Herald of Steel

"Master's hand-crack has made our work hundreds of times easier," Faziz exaggeratedly praised and then even prostrated on his hand and knees as he loudly proclaimed, "And so for this invention of the century, please accept this bow of respect on behalf of all craftsman in this world. We are eternally grateful."

Faziz's loud proclamation drew many interested looks from his fellow artisans and many of them emulated, and though Alexander kept a flat, placid look throughout it all, internally he was lampooning.

'*Sigh*, being a pasha is not easy,' Alexander did not feel overjoyed at this show of reverence, instead asking himself how much of the respect was genuine and how much bootlicking, or maybe both.

The shop visits of the last two days had made Alexander find it increasingly hard to distinguish genuine praise from the fake.

Everywhere he went he would be showered with praise and adoration, and although he found it natural for everyone to want to curry favor with their lord, he still found the whole situation tiring.

In fact, he thought it might not be good even if the adoration was too much among the craftsman as he feared it could mean that all his designs would be seen as divine artifacts and any changes to it hence heresy.

This would certainly stimy invention and innovation.

But as the pasha, as a noble, he also could not tell them to skip such formalities either as it would make these people feel close to him.

Too close to him.

And that would be too close for comfort to him.

Why?

Because if the people start getting too close to him, what would be stopping them from thinking, 'Hey, he is the same as me. He has the same two eyes and nose, mouth and ears, and eats and breathes just like me. He even bleeds the same color blood. So what's stopping me from replacing him'.

This was why nobles would claim themselves to be blue-blooded and would come up with all those ridiculous punctilio and etiquettes.

All in an effort to make themselves appear as different from the common masses, to appear more civilized and thus better.

And if they are successful in this endeavor, if they can make the people think that those at the top are better, well then these peasants will never rebel.

Because they will believe that whatever the situation they are currently in is the best-case scenario for them under the present circumstances, and even if they were to rebel and somehow succeed, things would only get worse for them, as if the better people could not make things better, what chance did they have?

And to promote this thought, consciously or unconsciously, the nobles would act in a very refined way, talk in a sophisticated way and carry themselves in luxury and opulence, all to give the impression that since they have all these good things, the way they lead their lives is the correct way and everybody must follow them.

And circumstance forced Alexander too to do the same, leading to his current situation, where the carpenter remained prostrated towards him.

"It was nothing, please get up," Alexander lightly asked, not feeling too overwhelmed the inventions were not really his.

And after everyone got up and dusted the dirt off their knees, Alexander then lightly asked, "Did the crank work properly? Were you able to make the holes properly?"

"Oh, yes, it was no problem. As easy as cutting butter," Faziz reported enthusiastically with a nod.

But why did Alexander need to make holes?

Because the manufacturing of the wooden mechanism demanded it.

To make the slidable part of the mechanism, the plank had to be cut and the individual insides had to be chipped off to make the slots.

Then the two parts would have to be put together to make the three-dimensional structure able to house the arrows,

And this joining was done by using two methods.

First by gluing the two parts together using deer tallow.

And then by drilling holes through the two parts and pushing a wooden peg through it, thus locking them in place.

Multiple holes were made along the wooden structure to hold the two pieces together and Alexander found the structure to be very sturdy.

And then he asked the question he had been dreading all along, "How long did it take you to make this?"

"Ahem, three of us worked all day for the last three days to make the bow and the mechanism," Faziz meekly said, feeling ashamed of his work speed.

But in fairness, Faziz really did it at quite a good speed.

Maybe not in record speed, but as a skilled carpenter with decades of experience at bow making, this was about the speed Alexander would expect from the men.

Not to mention they were all novices at making this particular type of bow.

But all this did not stop Alexander from feeling like his heart had dropped.

Because although it was something he had expected, it did not mean he felt happy at such a slow speed.

For context, a regular bow would take around three days or around thirty hours for one bow maker to make from scratch.

This would include everything from cutting a suitable piece of wood from a log, making it into a plank, using a small handaxe to chip off the large bits of that plank, using a chisel to then slowly give the bow its iconic crescent shape and at last using a plain to smooth out the edges.

Then the sting would be attached to the bow and using a piece of special equipment it would be pulled back incremental, increasing the tension on the wood and slowly bending it, until the iconic curved shape would be achieved.

This would be done to see if both ends of the bow were evenly thick and whether the bow could take the stresses put on it.

And sometimes, if the ends were by chance made too thin, or if the wood was not of good enough quality, then it would simply snap, wasting a full day or even two days' work.

And worse, there was really no hard way to tell if a plank of wood was good bow material or not.

Even when using the same species of wood, from the same area, from similar-looking trees, the quality of wood would differ between individual trees.

And thus, even when a bow is just wood with a string attached to it, it could cost a peasant his week's pay to afford one, at forty (40) ropals.

And given that according to Faziz, three men worked for three days or ninety hours (90) in total to make the instant bow, it meant that Alexander's bow would cost at least one hundred and twenty (120) ropals.

And did was not account for the extra wood materials needed, from the rope to bind the mechanism to the bow, the glue to hold the two pieces together, the nail used to attach the trigger to the plank, the metal drill used to carve out the hole, and the wooden peg used to lock in the holes.

And then was the cost of skilled labor, as this specialized equipment could not be made by just anybody.

​ Taking all these into account, Alexnader estimated the darn thing to cost around one hundred and forty to fifty(140-150) ropals, around four times a regular bow.

And this number scared Alexander so much that he asked his bodyguard captain Hemicus about it, hoping that the man of few words would be able to point out some kind of flaw with Alexander's calculations.

"Hemicus, what do you think of the instant bow?" Alexander asked for a second opinion.

"Master, this is an amazing invention. With this super weapons I think with this we'll be able to defeat enemies multiple times our size no problem," Hemicus was quite voluminous in his answer, the joy and amazement in his voice unmistakable.

It had to be noted that Hemicus was a man of few words.

Throughout the day he would not on his own accord utter more than ten words and even a lot of those would be grunts and groans like 'Hmmm', 'Mmm', etc,

The joy that Hemicus was showing was also very uncharacteristic of him as he would have an almost eternally poker face on him, showing almost no emotion.

In fact, Alexander had chosen him for his bodyguard position because the man was like that, as Alexander determined that such a man would not have a loose tongue.

And up until now, he had lived up to Alexander's expectations, standing guard loyally by his side through everything, seeing and hearing many secrets that most were not privy to but never commenting much less tattling.

So for such a hard man to lose his emotions like that proved the impact that this instant bow had on the military man as he could barely imagine would this invention would change the battlefield.