The rain had stopped, leaving the courtyard of Blackwood Keep a churned mess of grey mud. Fifty men and women stood in ragged rows. They held pitchforks, rusted scythes, and clubs made of firewood. They were shivering, not just from the cold, but from the bone-deep fear of the "Red Hands."
Wynafryd Manderly stood on the balcony of the Guest Wing, wrapped in furs, watching the pathetic assembly.
"He intends to fight bandits with farmers," she murmured to her guard captain. "It will be a slaughter."
"Aye, my Lady," the captain grunted. "Pitchforks against mail. It's suicide."
Below, Ronan walked down the line. He didn't look inspiring. He looked angry. He snatched a pitchfork from a trembling boy named Pate.
"What is this?" Ronan asked.
"A... a fork, m-my Lord," Pate stammered. "For the hay."
Ronan snapped the handle over his knee. The wood splintered with a dry crack.
"Garbage," Ronan announced, his voice carrying over the wind. "If you fight with farm tools, you die. A pitchfork glances off chainmail. A club bounces off a helmet."
He threw the broken pieces into the mud.
"I am not asking you to be heroes," Ronan said. "Heroes die. I am asking you to be mechanics."
He turned to the smithy doors. "Kennos! Bring out the Line."
The double doors swung open. Kennos and his apprentices wheeled out a long, heavy table. On it lay parts. Not finished weapons, but components. Stacks of ash-wood stocks. Piles of steel curved bars. Buckets of small, intricate iron tumble-nuts.
Ronan picked up one of the steel bars. It was short, thick, and ugly. It lacked the grace of a longbow.
"A longbow takes ten years to master," Ronan told them. "You need the muscles of an ox and the eye of a hawk. We don't have ten years. We have two days."
He picked up a wooden stock and slotted the steel bar into the front. He hammered a pin in. He dropped a trigger mechanism into the groove.
[Crafting: Heavy Arbalest]
• Draw Weight: 450 lbs.
• Range: 200 yards (Effective).
• Reload Time: 15 seconds (with windlass).
• Armor Penetration: High.
"This," Ronan said, holding up the heavy, blocky weapon, "is an Arbalest. It doesn't care if you are strong. It doesn't care if you are brave. It only cares about physics."
He walked to a wooden post twenty paces away. Someone had strapped an old, rusted breastplate to it—remains of his father's armor.
Ronan didn't stand in a dueling stance. He placed the nose of the crossbow on the ground. He hooked a mechanical crank—a windlass—onto the string.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound was mechanical, rhythmic. He wound the heavy steel string back until it locked into the rolling nut with a satisfying clunk.
He raised the weapon. He didn't aim like an archer, compensating for the arc. He just pointed it like a rifle.
THWACK.
The sound was different from a bow. It was a violent slap of metal.
The bolt didn't just hit the breastplate. It punched through the front, tore through the wood of the post, and the tip poked out the back of the armor.
Silence descended on the courtyard. Even Wynafryd on the balcony leaned forward, her mouth slightly open.
"That breastplate," Ronan said calmly, "would stop a sword. It would stop a spear. It did not stop this."
He looked at the peasants. Their fear was evaporating, replaced by a sudden, dangerous realization. They held the power to kill a knight.
"Form lines!" Ronan barked. "Team A, you are assembly. Fit the stocks. Team B, you are the stringers. Team C, you are the drill."
The courtyard transformed. It became a factory floor.
Ronan didn't let each man build a whole weapon. He instituted Division of Labor.
• One man did nothing but sand the trigger grooves.
• One man did nothing but hammer the retaining pins.
• One man did nothing but grease the windlass cranks.
[Efficiency Bonus: Assembly Line]
[Production Rate: 4 Units / Hour]
By sunset, they had fifty weapons. They were ugly, heavy, and smelled of grease, but they were identical.
Ronan lined up the first twenty men.
"Forget honor," Ronan shouted, pacing behind them. "You do not duel. You do not charge. You stand. You crank. You loose."
"Load!"
Twenty men stepped on the stirrups of their crossbows. Click-click-click-click. The sound was like a giant clock winding up.
"Present!"
Twenty steel prods leveled at the hay bales.
"Loose!"
THRUM.
Twenty bolts flew as one. The hay bales were shredded.
Ronan looked up at the balcony. Wynafryd was gripping the railing, her knuckles white. She looked down at him, and for the first time, he saw fear in her eyes. Not of the bandits, but of what he had just done to the social order.
He had made the peasantry lethal.
"My Lord," Kennos said, handing Ronan a fresh bolt. "The scouts report smoke to the west. The Red Hands are moving. They will be here by tomorrow night."
Ronan took the bolt. It was short, thick, and the tip was made of his new blast-furnace cast iron.
"Let them come," Ronan said. "We have a quota to meet."