The Crown of Rutile Quartz: Volume 2 [Parts 1 to 10] by Surume Enoki

Author:Surume Enoki
Language: eng
Format: epub

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At the end of May, about thirty of the kingdom’s subjects gathered in the royal army’s training grounds beside the palace.

“Men, assume formation!” bellowed Gostav, Viscount of Rustrem and lieutenant general of the royal army.

Following his order, the thirty men lined up in two rows. Though they were not exactly trained soldiers, they had practiced the maneuver several times, so their movements were fairly swift for amateur fighters.

“At the ready!” Gostav shouted.

The fifteen men in the front row answered the call, loading metal bolts into the crossbows in their hands.

“And—FIRE!”

The fifteen men each pulled the triggers on their weapons. The bows flashed, the strings twanged, and then fifteen bolts went whizzing through the air.

Half of the bolts struck the wooden targets that were lined up at the end of the range. The other half went astray, sticking into the mound of dirt beyond.

“Relay!”

At Gostav’s command, the front and back rows alternated position. In this, too, the amateur soldiers moved quickly.

“At the ready!”

Just as had the previous row, the next round of soldiers readied their weapons. Meanwhile, the fifteen men to the rear worked to reload.

These thirty men were not the only ones undergoing training. A short distance away, royal army knights were drilling another group of the same size in forming a spear line.

Slaine walked the grounds to observe the army’s work. Beside him trailed Monica, Sergey, and Victor.

“These men are in pretty good shape,” murmured Slaine as he looked over the crossbowmen.

Victor answered with a nod. “Indeed. For a group of conscripts, this is a good performance, I’d say. If you can move like this with a crossbow, then you’ve at least something to offer a defensive line.”

“I trust your expertise. Increasing crossbow production was the right decision,” remarked Slaine. The crown had been advocating for such a measure since the end of the previous year.

The crossbow had various advantages over the traditional bow, such as its strength and ease of handling.

As the crossbow did not require its user to manually draw the bow or maintain a strenuous posture, it was potentially more powerful than a bow that relied on the strength of its wielder. A bolt fired from a crossbow could even pierce metal armor.

And since aiming a crossbow required comparatively little skill, even an amateur marksman could reach competitive levels with minimal training.

It was for these reasons that the crossbow was commonly known as “the knight killer.”

However, the weapon had its demerits as well. The string of a crossbow was very stiff, so it required a special device to reload; thus, its rate of fire was poor. And because its ammunition was short and thick, its effective range was rather short.

Furthermore, the crossbow was expensive and time-consuming to manufacture, with its complex structure and intricate metal parts. The ammunition was costly as well—even more so than longbow arrows, which were already hardly cheap.

However, the royal family’s iron mines lessened this financial burden. As all ore from the mines was property of the crown, whatever of the yield was not sold could be deployed essentially at Slaine’s sole discretion.

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