Abel gripped the boy’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “They were believers, were they not?”
Philip nodded, eyes downcast.
“Then, remember this. Even though they cannot come to you, you can go to them. They are in a better place. Remember that! The day will come when all things are made new!”
Philip nodded again. Don did not follow all of that, but realized that it gave the boy comfort. It was just as well—Don had none to give.
Philip later recalled that the way back to Ariel was long and cold. That was all he could ever remember about the trip.
Chapter 20
†
Weapon Smiths
A city is built up by the blessing of the upright, but it is torn down by the mouth of the wicked. Proverbs 11:11 HCSB
Samuel led the way down a wide hall with stone walls and a polished wooden floor. The hallway opened to a rose garden and fawn-colored flagstone patio with stairs leading to intersecting walkways. Walks led north, south and east, with the latter crossing a small courtyard, flanked by rows of ornamental junipers. There were patches of ice on the pavement, and snow laid thick where the paths had not been cleared. The rose bushes were just crooked sticks.
They followed the walkway east, which turned into a gravel path leading toward a stone blockhouse. Gray and windowless, it looked like a fortress within a fortress, and so it proved to be. Twin gates, ten feet high by six wide, were in the center of the north wall. A narrow door pierced with a black iron grille formed the rear of an alcove to the left of the gate. Samuel stepped up to the door and knocked. A face soon appeared behind the grill, and the door opened. The hinges were well oiled and quite soundless.
A young page told them that they were expected and led them across an inner courtyard, beneath an arched colonnade, then into a narrow room. He asked them to wait there while he went to fetch their hosts, then he slipped away. Shelves covered the long wall opposite the door through which they had entered. They bulged with glass jars, tools, and books. A fireplace and blaze added welcome warmth to the room. A stone table with a sink and rows of glass flasks occupied one end of the room, while in the other was a second door, which promptly opened and admitted two men.
They learned that these were two of Ariel’s weapon smiths. Both wore green canvas trousers and leather tunics. They made polite bows and welcomed them to the laboratory. They both knew Samuel and greeted him. Samuel then presented Don. The taller of the two gave his name as David. His hair and beard were close cropped, of medium brown. He was muscular, and slightly below average in height. The other man was also short, but older with a grizzled beard that came to a point at the chin. He was bald, except for a white ruff behind his ears and across the back of his neck. His face was rough-hewn, ruddy, with strongly-etched wrinkles.
“Welcome, Donald,” said the second man. “I am called Charles. Please sit down. We will have refreshments shortly. But, first of all, we want to thank you for bringing the shells from Steamboat. They have been examined, and have proved to be very helpful.”
Don took a seat next to Samuel, with his back to the row of shelves. He noticed that both of the weapon smiths had the coarsened hands of workmen with fingers stained black.
“I was glad to help with the Steamboat shells,” responded Don. “It was a strange job for a lore-man, to be sure.” He gestured toward Charles’ hands. “Though your ink stains make me guess that you use pens also.”
David glanced at his finger tips. “Oh, yes,” he said with a short bark of a laugh. “Not ink, actually. Chemicals and charcoal. It does look like ink, though. How much do you know about gunpowder?”
“Made of charcoal, in part, as I recall,” answered Don. “I suppose you gave that much away, already. Also a compound called saltpeter. My father had many books dealing with weapons. They were a bit hard to come by, of course, since the book burners tried to destroy all knowledge of such things.”
“Not very successfully,” remarked Samuel. “Plenty of books survived, even those that told of weapons.”
Charles and David both nodded. David spoke for the first time: “That is true. We have a very adequate library. Unfortunately, most of our information is too advanced. What we need are books from pre-empire and pre-industrial times.”
“Are you trying to make firearms?” asked Don.
“In a way,” answered Charles. “We have many antique firearms, of course, and a small supply of ammunition for them. We have plenty of old brass cartridge cases. But, unfortunately, these weapons used a compound called ‘smokeless powder.’ We have been working for some time on a way to make this kind of powder, and the ignition device called ‘percussion caps.’ We have samples of these things and an excellent understanding of their chemistry. But we have not been able to obtain the various acids and other chemicals needed. So our progress has been slow.”
“What about the gunpowder?” asked Samuel. “Could it not be used in the old weapons?
“Of course,” answered Charles. “As I said, the ignition is the problem.”
“Gunpowder is not difficult,” added David. “We are making that now, but the quality is uneven. We are using willow charcoal and have rediscovered some tricks about refining saltpeter. Sulfur is available since we have found sufficient supplies near the hot springs. Perhaps this would be a good time for a demonstration.”
Following David’s example, they all stood, just as two elderly women came in bearing trays. Changing their minds, they promptly reseated themselves and were served spiced cider and sweet rolls. During the conversation that followed, Don learned that Ariel had an extensive collection of antique weapons, even a few that had used black powder. But they, unfortunately, had never had any large town guns.
After the refreshments, they all went into a workshop next door. David sprinkled a spoonful of black powder on an anvil. A shaving lit from a candle ignited the powder, which brightly burned with a whoof and a cloud of sulfurous smoke.
“I would have expected a louder noise,” remarked Don, coughing, and waving his hand in front of his face. Everyone stepped back a few feet. “What a stench!” commented Samuel.
“The powder has to be confined in order to make a loud explosion,” answered Charles. “Here is a black-powder rifle.” He picked up an antique firearm as he spoke. “This weapon is called a ‘muzzle loader.’ We will fire it, and you will hear a noise like you imagined.”
David picked up a long-barreled antique firearm. “This weapon used percussion caps to fire the powder. But we will use a hot coal.”
David, with the assistance of Charles, poured a measured amount of powder down the barrel. He then put a small piece of cloth over the end of the barrel and placed a round metal ball on the cloth. He then pushed the cloth and ball down the barrel with a wooden rod.
“You should put these in your ears,” warned Charles. He handed Samuel and Don wads of cotton. Then as David held the rifle, he put a pinch of black powder into a hole near the base of the barrel. He raised the weapon and pointed it toward a wooden board, perhaps 20 feet away. Charles lit a piece of cotton wick with a candle, then blew out the flame. He then touched the smoldering cord to the hole at the base of the rifle barrel.
There was a sharp report and David staggered back a half step. A cloud of dark gray smoke filled the room. They all stepped back, coughing once more. Removing the wads from their ears, they walked to the target. The ball had hit the mark and proved to have penetrated ten boards, one behind the other, each about an inch thick. David retrieved the ball from the last board and handed it to Don. Don looked at it closely. It was heavy for its size, apparently made of lead, yet was only slightly deformed. “This is amazing,” exclaimed Don. “You seem to have made arrows obsolete.”
“It might seem so,” answered Charles. “But the ignition we just used is hardly practical.”
“And
that says nothing of the rate of fire,” added David. “A good archer could easily loose twenty arrows in the time it take to fire this twice.”
“To sum up, we have bow makers crafting bows by the hundreds, fletchers making arrows by the thousands. So, if we have several weeks to prepare our defenses, we may well have fifteen rifles in the same period of time.”
Don’s hopes had risen when he saw the rifle fire. But now they fell back to earth with a thud. Suddenly, the air in the room felt close. His stomach felt nauseated. “Fifteen would not be enough to do any real good, that seems clear,” remarked Don, shoulders slumped. “The smiths might be better used to make swords.”
David and Charles looked at each other, and then Charles answered: “We have debated this, also. But the gunfire may make the enemy afraid. That is worth something.”
“But don’t you have the large crossbows?” asked Samuel. “Don’t they pierce armor very well?”
“Yes, we have arbalests, which are really very large crossbows,” agreed Charles. “They do penetrate armor nicely. But they are large, clumsy, and slow to reload. And the man aiming it is quite exposed to counter fire.”
David nodded, then added, “So fifteen rifles can give as much defensive fire as thirty arbalests and can quickly be moved from one part of the wall to another. We will keep the arbalests, but use the rifles too. At least, that is the plan.”
“Hmm … Yes. Well,” began Samuel, thoughtfully. “I can see that the rifles may be of some use. But they will hardly be enough to save the day. The big guns that we have seen are designed to knock down these walls. The rifles won’t stop that.”
“That brings up the matter of the Steamboat shells,” said David, placing the rifle back on a rack. “They have given us several ideas that we can discuss over lunch, if you have the time to join us …”
†
It had been over a week since they had returned from their trip to Junction. Abel had taken Philip with him to the House of Healing and promised that he would be kept busy. They had reported their findings and the reports that they had gathered from the Gray Pilgrims and other spies. They had a brief audience with The Chief Surgeon, Kerik, but he had shown scant interest, though was carefully polite. They had also met with representatives of Ariel and Bethuel who also listened with considerably more concern.
It was perhaps fortunate, Don thought, that the weather had turned bitter. It would be difficult to move an army over snow-covered roads and frozen rivers. If the Prophet were sensible, he would wait until spring to begin any military campaign. Of course, no one knew if he would be sensible.
Don had found lodging in Ariel in one of the lesser inns, called the “Flaming Sword.” It had an excellent stable, which now housed Snap and Red. His room was tiny, but clean, and he still had some money though it was beginning to dwindle.
Several more blizzards had hit in the last few days, and the snow was getting deep in the Haven area. Don learned that Haven was the local name for the valley enclosing Bethuel, Ariel, Glenwood, and the House of Healing. It referred to the time when many refugees had sought refuge in the area.
After the meeting, which continued until mid-afternoon, Don still did not know exactly why the Steamboat shells were so important. But it was clear that they were a vital source of inspiration. David and Charles had revealed that they were making cast iron containers of various designs that they planned to fill with gunpowder and explode. But the exact way that they planned to use them was not discussed. Samuel had probed this point, but it was obvious that they were not going to provide specifics.
They said their goodbyes then. Samuel led Don on a stroll across the woodworker’s quarter to a watchtower that formed the northwest corner of the town. They ascended a spiral stone staircase and walked along the top of the wall. The valley to the west was a patchwork of various shades of white, and the blue mountain formed a backdrop to the scene. Don admired the view as they stood silently for several minutes.
“So you were not overly impressed by the firearms, were you?” asked Samuel, suddenly.
“That is not exactly right,” returned Don, after a moment’s thought. “I am impressed with their skill, and they seem to have progressed a great deal. But I was hoping for more, I suppose.”
“You wanted a wonder weapon that would overcome a great army.”
“Yes. Exactly! And when I see only a small step—Well, I was disappointed. And the shells we brought from Steamboat have apparently done little, also.”
“I am not so sure. They were not telling everything they know, and that is itself very interesting.” Samuel motioned with his arm. “If the Prophet could bring up some heavy guns, then these walls would be in danger.”
“How real is this threat?” asked Don. “They would not only have to recreate or capture some town guns, recreate the ammunition and vast quantities of gunpowder, and bring it here. Then they would have to fire them accurately enough to hit the same spot on the wall. And they would have to do it in the field, many times over. It seems like a very difficult thing to do, unless they have been developing these things for a very long time. And if they have been working on big guns, we would have heard about it, wouldn’t we?”
“Nicely analyzed, Donald,” returned Samuel. “I see the train of your thought. They would have had to have been testing these guns for some time. They would make much noise that would be hard to keep secret. Since we have heard nothing about this, they probably have not had long to test them, and so they are not likely to pose much of a threat. I follow your logic, but there is one problem.”
“What is that?”
“It is not widely known, apparently, but we have been hearing rumors of the Prophet testing big guns. We have been hearing this for years. Not that anyone has taken them very seriously. But sounds of thunder have often been heard on clear days in the desert southwest of the Prophet’s city. By this time, he could very well have mastered the art of making and firing big guns.”
Samuel paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “Worst of all,” he concluded, “Abel told me only yesterday that something big had been seen on the highway, moving south toward Benson. That something sounded very much like cannons covered with canvas. We are trying to confirm this, of course.”
Don’s shoulders sagged. He pushed his wool cap back on his forehead. The walls suddenly felt less substantial, almost as if they were shifting under his feet. He looked at Samuel, whose face was hard and set. There seemed to be little else to say, for the moment.
“Let’s take a look at the walls, Donald,” said Samuel, suddenly.
The north wall was topped by a battlement, about chest-high, forming the outer boundary of the walkway on which they stood. They stepped to a point where they could look over the stone barricade. The sky was clear and a sharp breeze from the west tugged at their cloaks. Don looked through an embrasure, leaning out so he could see the outer wall. The surface was nearly smooth, but there were narrow cracks between the stones. He could see a few clumps of what looked like yarrow clinging precariously to the face.
Samuel explained that in time of war, wooden barriers would be added to the tops of the wall and between the crenellations or notches that topped the wall. This would give more protection to the troops manning the walls. There were cuts and holes in the stone to hold the beams and braces for the wooden planks.
“I must say that the walls seem strong and well made,” commented Don. A flash caught his eye as he looked down the valley and he saw it was the silver thread of ice on a stream winding north to the Kolaroo River.
“Hmm? Oh, yes!” answered Samuel. “Well built, to be sure. The granite facing is held together with rock bolts over a solid rubble-fill core. They must be twenty-five feet thick at the base if they are a foot.”
“But the Prophet’s guns could knock them down, is that what you are really saying?”
/>
“Yes, eventually. No upright stone wall can stand against cannon forever. But as you said earlier, the Prophet’s men would have to concentrate their fire accurately. They would have to hit a small section of the wall repeatedly for several days to completely break through.”
Samuel paused, as if in thought. “They could have done the same with a trebuchet, of course. Those old-style siege engines have been around for many centuries, and they don’t need gunpowder.”
“What is a trebuchet?”
“It is a stone thrower that uses a counter-weighted arm to hurl a stone with a sling. They were used in the middle ages and were re-introduced during the wars that took place after the Empire fell.”
Samuel suddenly stopped. “Come,” he said. “You can see for yourself. There is a stone-thrower atop of each tower, or bastion.”
Samuel led the way into the very tower that they had used to reach the top of the curtain wall. They continued up a winding stair to the top and came out onto a flat roof. There stood a large machine that looked like a long pole attached to a steel-bound box. Part of the mechanism was covered with oiled canvas. There was a round wooden platform beneath the contrivance, which looked as if it could be rotated so as to throw stones in any direction. A dozen or so roughly-chiseled stone balls stood stacked nearby.
Don examined the machine closely. He had heard of siege engines and recalled seeing them on Stonegate’s towers as well. But he have never seen one up close. “If these engines are designed to knock down walls,” he asked, “why have one on top of a wall?”
Samuel smiled. “It turns out that a trebuchet is an excellent defense against another trebuchet. These stone throwers force any attackers to keep their siege engines well back from the town walls, which makes them much less effective. They have to be fairly close to smash through a well-built stone wall. But the maximum range of the large ones is about four hundred yards, if I remember right. Perhaps five hundred under ideal conditions, such as throwing from a high place to a target much lower in elevation. Ariel invested heavily in defenses during the last attempt of the Prophet to invade.”
The Stonegate Sword Page 38
