[Flashback] Father Knows Best...

[Kavala]

Timestamp: Fall 506 AV
Location: Southern Sea Of Grass
Purpose: Crossbow Training
Status: Closed/Flashback

Kavala was a bit nervous. Her sister, Akela, had teased her earlier in the day because her father had finally put his foot down and said the girl had to learn to defend herself. Kavala was soft by nature, pacificistic, and far more interested in the herbs her brother’s wife grew than how to defend herself with weapons. Evidently though, her family had different ideas. Eachann took her out, just the two of them, and started their lessons on the grass late one Fall afternoon. Her father always was one to make sure when he taught his daughters something new, they were taught away from the pavilion – away from critical eyes or where they could potentially hurt someone. So they rode out midafternoon to find a quiet spot and begin the lesson.

And Kavala went, silent in her protest, even though her father seemed to know her thoughts.

“Akela is right on this, Kavala. You need to learn to defend yourself. She can’t always be there. Neither can your family. I know you hate bows and blades, but you’ll be learning both crossbow and dagger. I’ve picked crossbow for you because its not a thinking person’s weapon. It’s a point and shoot to kill scenario. It’s important to know your weaknesses, Kavala, and one of your big ones is that you turn into a rabbit and want to run when the battle starts. This will allow you to do that and might even give you a chance to flee without being wounded or captured.” He added.

“Yes father.” Kavala said, realizing slowly she was going to have no say in this at all.

Eachann nodded, pleased that she seemed to be accepting fate, and removed a crossbow from his stallion’s Yvas. Kavala dismounted her own horse, Windsong, and waited quietly as the ankal went into his ‘lecture mode’. “ I will start by showing you how to take this beauty apart, oil her, and then make sure all her guts are tight." He smiled and waited for Kavala to nod her understanding. The ankal always laid out the progression of things. "First off… crossbows aren’t really bows at all. That’s just everyone's common term for them. The only thing they have in common with bows is that they shoot projectiles. Crossbows are wonderful, because they come in all shapes and sizes, and one doesn't have to be strong to load a bolt and fire. I will show you tricks on how to get a really big bow notched and ready to fire.” Eachann grinned, and then handed a small suitable sized crossbow over to Kavala so she could see what the man spoke of.

"There are seven parts to a crossbow that you need to remember. And for its maintenance each and every one needs to be inspected and oiled. Screws need to be tightened, wood checked for cracks, and oil applied as needed. The main components are as follows...." And then Eachann started pointing them out.

"The Lath or Prod is this thing here, the big flexible 'bow' part of the weapon at the front of the crossbow that is flexed back and gives the bolt its force and motion. When you inspect it, look for chips, cracks, and stiffness to the wood. Always keep it well oiled." Eachann said, demonstrating the inspection and adding oil to the lath as he spoke, showing Kavala how.

Then he moved on. "The Stirrup is a sturdy metal or rope loop at the tip of the lath to put ones foot through to aid in hand spanning the crossbow. Hand spanning is when you pull back your string, lock it, and feed a bolt into it." Eachann added helpfully. He again did the same inspection and added oil to the metal stirrup. He also made sure, using a tool, that the bolts holding it onto Kavala's crossbow were tight.

"Now, the next is the String. This is merely a strand of string, sinew, or hemp that is stretched between the bow that delivers the bows energy to the bolt or arrow. The string is pulled back, bending the bow in the process. The bow or arrow is placed in front of the string and when the string is released, it travels forward at a high rate of speed sending the bolt or arrow flying." Eachann grinned. He knew some of this was common sense, but he was a teacher and would go over all his material thoroughly.

"Next, we have the Trigger. Its the mechanism used to release the string from the catch." Eachann showed Kavala the catch, and how the trigger worked.

"This next part is the Tiller or Stock. You can guess what part that is. Yup, it’s the bar that supports the bow. Its positioned at a right angle to the bow... and its the main body of a crossbow. Again, look for chips, cracks, and keep it oiled." Eachann resumed his inspection of Kavala's weapon nodding his approval.

"Okay, now we have the Crannequin, which is really just a cric or a rack, which is just a mechanism for spanning a crossbow utilizing a winding device that moves along a ratchet bar via the use of toothed wheels. " Eachann spanned the bow, resetting it, showing how mechanism worked. He also oiled it and inspected all the mechanics, nodding his approval.

"Finally we have the Nut or Catch... This is a round catch/trigger mechanism with one or more notches in it used as a catch for the string of a spanned crossbow." He said, indicating the catch. He inspected and oiled it carefully.

With that, Eachann handed the weapon to Kavala. "Now tell me what you've learned and ask me any questions you might have to this point..."

[Kavala]

Dutifully, Kavala began to repeat her father’s words, naming off the parts and only stumbling where he’d given her two or more names for the same piece. She was sharp, good at memorizing things, but bad at the part that would come later – firing the thing. Until then, she was comfortable being scholarly and listening to his instructions.

Eachann nodded, pleased Kavala was able to name off the parts with just a brief rundown. With that, he nodded, and set about carefully showing Kavala just exactly how to inspect her crossbow, looking for warn and frayed parts, tightening nuts, and making sure the mechanical hardware was well-oiled and free of debris and rust. It was a simple quick lecture, and one in which Eachann was well versed. In almost every case, when he ran up against something he was asking Kavala to inspect... such as a frayed string, he had one on hand in a pocket or a yvas pouch, to show Kavala what a new verses worn item looked like. He demonstrated how to tighten bolts with a small tool he gave her that resembled a metal peg stuck into a wooden handle along with a small wrench designed just for the task. He promised her if she took up crossbow seriously, he’d get her a second set of the cleaning tools for her own personal use.

With that, he set about his next phase, and grinned at Kavala. "We need to speak about crossbow safety first and foremost. I can't really even show you how to hold a crossbow or fire one, until you understand the safety involved." Safety was always a key with his daughters. Akela heeded safety almost never while Kavala was overly careful because of her healer ways. In this regard though, he decided crossbows definitely needed extra attention and care in regards to safety. It was just too easy to kill someone with one.

"There are nine rules of safety to follow when using a crossbow. Always use them and review them in your mind. If you don't, you could seriously hurt someone you did not intend too, or even possibly yourself. These things are weapons, and very dangerous." Eachann said and then recited the rules.

“Number one. Always use caution when handling a crossbow. It can go off at any time and might have damage you haven’t seen that will cause it to hurt someone or yourself.” He said, then continued.

“Number two. Never load and set a crossbow until you are ready to fire.” Eachann would explain the terms ‘set and load’ later. Kavala realized this so she nodded, ready for him to move on.

“Number three. If you must load a crossbow before hand, always keep its nose pointed towards the ground and avoid swinging it around a group of people in the event it accidentally fires. Understand?” Kavala nodded. These rules seemed like common sense, so she said nothing – asking no questions until he got through.

“Number four. Always keep your fingers below the flight track and out of the path of the strings when firing the crossbow.” Carefully, hoisting up her crossbow, he showed her where that path and track was. Kavala made a mental note of this, realizing how dangerous it could be to digits to have them block a firing crossbow.

“Number five. Never dry-fire the crossbow, that is shoot without an arrow. Dry firing will result in damage to the lath, string, possibly causing personal injury.” Her father’s voice was stern about this, so Kavala nodded.

“Number six. Never fire the crossbow until you are sure of your target. Always be sure Kavala. A crossbow will kill someone. So when you fire, be sure you mean it and they are indeed the enemy or your food.” He said, enforcing the importance of this one.

“Number seven. Always use an adequate target and backstop when target shooting.” With that, he launched into an explanation of what an appropriate target was. In this case, he had a leather bag that was riddled with holes and stuffed with dried grass hanging from his stallions saddle. This, he said, was the proper target since it held the bolt fast and stopped it from penetrating further. When backed up against a tree, it made a magnificent target.

“Number eight. Always use suitable crossbow arrow. Arrows of improper stiffness or mass weight may damage the lath and string assembly, and possibly cause personal injury.” Again with the personal injury. Kavala glanced at her father sideways and wondered if he was expecting her to hurt herself the first time she picked one up to actually fire it. Glancing down, the weapon in her hand seemed somehow menacing even though it had a beauty all its own with its polished stock and gleaming woodgrain. Someone, her mother perhaps, had taken good care of it.

“Number nine. Always inspect the crossbow and arrows before firing. Bent or damaged arrows are not safe to fire and should be discarded or repaired.” He said, then paused to let her absorb the rules.

“Now, Kavala, tell me again what they are?” The konti nodded, and slowly and carefully worked her way back through the safety rules, starting with extreme caution, working back through loading and firing and pointing, and finger position. She recited the cardnal rule never to dry fire a crossbow and to have a proper target. Then she launched into proper bolts for the crossbow and the importance of a good inspection. “Is that it?” She asked. Eachann nodded. “Good. Very good.”

“Next, lets talk about stances.. .and how to hold the thing.” He said, getting ready to launch into what Kavala would dub ‘Part Two’ of the lecture.

[Kavala]

Stances. This should be better, Kavala thought, than standing here listening to him lecture. The truth was her mind was a million miles away. While she was paying attention, she’d much rather be at her herbalism lessons with Tamar than talking about warfare with her father. Kavala glanced at the sun, wondering how soon it would be before dark. It seemed unreasonable, really, that he was making her learn a weapon when he always stated the men were there to protect the women. Sure, some women were strong and rode to the defense of the Pavilon, but by and large the men wielded the swords and the woman gathered, tended herds, and cooked while raising children.

She failed to see why learning something like the crossbow was important.

Eachann picked up his voice as he handed her the crossbow once more. "Kavala! Pay attention…. You want the stock in your left hand, hilt in the right... hold it up to your shoulder, where your eye can travel down its length and take sight. You want your feet a shoulder width apart, left slightly in front of the right. That way you can brace yourself and release the mechanism." The ankal said, circling around Kavala and adjusting the way she held the weapon as she hefted it up and followed his instructions. Eachann toed her left foot slightly further away from her right then stood back and scrutinized the position.. "Very good... very very good." Eachann nodded.

"Now, drop that, crossbow down, and raise it again. Keep doing that until its automatic... until you know where the weapon should rest and fit, and how your feet should be splayed. Right. Like that. Keep practicing." Her father said, wandering over to his horse to withdraw a quiver of bolts, getting ready to teach her how to load, aim, and fire the weapon.

Kavala began practicing. She lifted the weapon, fitted it against her arm, then dropped it back down. Lifting it again, she repeated the process, noting where her hands were, where her feet rested and how it felt to swing it upwards. “Should it be loaded and cocked when I swing it up or do I load it standing with it like this ready to fire?” She asked after several dozen tries and getting to the point it felt more natural and comfortable.

“We’re getting there, Kav. Just be patient.” Her father said then walked back over to join her, studying her last motion as she dropped the crossbow down, shook out her legs, then took a stance and lifted it to sight it in.

“Good… good… now.. onto the loading and firing.” He instructed.

[Kavala]

Eachann took a brief break, had her set down the crossbow, and then both took a drink from their waterskins and ate an apple apiece. When he was ready to begin again, he had her pick up the crossbow, take her stance, and lift it yet again to see if she remembered. Kavala did, and earned herself a smile from her father.

All at once, the lecture began again. “Half of learning to use a crossbow properly is getting your weapon loaded correctly and held correctly. You have the stance, the positioning correct now. Lets see what else you can learn." With that Eachann took up a position beside Kavala and showed her the bolts he had in his hand.

“Now, listen close girl. These are called bolts. They are your ammunition. Generally they are several times heavier than your average arrow though they are considerably shorter. That makes them more portable. Like arrows, they have three rows of fl etching. Make sure your fl etching is good or the bolt won’t fly straight. There are several types too because its easy to fit a crossbow bolt with a variety of heads. Some are sickle-shaped which can cut rope or rigging; while others can hold a bunt that you can light up. However, the most common type is this quarrel. You can tell it’s a quarrel because it has a four sided head.” He added, letting her look carefully at all the different types of arrows he’d brought along. “I’m sure there’s a few more that I forgot to bring. You can use larger or smaller heads too depending on what your hunting. There’s even a blunt head for hunting shorebirds and ducks. It kills them with the blow but doesn’t ruin the meat.” He added.

Then, he took the bow from Kavala and demonstrated. He showed Kavala how to drop the crossbow so it was pointing at the ground, slip the bolt into its slot, point facing forward, and bend the bow forward so he could slip his toe into the stirrup, and pull the string back locking it into place. "Now, its properly loaded, Kav. See how I did that?" Eachann quickly unlocked the string, took the bolt out, and handed it back to Kavala to try. "Give her a try...."

Kavala did so, copying what he did, and finally slipped her foot into the stirrup and locked the mechanism so she could pull the bolt back. It snapped easily in place. Then, repeating what her father did, she unloaded it just as neatly. “Was that right?” She asked, and looked up at Eachaan, waiting for his nod of approval.

He gave it, and so she went ahead and reloaded it, beginning to practice.

[Kavala]

Next it was time for the actual firing of the crossbow. Eachann retrieved the padded leather target from his stallions’ yvas and hung it on one of the large web caeirns that dominated the landscape near them. He made sure it was safe to fire at, meaning everything was cleared out of its path, and then counted off forty yards to where Kavala stood.

“Now, sighting in the crossbow means taking aim and firing. Each crossbow is different, Kavala. Some fire to the left slightly, some fly high, and some come up fairly short. It depends also if your string is new or how well maintained your mechanisms are. What you need to remember is that you need to PRACTICE with your weapon of choice before you actually need to take it into battle or on the hunt so you know where its individualism lies. Understand? So lets fire this one a few rounds, and we’ll talk about sighting in and why we are standing exactly forty yards from the target.” Her father said.

Once again Kavala loaded her crossbow, took her stance, and waited. When her father gave her the word and she was able to lift the crossbow, raise it to its proper height, and look down its length. Eachann pointed out the two sights along the tip of the crossbow, just behind the stirrup, and instructed her to line her target up between those wooden notches. She did so carefully, feeling a little nervous at holding such a powerful weapon. "Now, don’t squeeze the trigger. Instead, gently carcass the trigger. Don't clamp onto it, even if your nervous or scared, ... just caress it feather light like your touching one of your patients, healer. And she should fire clean for you. Now, give it a try.” Eachann said.

Kavala nodded, then went ahead too in the sight, and gently feathered the trigger. The crossbow kicked, nearly knocking her on her rump, while the bolt sailed out to the right missing the target by a long shot.

Her father had a stony face on.

She knew it was because he was trying not to laugh. She looked at him, accusingly, and rubbed her shoulder. “You should have warned me.” He lost it then, laughter bubbling forth, before the ankal side of him took over and he handed her another bolt. “You should have been more prepared. This time, brace yourself, expect the kick, and shoot that target.” It wasn’t a request. It was an order.

Kavala reloaded, raised the crossbow into position, and braced herself. Then, gently, she caressed the trigger and let the bolt fly free. This time she was ready for the kick and it didn’t bother her near as much as she thought it would at first. Though the bruise she’d have for the first one would be astonishingly large the next day. It wasn’t going to be repeated the second time.

“Okay, now… fire about twenty more. Get a feel for how the bolts fly when you are holding the crossbow true… and let me know what you think. " Kavala nodded, took the belt quiver her father handed her and snapped it on her own belt, then began to repeatedly fire the bolts one after another after another until she had a great feel for how the weapon’s aim affected things. Then, when she’d cycled through all the bolts, she turned to him and smiled. “It fires high and to the right just slightly. If I aim a little more to the left by about two fingernail’s width, then it will hit more true.” Once she’d figured that out, about eight bolts into it, Kavala had started consistently hitting the target, something a regular archer probably wouldn’t have been able to do with a standard bow. Crossbows were forgiving, easy to manage, and the ranged weapon every father wanted their daughter to have in an emergency.

[Kavala]

The last true thing to teach Kavala about crossbows before taking her hunting was the process of sighting in a crossbow that was above and beyond taking sight on a target. Once she had a feel for the way the crossbow fired, Eachann knew it was time to actually talk to her about distance firing and what she could and shouldn’t do with a crossbow.

“Now, Kavala… I hope you realize that a crossbow doesn’t work like anything else you’ve ever seen or handled so far, right? It has to be treated differently than other hunting weapons because it is potentially a great deal more dangerous. It has more power than a recurve bow and fires heavier stronger bolts than a composite bow. You can pierce armor with one, no problem.” He said softly, thoughtfully, as if disturbed at the thought of his daughter using such a weapon to do such a thing.

“Now, the maximum ethical range for a crossbow on just about anything is forty yards. You don’t want to wound things then let them run off to die. It’s not a good use of the land, Kavala. If you waste meat, you’ll anger Caiyha. You want to find your range though, since every crossbow is different. Start at the twenty yard mark, and start test firing to see how accurate it is. Each crossbow is different. Each one needs to be handled slightly differently. Now.. go try it.”

Kavala went and collected all her bolts, cut the distance she was firing at the target in half, then began firing again. Her accuracy increased dramatically. She let fly the bolts smoothly, getting used to loading the bolts and bringing the weapon up to fire. She even realized, as she cocked it, that it would be equally easy to do from a horse, hooking her foot in the crossbows stirrup just like one hooked a foot in a Syliran Saddle.

When she was done firing off her rounds and collecting her bolts, she waited for her father’s next words. “Now, look on the stalk at the sight. See the dots? The standard range for zero or the first dot is twenty yards. The next dot is thirty yards, and the next forty, fifty, on back to sixty. You know how the corrections go in the sight at forty, so guess and shorten them up at thirty and lengthen them at fifty. You might not get a chance to shoot something at forty yards, but girl if you can… hold the shot until something gets closer.” He said firmly, walking over to meet her and then back up with her as she let loose shots to test the sight and the ranges the dots on the stalk covered.

With that knowledge, Kavala found the crossbow very accurate. Her mind slowly and carefully figured out how to adjust the range and make corrections for the crossbows individual behavior.l

Her father, however, wasn’t done. “Long shots aren’t easy. You can make them, Kavala… but if your good enough to make them, then be good enough to wait. You need the arrow flying strong enough and fast enough to kill whatever it is your shooting at.. Don’t shoot to wound with a crossbow ever. Shoot to kill. It is a defensive weapon that will keep you alive. But you have to be certain. Do you understand?” He asked, firmly staring into her eyes, making sure he was driving home the point.

“Yes, Father. I do understand. And I will wait for the perfect shot. I also understand what you mean when you say I need to practice this. I promise that every day I will pick it up and give it some practice shots faithfully to get better at it. But if you don’t’ want anyone knowing I know this, I won’t tell anyone. I can only imagine that’s why we came way out here to practice. I ride Windsong daily and I can make it part of our journey. I’ve a backpack that will conceal a weapon of this size easily enough. And I can take it on my herb gathering expeditions for protection. I suspect that’s what you want right? Some added piece of mind.” Eachann smiled softly then, quietly took the crossbow from Kavala, and nodded.

“Yes, child. That’s all I want. I want to know you can protect yourself when your brother and I are not around to do so for you. I’m glad you understand. Now.. I’ll hold you to your promise to practice daily. Don’t think that I will. And one of these days I’ll bring you hunting just to check to see that you’ve done what you said you will… understand?” He said, the ankal in him talking rather than the man.

Kavala nodded, smiled, and returned his hug… understanding that at least for today, the lesson was over.

[Cayenne]

Great thread! It's clear Kavala doesn't favour weapons overmuch, but being both smart and a dutiful daughter, she accepts the necessity. Very informative and true to the skill thread - I learned quite a bit! I hereby award the following: Crossbow - 5 XP Lore - Parts of a Crossbow Lore - Crossbow Maintenance Lore - Crossbow Safety Lore - Proper Crossbow Bolts