Chapter 87: The Archer Problem
If Percvale went to war, and he was increasingly certain it would, at some point, whether Valdenmoor pushed it or someone else did, then improvised ranged capacity wasn’t going to be enough.
You needed archers. Actual ones, trained ones, people who could hit a moving target at distance under pressure and do it consistently.
He thought about the two thousand people in Percvale.
Somewhere in two thousand people there were individuals who could shoot. Maybe they had been doing it for years, hunting, just keeping the skill to themselves because nobody had ever given them a context for it to matter.
Or maybe that opportunity had presented itself but then, Percvale had been a death stricken place weeks ago when he first arrived, a place seemingly without any hope of things actually getting better.
So if it had needed archers before, Darion was sure many would have refused to sign up. Reasons being that they wouldn’t be paid, that was certain, the castle itself was starving then, it was obvious with the way knights were lean and how they had been eating horses and just slowly starving to death.
No one would want to work in a place like that.
Now, with him taking over and by what he had done in the past weeks since he was a Baron, if he was to announce that he needed archers, he was sure many with the skill would be more open sign up than before.
And they didn’t have to be exactly good, maybe they just had some natural ability that had never been developed because Percvale hadn’t been in a position to develop anything for a very long time.
So he made an announcement. Open to anyone in the barony. The Baron was recruiting archers. Come forward if you can shoot or think you can learn. No requirement beyond willingness and basic aptitude. He wasn’t looking for finished soldiers, he was looking for people with the raw material, the coordination and patience that archery needed, and he would build from there.
And Seren could train them.
This wouldn’t be her main role. The farmland was her main role and it was going to stay her main role, that arrangement existed for a reason and he wasn’t going to muddy it.
But she shot every day apparently, or wanted to. She needed something to do with the hours that weren’t spent singing to soil.
If the boredom was bad enough that she had come downstairs and asked for a bow, then a structured training role wasn’t adding burden to her situation. It was giving shape to time she was going to spend anyway.
She didn’t have to be a master teacher. She just had to be better than the people she was teaching, which she already was. Show them grip, stance and breathing. Let the people with real talent develop it from there.
The ones who turned out to be genuinely good would outgrow the basics eventually and he could figure out the next step when they got there.
He went through the possible objections.
She might say no. That was the obvious one. She hadn’t agreed to teach anyone, she had agreed to fix soil, and asking her to take on a second role that hadn’t been discussed was the kind of thing that needed to be handled carefully or it started sounding like the arrangement was quietly expanding into something she hadn’t signed up for.
He would make it clear it was optional. Genuinely optional, not the kind of optional that came with implied pressure. Not even the optional at the burning Gonnb where it was either she agreed or she burned with the village.
This would be none of that. Instead it was truly optional.
If she said no, the archery program would be over immediately.
But if she said yes, if she actually wanted something to do and this was a thing she could do, then Percvale would have the beginning of an archery program within the week.
He decided to ask.
Garren watched for a while longer, then said something about needing to deal with other things inside.
Darion nodded and he went. The two gate guards had been watching the session with open interest for the first twenty minutes and had gradually returned to watching the gate, which was their job.
Now it was just Darion standing in the courtyard and Seren in front of the target board, working through another arrow.
She hit the red mark.
Then the next one.
Then she lowered the bow and rolled her shoulder slightly, checking something in the joint.
Darion began: "You’re good."
Seren glanced at him. "Thanks."
He let a beat pass.
"Do you love to teach?"
She turned and looked at him properly. "Huh. You want to learn?"
"Not me." He nodded toward the gate, toward the town beyond it. "Percvale has zero archers. If we ever end up in a war, which I think we will at some point, that’s a serious problem." He paused. "You need something to do when you’re not at the farmland. You said so yourself."
She was listening.
"Here’s what I’m thinking," he said. "I make an announcement. Anyone in Percvale who can shoot, or thinks they can learn, comes forward. We’re not taking random people, we want people who already have some feel for it, hunters, anyone who’s touched a bow before. You take them through the basics. Stance, grip, breathing and consistency. The ones with real ability will show themselves quickly."
She looked at the bow in her hand, then at him.
"This isn’t adding to what you agreed to," Darion said. "The farmland work is still the same. This is just... if you’re going to be shooting every day anyway, you might as well do it with people around instead of alone in a courtyard." He shrugged slightly. "It doesn’t bind you here any longer than you’re already planning to stay. It’s just short term. While the soil work is ongoing."
Seren was quiet for a moment. She looked at the target board, at the cluster of arrows sitting in and around the red mark.
Then she looked back at him and shrugged.
"Sounds like a good plan," she said.