The Battle for Skandia- Character Reaction

26

"Here, chief." Halt watched, an eyebrow raised, as the book flipped in the air and towards the Oberjarl.

"Mind you don't rip the pages," he said mildly. Erak grinned.

WILL CALLED THE LAST GROUP OF TEN MEN FORWARD TO THE firing line. The preceding group moved to the rear of the waiting ranks and sat down to watch. He was working the men in small groups at this stage. That gave him a manageable group to work with as he tested their ability to follow his orders and shoot at a predetermined elevation. Crowley and Gilan nodded approval.

"Ready!" he called. Each man took an arrow from the bin in front of him and nocked it to the string. They stood ready, their heads turned toward him, waiting for his next order. Will shook his head. "I wouldn't care to do that again," he said.

Horace grinned. "But you did, Chocho." Will rolled his eyes.

"Remember," he said, "don't try to judge the shot yourself. Just go to the position I call, make a full draw and a smooth release when I call it."

The men nodded. Initially, they hadn't liked the idea of having their shooting controlled by someone as young as Will. Will sighed. Then, after Halt had encouraged his apprentice to give a demonstration of highspeed pinpoint shooting, they had reluctantly agreed to the system Will had devised. Horace raised an eyebrow.

Will took a deep breath, then called firmly: "Position three! Draw!"

Ten arms holding bows rose to a position approximately forty degrees from the horizontal. Will quickly glanced down the line to see that each man had remembered the correct position. He'd been drilling the four different elevations into them all day. Satisfied, and before the strain of holding the bows at full draw became too great, he called:

"Shoot!"

Almost as one, there was a rapid slither of released bowstrings and a concerted hiss of arrows arcing through the air.

Crowley and Halt exchanged a glance. The younger Ranger nodded at the unspoken message.

Will watched the small flight of shafts as they arced upward, then nosed over and plunged down to bury themselves up to half their length in the turf. Again he called to the waiting line of men: "Position three, ready!"

As before, the ten men nocked arrows to the strings, waiting for Will's next call.
"Draw . . . shoot!"

Again there was the slithering slap of released bowstrings hitting the archers' arm guards, and the sound of the wooden shafts scraping past the bows as they were hurled into the air. This time, as the arrows came down, Will changed his command. Halt gave an imperceptible nod of approval.

"Position two . . . ready!"

The line of left arms holding the bows extended and tilted up to a thirty- degree angle.

"Draw . . . shoot!"

And another ten-shaft volley was on its way. Will nodded to the ten men, who were watching him expectantly. "All right," he said. "Let's see how you did."

He began to pace across the open field, followed by the ten men who had just shot. There were markers set out down the middle of the field, marking 100, 150 and 200 meter distances. Position three, with the bow arm elevated forty degrees from the horizontal, should have equated to the 150 meter marker. As they approached that marker, Will nodded with satisfaction. There were sixteen arrows slanting up from the turf within a ten-meter tolerance of the mark. Two had gone long, he noticed, and two more had dropped short. He studied the long shots. The shafts were numbered so that he could assess how each member of the shooting line had performed.