Which is fair enough, Vaijon reflected. The dwarves hadn’t really considered the possibility of using rails anywhere except inside their mountains until Bahzell suggested it to them. He snorted silently in amusement. I guess it took someone who was too ignorant of all the reasons it wouldn’t work to come up with the idea in the first place! And I wonder what kind of effect it’s going to have on the entire Empire by the time Kilthan and the others are done with it?
That was actually, he realized, a very good question. Even Axeman roads often left a bit to be desired, especially in winter weather or heavy rain. Dwarvenhame freight wagons were far better sprung and more efficient than anyone else’s, yet according to Kilthan’s experts, a draft team could pull twice or even as much as three times the load in one of the “rail carts” than the same team could manage in even a dwarven wagon. That was why they used them to move the massive loads their foundries required, after all. So if Dwarvenhame truly did begin extending “rail ways”-or would they end up calling them “rail roads,” instead, Vaijon wondered? — alongside the existing Axeman high roads, what effect was that going to have on the Empire’s internal economy?
“According to my latest messages from Silver Cavern, the first shipments of rails should be arriving at the canal head in a few more days,” Gorsan continued, “We’ve already surveyed the route, and I’ve had work gangs grading the worst stretches for the last couple of weeks.” He grimaced. “I can’t say I’m happy about having to divert work crews from the canal, but Prince Bahnak’s promised us additional manpower to make up for it, and I expect we can have the tracks down by, oh, the end of next month or the middle of the month after. Once we do, and coupled with the extra river barges, we’ll be able to keep your forces supplied a lot more easily, without the bottlenecks we had last year. And”-this time his grimace segued into a grin-“it’ll be a lot less expensive than it was last year, too!”
“Well, Uncle Tellian will certainly be in favor of both of those,” Trianal remarked with an answering smile. Then his expression became more thoughtful. “On the other hand, I can’t help wondering. If this ‘rail way is going to be as efficient as it sounds like it is, are we wasting unnecessary effort building the canal in the first place?”
“Oh, no, Milord!” Gorsan shook his head emphatically. “Draft teams can pull much heavier loads along rails, that’s true, but there’s really no comparison between how much freight we can can haul overland and how much we can manage using barges. A single barge can carry as much as three or four hundred tons of cargo at a time, and that’s a lot more than you could put into any rail cart! This is going to allow us to move larger quantities of supplies much more rapidly for your army, and it may well help a lot-on a smaller scale, at least-in places where even canals simply aren’t practical, but it’s nowhere close to being a substitute for this canal. Not with the amounts of freight we’re talking about moving once everything is finished and running properly.”
“I see.” Trianal nodded.
His voice was both satisfied and courteous, yet Vaijon’s mental ears pricked as something about the younger man’s tone registered. Then, as he glanced at the expressions of the others seated around the table, he felt an ungrudging sense of respect.
He didn’t ask that for himself. He asked it for the others, to make sure no one else was going to start questioning exactly why we’re about to go out and get altogether too many of our people hurt or even killed this summer. I wonder if that was Tellian’s idea or he came up with it on his own? A year ago I’d’ve bet it was Tellian’s, but now…
“And the new arbalests?” he inquired out loud, turning his attention to Rianthus after giving Trianal the very slightest of approving nods.
“They should be arriving along with the first shipment of rails,” Rianthus answered. “And Kilthan tells me they’re considering a version for merely human archers, as well,” he added with a wry smile.
A chorus of chuckles greeted that remark, and they were actually louder from the Sothoii side of the table than from the hradani side, Vaijon noted. That was good, although he rather doubted the Sothoii in general were going to be quite as cheerful about the new weapons as “his” Sothoii were. Given how much of the Sothoii cavalry’s invincibility depended upon the deadly accuracy and speed of their mounted archers, it would have been unreasonable to expect them to happily greet the notion of infantry missile troops whose weapons were not only longer ranged and harder hitting than their own bows but fired far more rapidly than anyone else’s crossbows-even medium crossbows, far less arbalests-possibly could, to boot.
The very idea was going to deeply offend the more hidebound of the Sothoii traditionalists (and right offhand, Vaijon couldn’t think of anyone who could possibly be more hidebound than a Sothoii traditionalist), and the thought that those weapons were going to be in the hands of hradani was only going to make it worse. Of course, if they’d been paying attention for the last, oh, twenty years or so, they would have realized Prince Bahnak’s Horse Stealers were already fielding heavy crossbowmen with preposterous rates of fire. But the new arbalests Silver Cavern had designed expressly for Bahnak (and for which they had charged him a pretty copper, Vaijon knew) had heavier pulls than even a Horse Stealer’s arm could span with a simple goat’s foot. Their built-in, integral cocking levers were geared and cammed to provide their users with a heavy mechanical advantage, which allowed for a pull many times as powerful as any bow’s could possibly be. Not to mention the fact that once spanned, an arbalest could be held that way far longer than any archer could hold a fully drawn bow, which gave the crossbowman time to aim carefully. Indeed, one of Kilthan’s artisans had actually figured out how to fit them with sights for even greater accuracy.
They were big enough (and heavy enough) to constitute two-man weapons for anyone but a hradani, and they still couldn’t match a horse archer’s rate of fire. A trained Sothoii could fire as many as fifteen aimed shafts in a minute, whereas even a Horse Stealer with one of the new arbalests could manage no more than six. But hradani crossbowmen were foot archers, and trained marksmen firing from their own feet were always going to be more accurate than even the most highly skilled mounted archer firing from the back of a moving horse.
On the other hand, human crossbowmen aren’t going to be able to handle the weight of pull our lads can, even with the new design, Vaijon thought cheerfully. There is a limit to how much mechanical advantage you can give any cocking lever if you’re going to span the thing with a single pull! I doubt any of Trianal’s fellows are going to complain about having that kind of fire support against the ghouls, though.
“Actually,” Rianthus continued with a sly smile, “one of Kilthan’s bright young engineers claims to have come up with a still better idea. He thinks he may be able to design an arbalest that can be loaded with more than one quarrel at a time.”
“Of course he can!” Trianal snorted. “No doubt they’ll be able to fire five or six with each shot!”
“Oh, no!” Rianthus looked at him with becoming solemnity. “That would be wasteful, Milord! What they’re talking about is just an arrangement that would automatically put another quarrel onto the string every time the arbalest is spanned without the archer having to individually load it.”
“Ah, that’s much better!”
Trianal rolled his eyes, and Sir Yarran smiled under his mustache and shook his head. Vaijon chuckled as well, although given what he’d seen out of the dwarves, he was less confident than the Sothoii that Rianthus was simply pulling their legs.