Post by dragon on Dec 9, 2009 22:48:54 GMT -5
It had taken him two solid weeks of steady labor in every spare moment he had to make the initial piece and put it together. It had looked like a fine instrument of defense indeed. A metal crossbow on gargantuan proportions, the wings were mounted on a beam of wood that housed all the trigger and cock mechanisms, with a sturdy 'string' made of some finely, and tightly, spun rope of smooth ply. Pulled so tight by the wings, the rope was a lot like a metal rod all by itself... only flexible. So, thrilled to finally have his prototype ready to test, C'oar had gone and enlisted the aid of some leather workers to build a harness to mount it to the middle of Frosstyth's back, square between the wings. This was a tricky placement to try and strap something, due to the wings running the full length of the body. But as the tanners figured that part out, C'oar build the mount that would be between the weapon and the dragon. A massive splay-footed thing that would cradle the dragon's back, rather than cut into it, with a pivot on top that allowed for aiming side to side as well as up and down. Of course, shooting would be limited to when the dragon's wings were out of the way, but that was just a matter of timing.
A week later, the harness and mount were ready, and C'oar strapped the thing - with some help from some other fellows - to his not-quite-comfortable-with-this-idea dragon. Once it was mounted and in place, C'oar had Frosstyth shake as hard as he could. The munition didn't even budge or flop in the slightest, hugging the brown's back and following through every jerking motion that Frosstyth could throw at it. The mount and harness was perfect. Of this, C'oar was quite proud. Now, it was time to test the thing itself. The first test was going to be done on the ground, as the last thing C'oar wanted was to have a learning curve that involved his dragon's wings, too.
Gathering up a bolt for the thing that was basically nothing more than a sharpened rod of wood, C'oar climbed up onto his dragon's shoulders. It took him several moments to figure out the best way to actually cock the thing, rather than the in theory one he'd made it for. It only took him an hour to get it done the very first time. That time, of course, would be much shorter the next time, now that he knew how to do it. Something that big was a lot harder to crank back than a typical crossbow, and he had some ideas on how to improve that spot already.
He laid the bolt in place, and aimed the thing at a handy tree that was not too far away. It was big enough that it shouldn't be too hard to hit. And it was in a direction that if he did miss, no one would be down range, no matter how far away. Then he pulled the trigger.
Or, rather, tried to. It took some serious doing, to get that thing to pull, and release the string, almost all of his not-inconsiderable strength. That, definitely needed work. But he had very little time to consider that problem once it finally launched. Because he very quickly found a new one. The bolt flew, alright, and incredibly fast with a lot of power. It missed the tree, but hit the next one back, embedding itself deeply into the tree's trunk. The bolt shivered itself to pieces upon impact, too. Most of that went unnoticed, though, as the torque the bow exerted did more than launch the bolt. It broke the rope, and flung poor Frosstyth back so hard he rolled twice before he could stop himself. Just as soon as that began to happen, C'oar leapt free to avoid getting absolutely squashed.
That didn't save the bow, though. When Frosstyth rolled back upright and climbed back to his feet - bellowing, roaring, and snorting, complaining of all his new aches and sore ribs - the bow followed him alright. The harness was still intact, but that was about it. The mount was twisted sideways and crunched over, the bow itself a mangled wreck. An absolute mess.
At first C'oar was disappointed that all that hard work was wasted, but then he was quite genuinely impressed at the power the thing put out. That bolt, if it could be made to fly true, would go a very long ways! He stripped the wrecked contraption off of his dragon, allowing it to clatter into a heap on the ground. For a time he just sat on a log and stared at it dejectedly, before getting up the gumption to tear the weapon off of the mount and start working on straightening and repairing it. The mount he just put into the metal heap to be reshaped into something else. Clearly, this thing was not going to be dragon-mounted, whatever happened. Not only had that not worked on a landed dragon, it would have been utter chaos on a flying one. Not to mention Frosstyth's swearing off having anything else to do with anything C'oar invented. Simmering and soaking in the river, Frosstyth made like to completely ignore his rider, even though he was actually quite concerned and kept a very close eye on anything that C'oar did.
The weapon was reborn from its twisted body, rebuilt, and with improvements. This time it had a metal body that was considerably stronger. He didn't know if the wooden one had busted from Frosstyth's landing on it or the bow going off, but he wasn't taking any chances. It had an improved crank, and a vastly improved trigger mechanism, more powerfully built inside the stronger, but smaller body. It was mounted again, on a new base. But this base was mounted on a massively sturdy, log-moving two wheeled cart that he'd talked out of a holder. The shaft that was meant for two draftbeasts was removed, and replaced with a massive set of shafts. Shafts that any wher or small dragon could fit in. Weyrling, flightless adults, anything that was willing. Instead of being dragon-carried, now it was to be draconic-towed. Mobile, still, but not as much so. The rope was replaced with a thicker rope, maybe it wouldn't snap this time.
A new bolt was made, this time with a bit of fletching on the back end to make it steadier in flight... hopefully more accurate, too. C'oar managed to talk Frosstyth into holding the shafts down on the ground for the next test firing, though the dragon carefully tucked his head between his front legs to shelter it from any explosions, squinting his big eyes shut and bracing for the world to end. The bow cranked a lot easier and faster this time, and felt far more sturdy while it happened, too. The new bolt was placed in the track, and C'oar carefully gave the trigger a try. It was still a firm pull, but nothing like it had been before. It was a good thing it was a full-fist trigger, and not small for just a few fingers, like the little versions were. Once it was released, the bow snapped forward, launching the bolt. It bolt flew more or less true, before shattering itself on a downed log downrange. Unfortunately, C'oar never saw that happen either, as he was too busy yelling and leaping off the weapon, arms over his head. The rope had snapped again, and had whacked him hard, leaving a huge red welt across his shoulder and down one arm. That bore a bit of sulking about. A little numbweed fixed most of the problem though, as the rope burn would only take time to heal on its own. The whole time all Frosstyth could do was laugh mercilessly at him for it, however, earning him a kick in the shin from a very frustrated C'oar. Which only made the brown laugh harder.
It took a few days of thinking before C'oar even tackled the thing again, when his duties allowed. An even bigger rope was applied, and this time the bolt was fired from a distance – he used another rope to pull the trigger. Plainly, that 'string' was a dangerous thing to be near when it failed. The rope broke – again – and sent the bolt askew to embed itself in the dirt some ten feet away, almost completely hidden in the soil. Out of ideas, as that had been the biggest rope he could get his hands on, C'oar sat there on the ground and tried to think, chin on a fist. Bits of rope surrounded him, discarded by the machine he was trying to make. Clearly, rope was not going to cut it. Clearly, it had to be something stronger. Something … stronger. Like, metal? No, metal wouldn't work. Metal was not flexible like that. Metal would be a rod, would bend, sure, but it wouldn't unbend without breaking. The wings were undoubtedly strong enough to yank the rod straight again, but it wouldn't be any good for the rod. Wire was flexible, but not strong enough at all. Not nearly so. So, blowing a raspberry past his lips, C'oar picked up a busted and frayed end of a rope and started picking it apart idly, dropping bits of fuzz onto the toes of his boots. It wasn't until he ran his thumb over the rope, causing the individually spun yarns within it to separate that an idea appeared in his head.
Rope. Yarn. Yarn was weak. Wire … was weak … what would happen if wire was spun into a rope? A metal rope? Naw, that was stupid. But … since he didn't have any other ideas, he got up and started trying to figure out how spinning was done. It took him forever, and got him lots of really weird looks from a lot of people. When he was asked whyfor, he answered obliquely that he wanted to know how to make rope. He neglected to say what kind of rope, as he really didn't want to get scoffed at for the hare-brained idea. He would figure it out on his own, and no one had to be the wiser for it. Once he had the information he sought … in sufficient detail as he assumed he would need, he went back to the forge and went back to work. The forge itself was not really needed, though, but there was where all the tools he was familiar with were. It took him a long time, a lot of stubbed digits, a bit of frustrated swearing, but after awhile he turned out a nice piece of cable. This warranted some toying with, of course, and he spent an inordinate amount of time playing with its flexibility. Amazed with the creation, and wondering why it hadn't been thought of many many turns sooner, C'oar simply marveled at it. A metal rope! Who would have thought? It wasn't quite as flexy as a real, fiber rope, but it was flexy enough for what he wanted to do!
Proud of this creation, he showed it off to Frosstyth, who really had no idea what he was looking at. Ok, so? Disappointed in his dragon, C'oar went about trying to figure out how to apply it to the bow. Which was no small feat. He ended up ruining quite a bit of repeatedly-cut ends trying to figure out how to attach it. Obviously, the metal rope was not capable of being tied into useful knots. Which proved a very interesting problem, indeed. How did one use a metal rope, if you couldn't put knots in it? Too intrigued to be frustrated anymore, C'oar simply stood there and stared at it for a long, long time. Finally, he came up with an idea: use it like a hook and eye. Put ends on the rope. Since it was metal, he could easily make ends on it out of more metal! After making measurements on how long it would need to be, C'oar headed back to the forge, cut the metal rope to appropriate length (a trick he had had some trouble learning at first … cutting stranded metal …), and then started applying metal ends to it. It was a tad … well … more than a tad … harder than he'd initially thought it would be. But after several days of struggling with the stubborn thing, he managed to make ends on the rope, ends that would stay. The first few tries had simply popped back off again.
Carrying his metal rope back to the bow, C'oar had the awfullest time trying to figure out how to get it in place, as it didn't react the same way as regular rope, needing new tricks. But persistence (or was it stubbornness?) won out, and he got it mounted. Standing back, C'oar couldn't help but be impressed. If nothing else, the thing was entirely fireproof. No wood, no burnable rope … it would take a forge to ruin this thing. Or a Frosstyth… landing on it …
Anyway, it was time to test fire again. There couldn't possibly be anything else wrong with the machine… this had to work. Cocked and loaded, C'oar stood well away from it anyway to fire the thing, with Frosstyth still holding the shafts down. It fired, without a glitch. The metal rope held up and everything. Only, now there was a new problem.
Instead of launching the bolt, it had completely shattered it, sending a cloud of splinters in all directions right there on top of the machine. When the rope didn't give, the bolt did. Which left C'oar standing there dumbfounded until he realized what was happening. Which meant a new round of making bolts. He went back and made a new bolt – this one a tad heavier, and with a metal butt-cap to protect it from the rope. When launched, this bolt actually flew. Sortof. More like it was tossed overhand for a dog to fetch, as it spun wildly out of control, clattering in the canopy branches before tumbling back to the ground. The butt cap threw the weight off badly enough that it wasn't going to go anywhere at all.
A bit put off by that, C'oar left it alone and slept on it, trying to figure out what to do now. The idea came the next morning – most arrows had a metal head, not a wooden point. Of course, with a bow this powerful, a metal head really wasn't technically necessary. But back to work he went, in his next bit of spare time. By now he had learned to only make one bolt at a time, as clearly the design was in flux. A metal head was added to the bolt, to balance it back out again. This time, it flew, but it nosedived in an excruciating hurry into the dirt. After a bit more weight was added to the back, as the head itself couldn't be made lighter and still be durable, he also added a bit larger bit of fletching to make up for the heavier weight.
The bolt flew true, all the way to its target, earning an thrilled whoop out of C'oar. The only problem was that the bolt did not survive the treatment … it still shattered upon impact. Of course, he was shooting trees and not dragons with it, but that still gave him a new idea. He took the bits back to the forge, and started work anew. This time he made a larger head, a heavier buttcap, slightly larger fletching, on a lighter shaft. Which he scored deeply all the way around the wood, a scant two inches behind where the metal of the head stopped.
Uncertain whether or not this was going to work at all, C'oar applied it to the bow (still firing it from a safe distance). It flew, straight and true, as had its predecessor. But this time, when it impacted the target, it imbedded the head into the tree, and snapped off cleanly at the scored area, the now butt-heavy bolt tumbling more or less intact back to the ground.
C'oar inspected this for a bit, and realized that that little tiny bit of scoring, the heavy head, and the weighted buttcap all led to one thing. If he shot a dragon with this thing, the head would become imbedded very deep, before the weight of the buttcap and the energy of the launch simply broke the shaft at the score. Meaning the shaft would fall back to the earth, leaving the head deep inside. Unless the other Weyrs figured out there was a head in there, and not just a stab wound by a long piece of wood, it would spell doom for the dragon. Even if vital organs were missed.
It was a horrible thing to think, an even horribler thing to realize he'd made. But … he wouldn't have started down this road without fair provocation. Now … now he needed to decide what to do with the thing. Obviously, it was a ground-based weapon that needed to be anchored before it was fired. Obviously, if aimed with any kind of accuracy, it would be a devastating contraption that might well turn the tide away from Selenitas. But … could he live with the weight of all the lives it would cost? All on his hands? Because he'd designed the sharding thing?
It was an intense moral question that C'oar didn't know how to answer at all. Picking up the remaining shaft – which could technically be reused even after being fired… all it needed was a new head, he went about collecting the heads that were imbedded in the trees. It was some doing, but nothing bore wasting. Returning all that material to the forge, he went ahead and made a compliment of bolts for the bow, as he mulled over whether or not to show it to anyone, much less the Weyrleader. Who would either take it or destroy it.
On the flip side was a whole other story … how many lives would be lost over the turns if he didn't put it to use? The whole reason why he'd made it? Tied up in such knots, with no answers, C'oar decided that he really needed the input of someone older, and wiser in the ways of the world. Yes, he was a dragonrider … but he'd only been so for a scant couple turns. All he knew was what he'd seen dropped in his lap. Before that he'd just been a smith.
So it was with a weighted heart that C'oar took the thing – with his dragon's help – to the Weyrleader.
A week later, the harness and mount were ready, and C'oar strapped the thing - with some help from some other fellows - to his not-quite-comfortable-with-this-idea dragon. Once it was mounted and in place, C'oar had Frosstyth shake as hard as he could. The munition didn't even budge or flop in the slightest, hugging the brown's back and following through every jerking motion that Frosstyth could throw at it. The mount and harness was perfect. Of this, C'oar was quite proud. Now, it was time to test the thing itself. The first test was going to be done on the ground, as the last thing C'oar wanted was to have a learning curve that involved his dragon's wings, too.
Gathering up a bolt for the thing that was basically nothing more than a sharpened rod of wood, C'oar climbed up onto his dragon's shoulders. It took him several moments to figure out the best way to actually cock the thing, rather than the in theory one he'd made it for. It only took him an hour to get it done the very first time. That time, of course, would be much shorter the next time, now that he knew how to do it. Something that big was a lot harder to crank back than a typical crossbow, and he had some ideas on how to improve that spot already.
He laid the bolt in place, and aimed the thing at a handy tree that was not too far away. It was big enough that it shouldn't be too hard to hit. And it was in a direction that if he did miss, no one would be down range, no matter how far away. Then he pulled the trigger.
Or, rather, tried to. It took some serious doing, to get that thing to pull, and release the string, almost all of his not-inconsiderable strength. That, definitely needed work. But he had very little time to consider that problem once it finally launched. Because he very quickly found a new one. The bolt flew, alright, and incredibly fast with a lot of power. It missed the tree, but hit the next one back, embedding itself deeply into the tree's trunk. The bolt shivered itself to pieces upon impact, too. Most of that went unnoticed, though, as the torque the bow exerted did more than launch the bolt. It broke the rope, and flung poor Frosstyth back so hard he rolled twice before he could stop himself. Just as soon as that began to happen, C'oar leapt free to avoid getting absolutely squashed.
That didn't save the bow, though. When Frosstyth rolled back upright and climbed back to his feet - bellowing, roaring, and snorting, complaining of all his new aches and sore ribs - the bow followed him alright. The harness was still intact, but that was about it. The mount was twisted sideways and crunched over, the bow itself a mangled wreck. An absolute mess.
At first C'oar was disappointed that all that hard work was wasted, but then he was quite genuinely impressed at the power the thing put out. That bolt, if it could be made to fly true, would go a very long ways! He stripped the wrecked contraption off of his dragon, allowing it to clatter into a heap on the ground. For a time he just sat on a log and stared at it dejectedly, before getting up the gumption to tear the weapon off of the mount and start working on straightening and repairing it. The mount he just put into the metal heap to be reshaped into something else. Clearly, this thing was not going to be dragon-mounted, whatever happened. Not only had that not worked on a landed dragon, it would have been utter chaos on a flying one. Not to mention Frosstyth's swearing off having anything else to do with anything C'oar invented. Simmering and soaking in the river, Frosstyth made like to completely ignore his rider, even though he was actually quite concerned and kept a very close eye on anything that C'oar did.
The weapon was reborn from its twisted body, rebuilt, and with improvements. This time it had a metal body that was considerably stronger. He didn't know if the wooden one had busted from Frosstyth's landing on it or the bow going off, but he wasn't taking any chances. It had an improved crank, and a vastly improved trigger mechanism, more powerfully built inside the stronger, but smaller body. It was mounted again, on a new base. But this base was mounted on a massively sturdy, log-moving two wheeled cart that he'd talked out of a holder. The shaft that was meant for two draftbeasts was removed, and replaced with a massive set of shafts. Shafts that any wher or small dragon could fit in. Weyrling, flightless adults, anything that was willing. Instead of being dragon-carried, now it was to be draconic-towed. Mobile, still, but not as much so. The rope was replaced with a thicker rope, maybe it wouldn't snap this time.
A new bolt was made, this time with a bit of fletching on the back end to make it steadier in flight... hopefully more accurate, too. C'oar managed to talk Frosstyth into holding the shafts down on the ground for the next test firing, though the dragon carefully tucked his head between his front legs to shelter it from any explosions, squinting his big eyes shut and bracing for the world to end. The bow cranked a lot easier and faster this time, and felt far more sturdy while it happened, too. The new bolt was placed in the track, and C'oar carefully gave the trigger a try. It was still a firm pull, but nothing like it had been before. It was a good thing it was a full-fist trigger, and not small for just a few fingers, like the little versions were. Once it was released, the bow snapped forward, launching the bolt. It bolt flew more or less true, before shattering itself on a downed log downrange. Unfortunately, C'oar never saw that happen either, as he was too busy yelling and leaping off the weapon, arms over his head. The rope had snapped again, and had whacked him hard, leaving a huge red welt across his shoulder and down one arm. That bore a bit of sulking about. A little numbweed fixed most of the problem though, as the rope burn would only take time to heal on its own. The whole time all Frosstyth could do was laugh mercilessly at him for it, however, earning him a kick in the shin from a very frustrated C'oar. Which only made the brown laugh harder.
It took a few days of thinking before C'oar even tackled the thing again, when his duties allowed. An even bigger rope was applied, and this time the bolt was fired from a distance – he used another rope to pull the trigger. Plainly, that 'string' was a dangerous thing to be near when it failed. The rope broke – again – and sent the bolt askew to embed itself in the dirt some ten feet away, almost completely hidden in the soil. Out of ideas, as that had been the biggest rope he could get his hands on, C'oar sat there on the ground and tried to think, chin on a fist. Bits of rope surrounded him, discarded by the machine he was trying to make. Clearly, rope was not going to cut it. Clearly, it had to be something stronger. Something … stronger. Like, metal? No, metal wouldn't work. Metal was not flexible like that. Metal would be a rod, would bend, sure, but it wouldn't unbend without breaking. The wings were undoubtedly strong enough to yank the rod straight again, but it wouldn't be any good for the rod. Wire was flexible, but not strong enough at all. Not nearly so. So, blowing a raspberry past his lips, C'oar picked up a busted and frayed end of a rope and started picking it apart idly, dropping bits of fuzz onto the toes of his boots. It wasn't until he ran his thumb over the rope, causing the individually spun yarns within it to separate that an idea appeared in his head.
Rope. Yarn. Yarn was weak. Wire … was weak … what would happen if wire was spun into a rope? A metal rope? Naw, that was stupid. But … since he didn't have any other ideas, he got up and started trying to figure out how spinning was done. It took him forever, and got him lots of really weird looks from a lot of people. When he was asked whyfor, he answered obliquely that he wanted to know how to make rope. He neglected to say what kind of rope, as he really didn't want to get scoffed at for the hare-brained idea. He would figure it out on his own, and no one had to be the wiser for it. Once he had the information he sought … in sufficient detail as he assumed he would need, he went back to the forge and went back to work. The forge itself was not really needed, though, but there was where all the tools he was familiar with were. It took him a long time, a lot of stubbed digits, a bit of frustrated swearing, but after awhile he turned out a nice piece of cable. This warranted some toying with, of course, and he spent an inordinate amount of time playing with its flexibility. Amazed with the creation, and wondering why it hadn't been thought of many many turns sooner, C'oar simply marveled at it. A metal rope! Who would have thought? It wasn't quite as flexy as a real, fiber rope, but it was flexy enough for what he wanted to do!
Proud of this creation, he showed it off to Frosstyth, who really had no idea what he was looking at. Ok, so? Disappointed in his dragon, C'oar went about trying to figure out how to apply it to the bow. Which was no small feat. He ended up ruining quite a bit of repeatedly-cut ends trying to figure out how to attach it. Obviously, the metal rope was not capable of being tied into useful knots. Which proved a very interesting problem, indeed. How did one use a metal rope, if you couldn't put knots in it? Too intrigued to be frustrated anymore, C'oar simply stood there and stared at it for a long, long time. Finally, he came up with an idea: use it like a hook and eye. Put ends on the rope. Since it was metal, he could easily make ends on it out of more metal! After making measurements on how long it would need to be, C'oar headed back to the forge, cut the metal rope to appropriate length (a trick he had had some trouble learning at first … cutting stranded metal …), and then started applying metal ends to it. It was a tad … well … more than a tad … harder than he'd initially thought it would be. But after several days of struggling with the stubborn thing, he managed to make ends on the rope, ends that would stay. The first few tries had simply popped back off again.
Carrying his metal rope back to the bow, C'oar had the awfullest time trying to figure out how to get it in place, as it didn't react the same way as regular rope, needing new tricks. But persistence (or was it stubbornness?) won out, and he got it mounted. Standing back, C'oar couldn't help but be impressed. If nothing else, the thing was entirely fireproof. No wood, no burnable rope … it would take a forge to ruin this thing. Or a Frosstyth… landing on it …
Anyway, it was time to test fire again. There couldn't possibly be anything else wrong with the machine… this had to work. Cocked and loaded, C'oar stood well away from it anyway to fire the thing, with Frosstyth still holding the shafts down. It fired, without a glitch. The metal rope held up and everything. Only, now there was a new problem.
Instead of launching the bolt, it had completely shattered it, sending a cloud of splinters in all directions right there on top of the machine. When the rope didn't give, the bolt did. Which left C'oar standing there dumbfounded until he realized what was happening. Which meant a new round of making bolts. He went back and made a new bolt – this one a tad heavier, and with a metal butt-cap to protect it from the rope. When launched, this bolt actually flew. Sortof. More like it was tossed overhand for a dog to fetch, as it spun wildly out of control, clattering in the canopy branches before tumbling back to the ground. The butt cap threw the weight off badly enough that it wasn't going to go anywhere at all.
A bit put off by that, C'oar left it alone and slept on it, trying to figure out what to do now. The idea came the next morning – most arrows had a metal head, not a wooden point. Of course, with a bow this powerful, a metal head really wasn't technically necessary. But back to work he went, in his next bit of spare time. By now he had learned to only make one bolt at a time, as clearly the design was in flux. A metal head was added to the bolt, to balance it back out again. This time, it flew, but it nosedived in an excruciating hurry into the dirt. After a bit more weight was added to the back, as the head itself couldn't be made lighter and still be durable, he also added a bit larger bit of fletching to make up for the heavier weight.
The bolt flew true, all the way to its target, earning an thrilled whoop out of C'oar. The only problem was that the bolt did not survive the treatment … it still shattered upon impact. Of course, he was shooting trees and not dragons with it, but that still gave him a new idea. He took the bits back to the forge, and started work anew. This time he made a larger head, a heavier buttcap, slightly larger fletching, on a lighter shaft. Which he scored deeply all the way around the wood, a scant two inches behind where the metal of the head stopped.
Uncertain whether or not this was going to work at all, C'oar applied it to the bow (still firing it from a safe distance). It flew, straight and true, as had its predecessor. But this time, when it impacted the target, it imbedded the head into the tree, and snapped off cleanly at the scored area, the now butt-heavy bolt tumbling more or less intact back to the ground.
C'oar inspected this for a bit, and realized that that little tiny bit of scoring, the heavy head, and the weighted buttcap all led to one thing. If he shot a dragon with this thing, the head would become imbedded very deep, before the weight of the buttcap and the energy of the launch simply broke the shaft at the score. Meaning the shaft would fall back to the earth, leaving the head deep inside. Unless the other Weyrs figured out there was a head in there, and not just a stab wound by a long piece of wood, it would spell doom for the dragon. Even if vital organs were missed.
It was a horrible thing to think, an even horribler thing to realize he'd made. But … he wouldn't have started down this road without fair provocation. Now … now he needed to decide what to do with the thing. Obviously, it was a ground-based weapon that needed to be anchored before it was fired. Obviously, if aimed with any kind of accuracy, it would be a devastating contraption that might well turn the tide away from Selenitas. But … could he live with the weight of all the lives it would cost? All on his hands? Because he'd designed the sharding thing?
It was an intense moral question that C'oar didn't know how to answer at all. Picking up the remaining shaft – which could technically be reused even after being fired… all it needed was a new head, he went about collecting the heads that were imbedded in the trees. It was some doing, but nothing bore wasting. Returning all that material to the forge, he went ahead and made a compliment of bolts for the bow, as he mulled over whether or not to show it to anyone, much less the Weyrleader. Who would either take it or destroy it.
On the flip side was a whole other story … how many lives would be lost over the turns if he didn't put it to use? The whole reason why he'd made it? Tied up in such knots, with no answers, C'oar decided that he really needed the input of someone older, and wiser in the ways of the world. Yes, he was a dragonrider … but he'd only been so for a scant couple turns. All he knew was what he'd seen dropped in his lap. Before that he'd just been a smith.
So it was with a weighted heart that C'oar took the thing – with his dragon's help – to the Weyrleader.