The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [159]
Yet not three days after the accident the catapult drivers asked Grizzly to attend a test firing of a new kind of shell. The first shot from the usual three hundred yards blew eight targets to shreds; the new shell was just a hollow ceramic ball filled with powder and cut-up nails, set off with a fire cord used for naphtha bombs. The next step was obvious: put the jar of powder inside a larger one filled with fire jelly, which you get by dissolving soap in the lighter fraction of naphtha, so that the explosion flings sticky incendiary fluff in all directions. Grizzly examined the thirty-yard circle of earth scorched down to the mineral layer and turned to Jageddin in amazement: "All that done by a single jar? Congratulations, guys: finally you've come up with something worthwhile!"
That was when Kumai had the thought that one could not only sling such shells – whether incendiary or shrapnel ones – from catapults, but also drop them from gliders. "This makes no sense," was the objection, "how many sorties can you fly during a battle? Two? Three? It's not worth it." "Yes, sure, if all you do is simply drop shells anywhere on the enemy's army. But if you hit milord Aragorn together with milord Mithrandir, it's quite worthwhile." "You think you can hit them?" "Sure, why not? Rather than hit a man, I'd have to hit within fifteen yards of a man." "Isn't that kinda… you know… ignoble?" "Wha-a-a-at?!" "No, nothing… The old knightly wars – 'are you ready, fair sir?' – are anyway all done with. As the One is my witness, we didn't start this."
It did look like the 'noble war' was to be no more. For example, the Mordorian engineers have made serious strides in improving the crossbow – the weapon that had always been under an unspoken ban in Middle Earth. ("Why do you think the noble knights hate the crossbow so much? It looks personal, doesn't it?" "Sure, we've all heard it: a distance weapon is a coward's weapon." "No, man, this is more complicated. Note that no one objects to bows much. The thing is that the best bow develops at most a hundred forcepounds at the bowstring, while a crossbow does a thousand." "So what?" "So an archer can only bring down an armored knight if he hits him in the visor or an armor joint, which is a high art – you gotta start learning at three and maybe you'll be some good by the age of twenty. Whereas a crossbowman just shoots at the target and the bolt goes right through wherever it hits. Which means that after a month's training a fifteen-year-old journeyman who's never held a weapon before can wipe his nose on his sleeve, take aim from a hundred yards, and goodbye to the famed Baron N, winner of forty-two tournaments, and so forth… You know how they say in Umbar: the One created weak and strong people, and the inventor of the crossbow made them equal? So now these strong people are mad at the demise of the high art of combat!" "Yep. What's more, the taxed estates are beginning to scratch their heads: what do we need all those fancy boys for, with all their coats of arms, plumages, and all the rest? If it's to protect the Motherland, perhaps crossbowmen will be cheaper?" "You're so down-to-earth practical, brother!" "I guess I am. Plus I'm too dumb to figure out why it's noble to knock someone's brains out with a sword but dishonorable to do it with a crossbow bolt.")
But the steel crossbows with 'distance