Chương 85: Day Eighty-Four

Dear Diary, I've got to learn to think before I pop off. Really, I mean it. So Saffron and I got to sleep late for the worst of all possible reasons; paperwork. Isnomi woke us up early, which left both of us more than a little cranky. Honeymoon phase officially over.

Still, it's not Isnomi's fault she's still in the full on crotch goblin stage, and her saying, "ma, ma, mama," while I changed her diaper made the happy hormones flow, so by the time she'd been fed and Saffron and I got dressed, we'd both wound up in a better mood. When Marie arrived with our laundry, we'd already finished getting ready for the day. Saffron shooed me toward the Infirmary; apparently she had some stitch witchery she wanted to ask Marie about.

I got to the Infirmary to find Grandma there, but no Sister Siobhan. The Sister still kind of creeped me out with her literal hero worship, so I took my good fortune in stride and, after delivering Isnomi, sat there chatting with Grandma about pre-me Saffron. Apparently she'd always been a serious, almost driven child. Her first and only deviation from that had been Isnomi's dad, who apparently thought Saffron should have focused on being a housewife from the moment she got preggers.

Grandma wouldn't even tell me his name, although I got the impression she just didn't want to sully her mouth or my ears with it. Apparently they'd had a big screaming match before the damn midwife even left the house, and Saffron both kicked him out for good and doubled down on her super serious, super driven, no fun at all persona.

"You're good for her," she said to me.

"Wait, did I hear that right? I'm a good influence on somebody?" She chuckled at that, quietly because she'd gotten Isnomi to nap a bit.

"Sometimes the best influence for someone is a bad influence." I kept my own laugh quiet, so I heard Saffron come in through the door.

"What are we laughing about then?" I turned to her, grinning.

"Oh, nothing much. Grandma's just telling me stories about baby Saffron." She facepalmed.

"What have you been telling her, Ma?" Grandma Aetos just chuckled and said, "nothing except the truth, my girl. Nothing but the truth." Saffron shook her head and dragged me off to breakfast. Decent spread today, all the normal protein and bread, supplemented by some veggies chopped up in the scrambled eggs. We all bolted the moment the Barbie Brigade stood up. When we all made it into formation, duBois announced, "no sparring today."

He let the inevitable groans run their course before continuing, "instead, you'll be learning the basics of muscle powered ranged weapons. While we'll be focusing on longbows, you'll also be learning short horse bows and personal ballistae." At my raised hand, he paused and nodded toward me.

"I know what bows are, and I kinda remember ballistae, but what's a 'personal' ballistae?" DuBois replied, "fair point. Lancaster, Rider, Ritter, Morson, go get all the bows, personal ballistae, arrows, and bolts from the northeast shed. Driver, Diaz, Aetos, Mac Conno, go get the practice dummies from the southwest."

Once we'd all returned with the equipment and set the targets up along one of the longer walls of the Practice Yard, duBois held up a bow maybe two and a half feet long, with that neat double curve thing I remembered seeing in an old video about Mongols.

"This is a short bow, primarily used by horse archers and scouts." In one smooth motion, he drew and fired at a target, nailing it near dead center.

"While they've got less range and don't hit as hard as a longbow, they're a lot handier, both in terms of stowing them and using them in close quarters." He set that bow down, then picked up a bow longer than he was tall.

"This, as you might have guessed, is a long bow. Used both by trained levies in large formations and by snipers." He drew and fired, the motion much slower and more deliberate than his shot with the short bow. The arrow sunk half again as far into the target. Then he set the bow down and picked up the most ghetto crossbow I've ever seen. He pulled a little prybar looking thing that yanked the arms back.

Once the string settled behind a hook on the top side of the stock, he flipped it and cranked a ratcheting handle on the underside a few times before flipping it back right side up and dropping a bolt in front of the string.

"This is a man portable ballista. The built-in goatsfoot is a local innovation, as is the torsion adjustment crank on the bottom. Between the mechanical advantage provided by both, even a soldier incapable of drawing a short or long bow can put nearly as much hurt downrange.

Of course, a Hero using one can do something like this," He glanced at the targets and then, one handed, pointed the contraption at the same target with the other two arrows in it and squeezed a primitive looking trigger bar running along the stock. Where I'd seen both arrows fly through the air toward the target, I only saw a blur as the bolt left the ballista. Straw flew out of the backside of the target, the target itself tipped over, and the bolt itself sparked where it hit the wall.

That got my fuckin' attention, lemme tell you. DuBois turned back to the class and said, "we'll be firing across the Yard this morning, we'll do some long ranged shooting after lunch. There are eight of each weapon, and if you look, they're all color coded like the arrows and bolts. Everyone pick your starting weapon, find your ammunition, and come back to formation." We all clustered around the bows, looking for one that suited us. DuBois pointed a few students toward the ballista.

Bill had already been looking one over, so he just nodded and started checking for 'his' bolts. Saffron put down the short bow she'd been holding and picked up a ballista. Larry, of course, put down his short bow and picked up a fuckin' longbow that had to be twice his height. I mean, I picked a longbow too, but that's just because I wanted to get it and the short bow out of the way, so I could spent some quality time with that janky ghetto crossbow.

After a few minutes of sorting through the weapons, we all made it back to formation.

"Excellent, Cadets. Now, before we do anything else, some very simple safety rules regarding bows. Never aim your bow at anything you don't want dead. Never loose when there are allies downrange. Never walk downrange of someone who is aiming a bow. Final thing, while on the range, never loose when someone is collecting spent arrows.

You may think you're the greatest marksman since Diana, but everyone fucks up now and then, and you don't want to have your bad shot hit someone, because then it's not just embarrassing, it's also injuring one of your fellow Cadets, and I will take the latter out of your hide if it happens."

"To reiterate, do not aim a bow at anything you don't want dead, never loose with allies downrange, never walk into the line of someone aiming a bow. Do you all understand those rules, Cadets?" Of course we all said, 'yes', but then he did what I'd been secretly dreading; he had us all repeat it back everything he'd just said. It took like nine repetitions before everybody shouted the rules with a level of confidence and conviction that satisfied duBois.

Once he'd finished that, he had each of us pick up a target, set it up one paver away from one side of the Yard, then take ourselves and our weapons to the 'line', about one paver in from the far side.

"While you are shooting, I will be walking along behind you studying your form, as well as helping anyone who is unfamiliar with the bows we're using. Do not go retrieve your arrows and bolts until I announce the range is clear. If you need me to show you the basics, just keep your bow down and I'll get to you first thing. The range is now closed, no stepping into the range. You may begin practicing now." I swear I really want to figure out what Spell lets people do that 'filling the Yard at normal volume' trick.

So I wound up near one end of the line, with Saffron, Bill, and Angel to my right before the wall, and Lancaster directly to the left of me. I watched him draw the bow, having to lean just the tiniest bit backward to keep the bottom end from scraping the ground, and loose.

Right then and there I revised my personal danger rating for Larry, first because he could even draw that comically oversized bow, which made him stronger than I guessed, and second because he managed to land a shot into the target dummy's shoulder. I mean, mostly through the shoulder to lie on the ground behind it, but still, you get my point.

After seeing him do it I realized I'd done myself a favor grabbing the smallest longbow of the lot; I still leaned a little, because it seemed somehow right, but I didn't have to contort myself or anything just to fire. Weirdest luck, my first shot hit the target right below the waistline. I got a little jazzed at the idea I'd found something I didn't have to cheat code my way into doing by Mimicking someone else's hard learned Skills. I shot another arrow and hit the target square in the middle of the chest.

By the time my third arrow hit it square in the face, my fourth and fifth had already left the bow, drawn and fired as a pair as I'd leaned further back and fired with my bow almost parallel to the ground. My arrows took the dummy in its shoulders, which almost tipped it over. Lancaster stared at me as I straightened from bending backward from that last shot, grudging admiration clear on his face.

"Nice shooting." He then went on to put the rest of his arrows around the perimeter of the target, looking at me as the last one flew and finished the pattern he'd shot his arrows into. I nodded back, if he wanted to be gracious, I could play that game too. Hell, what with so many Lancasters in Phileo being Heroes, or vice versa, it might even be a good idea to not be constantly at odds with the only Lancaster I knew personally. Y'know, I barely got that out with a straight face. Anyway, I could do gracious.

"Good shooting yourself. Way harder to make something look like a miss on purpose than just hit the center of the target every time." I drew and fired my last arrow, looking back toward Lancaster before it slammed into my target dummy, dead center in the middle of its chest. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Then we both had to wait for like half an hour before everybody else had fired their eighth arrow.

I spent the rest of the time looking on as Saffron, Bill, and Angel took their time clawing, cranking, placing, then firing their bolts downrange. After they'd each made like two crappy shots, I called out and borrowed Saffron's ballista to show them the kneeling firing position I remembered from one of the campouts in my ROTC days. Once Bill and Saffron had something to brace their elbow on while they aimed, they did a lot better.

Meaning Bill went from two wobbly near misses to his next six shots went into the torso of the dummy. Not with nearly the precision patterning Lancaster and I had done, but still a pretty big world of hurt on somebody if they were his target. Saffron went from taking nearly a minute of aiming to fire to being able to reload and fire in maybe fifteen seconds.

She only hit like three shots, four if you count the one that sliced open the bottom of the dummy's chest without actually sticking in it, but that's three out of six where before she'd been zero for two. The rest of the morning went kind of like that; we'd trade weapons with someone, or maybe pick up one of the spare bows, then go police up our arrows and returning to our firing positions, there to fire another eight arrows.

After we'd each cycled through one round with each weapon, duBois told us to pick one we wanted to spend the rest of the day firing. Due to a shortage of ballistae, I wound up with a short bow. At one point I leaned over to Saffron and whispered, "I think I've got a knack with this!" She closed her eyes, smiled, shook her head, and whispered in my ear via Direct Message, "check your Other Status, Goof." It took me a second staring at my Status while everybody else kept firing for me to get it.

NAME Mimic RACE Mor AGE JuvErrnile ATTRIBUTES STRENGTH 13 AGILITY 19 ENDURANCE 19 REASON 6 MEMORY 4 PERSONALITY 15 AFFINITIES Water (56. 25%), Air (28. 125%) PATRON Loki SKILLS SCENT 9 ARCHERY 24 RACIAL SKILLS MIMIC 16 MIMIC (Attack) 4 MIMIC (Attribute) 4 MIMIC (Defense) 8 MIMIC (Size) 16 MIMIC (Skill) 8 BLEND 32 When I did, I just hung my head in defeat.

"Fuck me," I muttered, only to get another whisper from Saffron.

"It's not a bad thing, love. But you might want to tone it down, because secret reasons, right?" I shrugged and nodded. I mean, it's not like I hated being an awesome archer, but I thought I'd found something that was just me being good at something, rather than swiping it from somebody else. Fortunately, we broke for lunch after that. After gnawing on shoe leather beef and de-rehydrated pork product for an hour or so, we got back to the Practice Yard.

As I filed in, duBois pulled me out of the line and said, "we need to talk." Since I saw another of me just standing there, and another of him going on about the afternoon's archery practice, I just followed him up to his office.

"Let me start by saying that as a Cadet, you've neither broken any written rules nor done anything I consider out of bounds for a student. On the other hand, as a," he paused, shaking his head before muttering, "I can't believe I'm about to say this," before continuing on in his previous tone, "High Priestess and Champion of Loki, you've definitely played fast and loose with the rules.

I don't think its in anyone's best interests to drag everyone through another Court proceeding centered on you, so I'm prepared to keep this as a simple case of filing improper paperwork, so long as you're willing to accept my judgement on the matter?" I'd never really considered that I'd be in a position where duBois had to ask me permission to accept his judgement. I guessed there was something to this High Priestess thing after all. I nodded and he continued.

"So the reason for your Holy War was to avenge the kidnapping of a child?"

"I mean, the mission was to get her back. Vengeance was just kind of a side benefit."

"Okay, the way you worded that could have been better." He picked up the clipboard of papers he'd had me fill out yesterday, paging through until he found the one he wanted to take notes on.

"In your list of casualties, you listed Cadets MacConno and Driver. You also listed an estimated four dozen injured by yourself, as well as the former High Priestess of Diana. Who wound up dead on the floor?" My brain finally realized that whatever he said, the Marshall wasn't in 'teacher mode' at the moment. At this moment he was a cop trying to figure out what had happened that got people dead.

"That's correct, sir."

"The remaining clergy have claimed her Soul had been destroyed."

"From what I've heard, that's a natural result of Artemis incarnating through a Priestess without an Angelic cutout, Sir."

"Just so you're aware, I've already received and read through their report on the War as well. Suffice it to say you have very different recollections of what occurred that evening."

"I suppose they might, Sir." He heaved a sigh.

"Did they get Cadet Aetos' consent before taking her daughter?"

"They did not, Sir." He nodded.

"Did you deliberately target bystanders?"

"Not intentionally, sir." He grimaced, and I felt a little sorry for him, if he had to go through this kind of shit on a regular basis.

"So if it wasn't intentional, it's not deliberate. Final question. Did you get her back in one piece?" I nodded.

"Wouldn't be back if I hadn't, Sir." He heaved out a sigh.

"All right. I'm ruling on this one as a representative of the Council. We'll vote over it when next we meet, but for now, on my own authority I'm handing down consequences. So, High Priestess, are you ready to hear my judgement and abide by it?" I couldn't help it, I smirked at him.

"Would be stupid not to, Sir." He frowned at me, nodded to himself, and said, "I will have a list of those injured during the War delivered to you before Monday. Beginning Monday, you and your followers," here he muttered, "although I didn't think you had any," before continuing, "are to find each of the injured persons, apologize to them in person, and arrange for the amelioration of any loss suffered by those persons. You are to report your progress directly to me.

Should I feel you're delaying, we will revisit this judgement. Understood?"

"Ameliorate how, Sir?" He shrugged, "That's up to you. Heal them. Pay them weregelt. Whatever it takes for them to feel like you've balanced the scales with them. If there are any cases where you feel they're taking advantage of you, you can bring them to me, but I'm fairly certain you won't like my arbitration."

"Understood, Sir." He dismissed me to quarters at that point, and I trudged back down to collect Isnomi before spending the afternoon playing with her in our room. When Saffron got home, she sat down and played with me, and when Marie got there later for bath time, she had an almost unrecognizable stuffed bundle of legs. I mean, it had clearly started out as Isnomi's bear, but somebody'd added another four long, fluffy legs and moved the eyes around.

She handed it over to Isnomi, who immediately showed her approval of the extra legs by chewing on them. Saffron leaned in and whispered in my ear, "I thought a Kraken far more appropriate than a Bear." Weird, to have spent the afternoon spiraling while trying to keep myself from showing that to Isnomi, then to have something so simple mean so much, to give me that warm fuzzy all over feeling that banished the spiral entirely.