one of Kilthan’s artisans had actually figured out how to fit them with sights for even greater accuracy.
They were big enough (and heavy enough) to constitute two-man weapons for anyone but a hradani, and they still couldn’t match a horse archer’s rate of fire. A trained Sothoii could fire as many as fifteen aimed shafts in a minute, whereas even a Horse Stealer with one of the new arbalests could manage no more than six. But hradani crossbowmen were foot archers, and trained marksmen firing from their own feet were always going to be more accurate than even the most highly skilled mounted archer firing from the back of a moving horse.
On the other hand, human crossbowmen aren’t going to be able to handle the weight of pull our lads can, even with the new design, Vaijon thought cheerfully. There is a limit to how much mechanical advantage you can give any cocking lever if you’re going to span the thing with a single pull! I doubt any of Trianal’s fellows are going to complain about having that kind of fire support against the ghouls, though.
“Actually,” Rianthus continued with a sly smile, “one of Kilthan’s bright young engineers claims to have come up with a still better idea. He thinks he may be able to design an arbalest that can be loaded with more than one quarrel at a time.”
“Of course he can!” Trianal snorted. “No doubt they’ll be able to fire five or six with each shot!”
“Oh, no!” Rianthus looked at him with becoming solemnity. “That would be wasteful, Milord! What they’re talking about is just an arrangement that would automatically put another quarrel onto the string every time the arbalest is spanned without the archer having to individually load it.”
“Ah, that’s much better!”
Trianal rolled his eyes, and Sir Yarran smiled under his mustache and shook his head. Vaijon chuckled as well, although given what he’d seen out of the dwarves, he was less confident than the Sothoii that Rianthus was simply pulling their legs.
“Even without the new, magical, multishot arbalest,” he said dryly, “I think the ghouls are going to be exceedingly unhappy when they run into several hundred quarrels at a time.”
“That they will, Sir Vaijon,” Sir Yarran said with undisguised satisfaction. Unlike the other Sothoii sitting around the table, he’d personally experienced Horse Stealer arbalests from the receiving end, and he hadn’t enjoyed it a bit. The others lacked that particular target’s-eye insight, but he and Trianal had both seen it from the firing side in the previous campaigns into the Ghoul Moor. “And I hope no one will take this wrongly, but it occurs to me that there’s no one in this whole wide world I’d sooner see unhappy.”
“Oh, I don’t think anyone’s going to argue with you about that, Sir Yarran,” Yurgazh said. He and Yarran had met for the first time less than a week earlier, yet it was obvious they were kindred spirits in many ways. Now, as he smiled nastily at the Sothoii scout, much of his earlier stiffness vanished. “Myself, I was born and raised in Tralth.” His smile remained, but his eyes turned much grimmer. “We had more experience than I like to remember with ghouls-aye, and trolls, come to that-spilling across our frontier.” He shook his head. “There’s more than a few Bloody Swords who think burning the entire Ghoul Moor to the ground is a wonderful idea, canal routes or no canal routes!”
“I think we can all agree with that, General,” Prince Yurokhas said. Yurgazh looked at him, and the prince shrugged. “We may have the river between us and the Ghoul Moor proper, but we’ve lost more horses and cattle- and children-to them than any of us like to remember, either.” He shook his head, his expression as grim as Yurgazh’s eyes. “I don’t think there’s a single Sothoii, however…ambivalent he may be about your Confederation, who won’t lift a mug in Hurgrum’s direction the day the last ghoul’s head goes up on a pike somewhere.”
“Aye?” Prince Arsham’s deep voice was rough edged, even a little rasping, from too many orders on too many battlefields. He gazed at the brother of the Sothoii king for several thoughtful seconds, then smiled slowly. “Good,” he said. “To speak honestly, Your Highness, there are times I’m less confident than Prince Bahnak about how all of this is likely to work out in the end, but it’s good to know there’s at least one thing we can all agree to.”
“There are those on top of the Wind Plain who undoubtedly cherish even more doubts than you do, Your Highness.” There wasn’t a trace of irony in Yurokhas’ voice as he returned the honorific to Arsham. “And that doesn’t even consider the ones who’re actively opposed to everything your people and Baron Tellian are trying to accomplish here.”
He looked around the council table at the faces which had suddenly smoothed of all expression at the waters they’d unexpectedly drifted into, and he smiled grimly.
“There are limits to what even a king can do in the face of entrenched hatred…and stupidity,” he said. “I’m sure you and Prince Bahnak have discovered the same thing from your side. But that doesn’t keep it from being stupidity, and there comes a time when it must be changed. That’s my view, at any rate. And”-he met Arsham’s gaze levelly-“my brother’s, as well.”
Arsham’s eyes flickered and his ears folded back ever so slightly. That was all he allowed to show, but Vaijon drew a deep, unobtrusive breath and felt others around the table doing the same. However candidly and openly Yurokhas might have discussed the canal project and even the entire future of human-hradani relations with Tellian and Bahzell, he’d been careful to avoid anything which might have been construed as an unconditional statement of support in King Markhos’ name. There’d never been any doubt about where Yurokhas’ own sympathies lay, but everyone had always understood why the King couldn’t be that open…assuming, of course, that he’d ever truly been as supportive as his younger brother. But now I wonder if he was actually authorized to say that? Vaijon wondered. But surely he wouldn’t have said it without Markhos’ approval! I know a lot of people dimiss him as impulsive or even reckless, but I also know that reputation’s a mask, a facade he’s built just as carefully as Bahzell’s built that “country bumpkin” disguise of his. Even so, though…
He looked at Yurokhas, one eyebrow arched, and the prince looked back at him and then nodded, ever so slightly.
Tomanak, that was an official statement. To a very select group, perhaps, but that was Markhos himself speaking to Arsham-and to Bahnak, for that matter! I wonder if delivering that was the real reason the King let him come along as an “observer” in the first place?
“Well,” the champion heard his voice say into the silence which had greeted Yurokhas’ comment, “speaking as someone who’s had a little experience with stupidity of his own, I can say of my own knowledge that it is possible to…reshape it once someone finds the appropriate hammer. Of course, it takes a heavier hammer for some of us than for others.”
Another rumble of amusement-this one more than a little relieved sounding-greeted his wry tone, and he smiled.
“In the meantime, unfortunately,” he continued, “according to both Prince Bahnak’s and Kilthan’s sources, somebody seems to have found a big enough hammer to get through to the River Brigands and the Purple Lords.” He grimaced. “At this point, we don’t know exactly what they’re likely to do about it, but I think we can take it for granted that anything they can do, they will do. In a lot of ways, we probably need to be more concerned about the Brigands than the Purple Lords, simply because they’re so much closer. At the same time, though, however Arthnar may feel about the canal in general, I can’t see him actively trying to interfere with our operations, given the Brigands’ own history with the ghouls.”
Heads nodded, and he shrugged.
“We’ll be keeping an eye on him, of course, and on the Purple Lords, but I don’t expect either of them to have much short term effect on us here. So, having said that, let’s take a look at where we are and where we want to be by the end of the summer. Hurthang?”
The Horse Stealer nodded and rose. He walked around to the large easel set up at the foot of the table and flipped back the cover to show the large-scale map of the Ghoul Moor it had concealed.
