Chapter 11 (Part II): Fish in a Barrel

When I was young, I wanted to be a warrior more than anything. A warrior bravely and honorably confronts their enemy on even terms. They test their mettle – and their metal – against their opponent, with the stronger and more skilled surviving unvanquished. But I also learned to survive in the wild, to live on the land. I learned that, unlike a warrior, a predator does not confront its opponent head on. It stalks its prey, and when the right moment comes, runs it down and overcomes it through surprise and superior force. Different still is the hunter. The hunter is lazy; a hunter lies in wait for his prey to come to him, and dispatches his target without any surprise, without any chase, and without any fight. He strikes and kills without his target ever being aware that its fate was sealed. With time I have learned that whether you become a strategist, a tactician, or a lone operative, you should always strive to be a hunter first, and a warrior last. 

-        Kairumina Doro Asterigennithika, Commander of Arms, speaking to the new faculty of Caelia’s first officer candidacy school.

Ochsner looked out over the valley that formed eastern Caelia. Defiance sat just at the foot of the squat mountain the dwarven citadel was built inside, and far off in the distance, on the southern border of the kingdom, Ochsner imagined her parents and siblings, going about their lives in the dwarven metropolis under Emerald Mountain. She wondered why she had left, now, thinking perhaps it would have made more sense for everyone else to come join them underground.

Sure, the city of Undver had all the problems you associate with any densely populated underground mega city. There were robberies, thefts, drug problems, drinking problems; Ochsner had thought that anything you could put in front of the word “problems” they had. She had since learned about a whole range of “problems” she would never have imagined growing up in Undver. She had discovered were-dog problems, homicidal autonomous-security system problems, man-eating bug problems – well, okay, Undver had those too, but these were a different class of bugs – but most of all, the world above ground had dragon problems.

Despite their previously negative encounter, she’d been thrilled to find out that Jon and Regina survived their ordeal, and getting to relay that good news to Azraea had been a bright spot in her week, but underneath that there was still the reality that while the dragon had flushed them from their homes, it was men who’d been waiting to scoop them up and haul them away to be sex slaves for wealthy land barons, food for their freaky half-bat brides, or research subjects for this mysterious hemomancer. She could add bat-lady problems, institutional rape problems, and faceless villain problems to her list now too. Maybe the dragon provided the protection that brought the kingdom’s worst out of the woodwork and put them at the top of the social order, but it was worrying to know that all of that was out there, teeming under the surface.

But now she stood on the verge of at least solving their dragon problem. When she went through her mental checklist, she felt close to solving that problem, but when she considered their final obstacles, it seemed impossibly far away. To say the dichotomy was frustrating would be an understatement.

Having spent every free moment studying the archives, she’d found about three things she was sure packed enough power to be useful against a dragon. The most powerful weapon by far was the device Meingen had been working on, but Vinny had destroyed it, probably for the best. Another option had been a large, elaborate, and intricate machine that looked like a dragon, and was apparently, supposedly, designed to fight and kill dragons. Even if she’d had the parts to build it, though, the thing seemed wildly impractical, perhaps even implausible, and its lengthy description in the archive, which included the words, “Ultimate”, “Awesome”, “Super-Awesome”, “Anti-Dragon”, and “Mecha-Dragon” didn’t inspire confidence in the designer’s maturity level or grasp on reality.

That left the giant ballpipe, or any of the dozens of similar weapons in the archive which were all basically variations on the same thing. It wasn’t a death-metal based castle-busting super explosive, but it was without a doubt the single most powerful weapon in the kingdom. Unfortunately it was slow, not especially accurate, and they had precious little ammunition crafted for it. While the weapon did fire faster than one might have expected, it was still so slow that they would probably only have one shot at the dragon. A miss, or a misfire, and the dragon would be upon them before they could reload. To worsen matters, they were hesitant to practice with the weapon too much, lest someone hear or see the weapon firing and take word of it back to the dragon.

Ochsner had done some calculations after the Gnoman scout had located their test shot, but her math was only useful to a point. Ochsner could adjust the performance of the weapon by manipulating the weight of the rounds and the amount of powder in them, and she thought she could account for the effect of wind on the trajectory of the rounds. Unfortunately, she couldn't perform those calculations quickly - in the time it took her to figure out how to adjust the weapon, the wind whistling through the craggy peaks would have shifted. Furthermore, Ochsner thought their handmade rounds seemed to shake slightly coming out of the weapon. They didn’t bend and warp like an arrow or spear flying through the air, but they did seem to wobble, which made them fairly inaccurate, no matter how carefully one aimed. And of course, none of that considered the inherent challenge of hitting a moving target.

Right now, Kaira sat in the weapon’s seat, with her hands on the two cranks that manually controlled the weapon’s aim. Testing the controls, she’d quickly found that the weapon could not be aimed quickly. Minor adjustments were possibly, but the ballpipe would have trouble tracking a moving target that was fast or close. A dragon, unfortunately, would likely be both. It was fundamentally the same challenge she’d had fighting that bat-like woman at the Kerwyns’ estate in Gerault.

Kaira explained the problem to Ochsner and Thrakaduhl, “The shells travel a lot faster than any arrow, so that decreases the amount you need to lead a target – and that’s great – but because the rounds ‘wobble’ like you said, the further away the target is, the less accurate the weapon will be. No matter how finely I aim, the rounds’ trajectory will have a certain degree of random error and I will probably miss. Now, if we were aiming at massive columns of infantry on the ground, I’m sure the shells exploding on impact would make the error a non-issue. Bullseyeing a dragon in the air, though, will be a different matter.”

“Well, besides the impact charges and the phosphorous flares we were using for target practice, I have a shell that will detonate on a fuse,” Ochsner said, “We can set it to explode in the air so that you won’t have to hit her dead on.”

“I assume, though, that for that to work we’d have to fire when the target reaches a specific distance.”

“Yeah,” Ochsner frowned, “Otherwise the charge will blow too soon or too late.”

“And, like I said, it’ll need to be close,” Kaira said, “Really close. Even if we were willing to detonate shells over the town, that would still be too far. And the closer the target is, the stiller it needs to be, because this thing will not be able to track a moving target at close range. The thing does reload surprisingly fast for its size – I could tell that when we came up the ammunition belt, and your Gnoman crew is exemplary, especially considering the limited amount of time they’ve had to drill. But when it comes down to it, a mass of metal this size cannot be turned fast enough to track a moving airborne target.”

“Hm,” Thrakaduhl pondered, “We have a weapon with power to spare, but it’s not got the accuracy to hit our dragon while it’s on the wing.”

“Basically, yes,” Kaira said, “And from what Azraea’s reported, with the papers circulating and the king dead, the dragon could be headed our way anytime, ready and eager to burn your town to cinders.” Kaira sighed, “If we do use the shell that detonates in the air, will that be enough to kill her?” Kaira asked, “Without a direct hit?”

“The closer you get the more damage it will do,” Ochsner said, “But beyond that I can’t say; I don’t know how resilient dragons are. Still, I’m almost certain a close shot would ruin at least one of those ugly bat wings she has, and I’m just as certain she needs two to stay in the air.”

“You don’t reckon the fall would finish her off?” Thrakaduhl asked.

“That’s the sort of luck I don’t like to plan around,” Kaira sighed, “If that’s the way it’s going to go, we need to plan a follow up while we’ve got her down. Some sort of coup de gras. But that’s not easy. Supposedly, two hundred some years ago, Caelus IV and his knights actually cornered her inside Kingstown’s castle, where she couldn’t fly, and even they still weren’t able to kill her. And what do we have they didn’t? I’m flat out of ideas,” Kaira said, “Maybe I’m just tired, but I don’t see anything.”

 “I think I actually have a way to manage your finishing blow if you can ground her,” Ochsner said, “but I’ll need to go back to work on the Gnoman communication spells and see if there’s a way to amplify the noise they transmit. Are we officially done with the ballpipe?”

“Yes,” Kaira said, “Aside from loading your anti-air round, I don’t think any more can be done with this weapon… And given the upper limit of its accuracy, I’m sure you could fire it just as well as me.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase, shooting fish in a barrel?” Thrakaduhl suddenly asked.

Kaira laughed wearily, “No, why?”

“My mama taught me a fair bit about archery,” Thrakaduhl said, “Now, lots of people these days, they just learn to shoot at targets for sport but she wanted to teach me the real thing, and ultimately that means being able to hit a moving target. And a bird on the wing is just about the most challenging thing you can manage.”

“Yeah,” Kaira said, “but really there’s no amount of skill that’s going to do that for this weapon. It’s not a bow.”

Thrakaduhl held up a hand to ask her to bear with him, “When you teach a child to shoot, you can’t jump from cans on a fence to birds in the sky. You need to find things they can practice with in between; things that are slower or things that can’t move as freely.”

“Fish in a barrel?” Ochsner asked.

“Fish in a barrel,” Thrakaduhl nodded, “When my mama wanted me to learn how to shoot fast, she filled a barrel with water and fish from the river, and then she’d have me stand over the barrel with my bow, rile them up, and then have me shoot. It’s a rather fond memory for me actually. She used to cook them right on the arrow, when were done."

“Okay, dear, that’s a sweet and touching story, and I’m glad you shared it with me,” Kaira said, “But you’re going to have to bring it home for me. How does this apply to our dragon?”

“Well, the fish moved quickly, darting back and forth, but because of the confined space, they couldn’t move at full speed. More importantly, I didn’t have to adjust my aim much to track them as they swam back and forth in the barrel,” Thrakaduhl said, “Hitting a fish in a barrel is less about moving your bow, and more about learning to shoot at the right moment.” 

“Okay,” Kaira nodded, “We can’t aim the gun much, but like Ochsner said, we can fire it quick when the time is right. But where are we going to find a barrel big enough for a dragon?”

“And,” Ochsner added, “How are we going to get it to climb in?”

“I do believe I have a solution to both of those problems,” Thrakaduhl smiled as he looked at the small valley behind them, “But I’ll need one of Ochsner’s extra shells, and perhaps two or three of the Mudfangs that live down in the valley.”