Chapter 10

Most of us suffered through the winter, but a number of teenagers, mostly boys, of course, decided to make some additional crossbows. The gang had found a machine shop that they could get into operation because it had an axillary power system that turned out to be a steam engine. Anyway, with all of the energy of a bunch of teens turned on by something that interested them, they managed to put the machine shop back in operation.

At first, they didn’t try to do anything special, but simply learned by making exact copies of the crossbows that we had found. That took them about six weeks, and then they started experimenting. Pretty soon, they had two new crossbow prototypes. One was a scaled up version that was large enough to require a firing stand, and the other one was a “hand crossbow.”

At first, we dismissed the small crossbow because it had a relatively short range of only about 20 yards. However, upon reflection, that was the range at which we so often encountered Grampits. It was difficult to fight Grampits with the conventional crossbow because the large weapon was slow to move to register on a moving target. On the other hand, the hand crossbow handled much like a pistol and was easy to swing from side to side or up and down to move wherever the target moved.

The inventor of the hand crossbow had lavished considerable effort on her creation and had come up with a quick-draw holster for it. She demonstrated how easy the small crossbow was to use, and there was a lever cocking device that made it quick and easy to cock the crossbow. She could get off as many as three aimed shots in the time it took to launch one bolt from a conventional crossbow. It still took two hands to cock and load the small crossbow, but everything else could be done with one hand, and that could be important in a fight.

Of particular interest to me was that the hand crossbow could be used very conveniently by a cart driver without even having to stand up, and that could not be said for a regular crossbow. Anyway, to shorten an already long story, I asked the gang to come up with as many of the hand crossbows as they could manufacture. My plan was to use it as the main defensive weapon of the wagon drivers who, up to now, had been forced to settle for the larger conventional crossbow. They were able to manufacture 37 of the hand crossbows before they ran out of raw materials.

We had no immediate use for the larger crossbow that was more like a cannon, but we did test it and found that it had a range of 300 yards and fired a bolt weighing close to 5 pounds. That was such a formidable weapon that we could not ignore it, so it was knocked down to something that could be carried on a cart. It went with us when we moved on the next spring, even though we had no idea when or where we would ever use it.

We left Greenvile with a lot of pregnant women. Hopefully, we could pick up some more fighters soon. These women would not be effective infantrymen for much longer until after the babies were delivered. At least, they could drive the wagons and could use the hand crossbow for when they needed to defend themselves.

We had reached the point that we were actively seeking out sacrifice pits and any other permanent structure used by the demons. These places were where we would find many demons to kill and many humans to recruit. It turned out that there was a temple complex not far from Greenville, and that was put at the top of our target list. We had high hopes for some fun with this one, so we headed in that direction.

One of the things we found out was that the demons must have been practicing for us because we ran into an ambush when we got fairly close to the temple. They still did not have any missile weapons, so our crossbows were a terror for them. The demons still had to get within a few feet of us before they could do us any harm, so that gave us all kinds of advantages.

The demons were still using bronze weapons, mostly the tridents, so they could not do us much damage. In fact, our biggest problem was in keeping them away from our horses. That was when the hand crossbows really came to the fore. The Grampits were no danger to the horses, but the Erglets had caught on as to how important they were to us, so they were out to kill any that they could.

The drivers got a good workout in this battle and were very proud of themselves. No horses were killed or seriously wounded, which would have amounted to the same thing, because the drivers did such a good job. One reason that they were so happy was that they had actually been an integral part of the fight, instead of simply spectators. That sort of thing does wonders for the ego!

It was not long after this fight where the horses were in danger that Naomi had a stroke of genius. She suggested that we treat the horses with a few drops of Water of Life to protect them against danger. Well, that was a great idea, but there was no precedent for using Water of Life on anything but humans. That could be just because of the scarcity of the wonder liquid, so an experiment seemed like a good idea.

We had one horse that was quite old and hardly able to do any useful work, but horses were horses, so we were reluctant to put it down. Naomi suggested that Old Bob would be the ideal experimental animal. If he was rejuvenated, then we had made a major victory, but if he died, then we had not lost much. Okay, that sounded good. Since it was her idea, Naomi was given the task of running the experiment.

Three drops of Water of Life was administered to Old Bob, and he seemed to collapse on the spot. Naomi burst into tears because she had developed an attachment to Old Bob and was sure that she had killed him. We were getting ready to remove his body when he suddenly scrambled to his feet and acted as if he were only around 2 years old instead of the 18 that he really was.

Naomi jumped onto Old Bob’s back and began to ride him around. She kept urging him to move faster and faster, until she realized that he was walking at the speed that we treated humans walked. She then urged him into a run, and he must have run close to 60 MPH! Out of fright, she slowed him down and returned to the rest of us amid numerous cheers. Old Bob had become a friend to many of our people.

Anyway, with that result to encourage us, all of the other horses were treated with Water of Life, and they all exhibited the same kind of rejuvenation that Old Bob had shown. This was a great boon. Now we could return to our old rate of travel, and that was much more comfortable for all of us. Also, a few quick experiments showed that the bronze weapons used by the demons could not harm the horses. What more could we ask for?

That was a tremendous boost to our morale as we resumed our march toward the Demon’s temple complex. Now, the only limit to our speed was the amount of wear the carts and wagons could take. The horses never got hungry or thirsty, so that was another plus to let us move fast. Thus, we reached the temple complex in half the time it would have normally taken us.

We now had enough troops to surround the complex. That way, no demon was going to escape us. This place, though larger than the other temple complex we had attacked, was still laid out pretty much in the same pattern. There was a large building to one side that emitted a God-awful stench, and we figured that it had to be the “barn.” There were no guards outside, so we figured that there had to be some inside the barn.

Two squads of pikemen were sent into the barn, and there they found exactly what we had expected. There were 29 humans, both male and female, chained to posts and surrounded with human excrement. Our people tried to take as few breaths as possible as they dispatched the four demon guards inside. One had a key that fit all of the locks, so the slaves were liberated and brought outside for their treatment with Water of Life.

Fortunately, they had all recovered by the time that the barn was reduced to ashes. They all wanted to join our army and were accepted, but they needed training, so they were issued a knife as a token of their acceptance and promised a pike and a sword as soon as they could be trained.