Authors: Andy Holland
"She's
Princess
Daisy; she's my sister," Arthur said darkly, glaring at the Captain. "Aren't we meant to be on a tour?"
"Really? Never heard of either of you. You must be one of those regional princes," the Captain replied dismissively. "Well, a tour doesn't really describe it, your highness. There's no point to a tour—not really, when you think about it. No, these towers and your visit here both have a practical purpose. You won't just be walking and looking, you'll get to actually fire from these towers. Get to see how well you do with the crossbows. Not as glamorous as fighting in the air, I grant you, but just as important. When I was in Newcastle, we'd take down twice as many with our bolts as we did with our teeth and claws. I took down seventeen personally—two in one day once. When you do your military service, you might want to consider the towers; it's a fine way to serve."
"Not much risk though, is there?" Kal commented haughtily. "Hiding in one of those towers while your comrades are risking their lives fighting in the air."
The Captain stared at him coldly. "Oh, I fought in the air, boy. I've taken down three Blues with my claws. Sadly, the fourth and fifth took me down, and I now have just one working wing. What have you ever done? I'm betting you were trembling under a table when those Blues attacked Furnace last year."
"John didn't," Daisy announced proudly. "He flew up to face them."
The Captain turned back to regard Daisy again and the smile returned to his face. "Ah, John again. That's the second time you've mentioned him, princess. Well then, bring him out. Which one is he?"
John was standing behind Daisy and stepped forwards to shake the Captain's hand. "Pleased to meet you, sir. I've read all about these training towers; I've been looking forward to visiting them."
"Have you now? Well, step forwards, step forwards, all of you. Don't be shy now. We'll show you Tower A first, although they're all the same, of course. There won't be room for all of you in one tower at once, I'm afraid, so you'll have to take turns. Silver, perhaps you could organise them into three groups? One for each tower?"
Professor Silver glared at him briefly before bossily dividing the students into three groups and sending two of the groups to the other towers.
"Right, be with you shortly," the Captain said as Crystal and the others trudged to Tower B.
"The Captain seems to know Professor Silver, doesn't he?" Daisy commented idly.
"Obviously," Jenna replied, irritated that somehow Arthur and Seth had been put in a different group from her and Crystal. "They must have been at school together."
"They were," John replied. "Captain Blacktower and Professor Silver were students when the Headmaster first started teaching. He mentioned it when he told me about the trip. He seemed surprised that Silver wasn't keen on seeing the captain; apparently they were good friends back then."
A loud thud sounded from the other side of the field, and when they turned to see what it was, a large bolt projected from the centre of a large, round target at the far side of the field.
"Good shot!" Ben said. "Used one of these things before, John? Reckon you can do as well as that?"
John shook his head. "I've read about them of course, and seen plenty of diagrams as they're covered in detail in the military library, but I've never even seen one."
"What should we do while we're waiting?" Amber asked him. Crystal smiled to herself; Amber was unconsciously treating John as a real teacher, although she was one of the students most opposed to his appointment as flying instructor at the start.
"Just wait here by the tower," John replied. "There are quite a number of us in each group, so I expect it will take him some time to explain everything to the first group."
A second bolt was fired from the first tower, flying high over the target and missing it by some distance.
"I guess that wasn't the captain," Daisy observed. "They fire so quickly don't, they?"
John nodded. "They have quite a range on them. They're lethal from several hundred metres away."
"How do you load them?" Tara asked. "Does it require a lot of strength?"
Jenna turned to her and gave her a withering look. "He's just told you, he hasn't used one before. How would he know?"
Tara blushed and turned away, embarrassed.
"No, it's a fair question, Tara," said John. "I haven't used one, but I've read about the mechanism. You have to prepare the loading mechanism before you start firing by winding a handle. It has a gearing system, which means you can adjust it to make it easier or harder to wind. Although when you make it easier, it takes longer to fully wind it. Then when it's fully wound up, when you want to load a bolt, you pull a lever and it loads a bolt automatically. It varies from tower to tower, but even the most basic ones can load about ten bolts before you have to wind them again."
Jenna glared at him before looking away. Crystal knew she was still sulking about being in this group. Two shots were fired in quick succession from Tower A, neither of them landing anywhere near the targets.
"That was fast," Daisy said to John. They can reload very quickly, can't they?"
John shook his head. "Not quite that quickly. There are multiple crossbows in some of these towers; I'm guessing they're using at least two now."
Captain Blacktower appeared at the bottom of Tower A after a few minutes, and walked briskly over to Tower B where they were waiting. "Apologies for the delay," he said warmly. "Just me today unfortunately; usually they have one of us for each tower. Still, we will manage."
"Do you do many of these tours?" Amber asked.
Captain Blacktower leered appraisingly at Amber before answering her question. "Not really a tour, my dear, but yes, we do a lot of them. Every school in Furnace will visit these towers, so there's almost one a week for us to manage. Follow me, if you will."
The students followed him into the tower and up the long, winding staircase until they reached the first floor, about fifty metres from the ground, where a huge crossbow was fixed to the floor.
"These towers aren't as high as the working ones," the Captain explained. "They don't need to be as they're just for training. I'm afraid this tower just has the one in. You. You look like a strong young man. What's your name?"
"Ben, sir," Ben replied as he stepped eagerly towards the crossbow.
"Not so fast, son," the captain said with a laugh. "It's not ready to be fired yet. See that handle over there?"
Ben turned to see a large handle attached to the wall. He looked back to the captain, seeming a little confused. "Yes, sir. What's it for?"
"It's for you to turn. Go on; see if you can turn it."
Ben walked over to the wall and put both hands on the handle and tried to turn it. "It's pretty stiff, sir."
"Go on, son, use your weight," the captain encouraged.
Ben started turning the handle very slowly, and the mechanism behind clicked loudly. "That's it, boy. Just turn it a couple of hundred times and you should be done."
"I
am
done!" Ben said, letting go of the handle. "It's too stiff!"
"Come on, boy. You only turned it once. That's no use. Is that all you can do?"
Ben shook his head. "It's too stiff. There must be something wrong with it."
The captain frowned. "That's strange. It seemed fine when I used it last…" He walked over to the wall and gently moved Ben out of the way. "Let's see…" He gripped the handle and pushed down and began turning the handle quickly. "There we go! See, not so difficult is it?" He turned it five times before stopping. "Look at this dial here." Above the handle was a circular dial with an arrow, which now pointed to one. "This handle winds a mechanism that we use to load the crossbow. At the moment, it's been wound enough to fire one bolt. Before we start, we'll wind it up until it reaches twenty. Anyone else want a go? Who thinks they can do better than this young man?"
"I'll have a go," a boy at the back offered. Crystal recognised him from Seth's party, a boy from Furnace called Stuart who was in Ash class. He was as tall as the captain and sturdily built. He swaggered confidently over to the wall, shoving Ben out of the way. He gripped the handle and pushed down, but it didn't move.
"Use your weight, boy," the captain urged. "Looks like you have some to use."
The rest of the students sniggered as Stuart struggled to turn the handle, and only just managed to complete one turn, just as Ben had done.
"Not so easy, is it, son?" the captain observed. "Look everyone. Over here. This lever changes the setting for the handle. It goes from one to ten. It's currently on ten, which is the hardest setting, and also the quickest. It's roughly six turns per shot set on ten. If you drop it down to five, it's much easier, but you'll have to turn it twice as many times. Don't feel too bad, boys, none of the other class managed to turn it more than once either. Of course, those manning these towers can wind it all the way to twenty without having to lower the setting, but they train a lot before they can do that. Does anyone else want to see if they can do better than these two, or shall we drop the setting to five?"
"Henry, you have a go," someone called out.
"Yeah, Henry, you could do more than one," another girl shouted.
"Henry? Which one of you is Henry?" The captain asked. The class all turned to the back, where Henry sat on a box, idly chewing a straw. It was Lord Lance's son, Rosie's brother.
"Me, sir?" Henry asked slowly, as if waking up from a daydream.
"Yes, come to the front, boy. You've been volunteered."
Henry lazily rose to his feet, where he towered above his fellow students, and ambled towards the front. He stood several inches taller than the captain, and looked like he weighed about twice as much as him. He casually gripped the handle and began to turn it; not quickly, but seemingly without a lot of effort either.
"One, two, three, four, five, six," a couple of his classmates in Pine class called out enthusiastically, counting each turn. Henry continued to turn the handle as the dial started to move, turning to two, then three, and continuing all the way to twenty, where he stopped.
"Can I stop now, sir?" Henry asked.
The captain laughed loudly. "Outstanding, son! You don't even look out of breath. Class, I think we have our winner! Go and sit down, boy, you've earned your rest, although I'm not sure if you need it. You can't wind it past there anyway."
"Can we use the crossbow now?" Ben asked.
"Not quite yet," the captain replied. "Before you have a go, I'll demonstrate how to use it. You'll see that although this is a large and heavy crossbow, it's actually very easy to move and aim, as it is perfectly weighted. Let's show you how easy it is to draw the bow. Just pull on this lever here…"
The captain pulled a lever at the end of the crossbow, and the loading mechanism sprang into life, quickly pulling the bowstring back and locking it in place.
"Then twist the same lever to load…"
A bolt dropped into place from a long wooden box situated above the crossbow as soon as the captain twisted the lever. The bolt was jet black and about two metres long, with a heavy iron arrow head.
"Then comes the fun part," the captain said, smiling at the class. "Firing!"
He aimed the crossbow briefly before pulling on the release trigger. The bolt flew incredibly quickly when released, striking the distant target with an audible thud just moments after being fired.
The students clapped politely, and the captain took a little bow. "Right, let's start with our three volunteers. Ben, was it? Step forwards and take the controls. Now do you remember how I did everything—"
Without waiting for the captain to finish, Ben pulled the lever to draw the bow and then twisted it to drop a bolt into place. He then smoothly positioned the crossbow, aimed and fired. The bolt flew just as before, cutting through the air quickly towards the target, and hitting a tree stump just to the right. The whole process took less than a second.
"Ha! You missed!" Stuart shouted gracelessly.
"Whoa, careful there, boy. You're up next. Just to set your expectations, Ben probably got as close as any of you are likely to on your first go. Ben, wind the handle back up to twenty again. There's a good boy. Feel free to change the setting back down to five or you'll be there all day struggling with it."
Ben turned the handle as Stuart took his place by the crossbow, moving it around to get a feel of handling it. He nodded appreciatively. "Alright. This should be pretty easy."
Stuart glanced impatiently at Ben, waiting for him to finish turning the handle before loading the crossbow and taking aim. He pulled the trigger and watched as the bolt sailed through the air to strike the ground some twenty metres short of the target. The class roared with laughter.
"You can't say I didn't warn you," the captain said with a smile as the laughter died down. "Go on, boy, get turning that handle. You'll have another go soon. Now, Henry, you did such a good job with the loading mechanism, let's see how you do with actually firing the thing."
Henry shrugged, ambling towards the mechanism.
"Let's watch how this dolt does with this," Daniel muttered. "I wonder if he can even remember how to fire it."