Chapter 16: Archery Tutorial.

Achilles after wandering around his new house decided to pick a shield, spear, bow and arrows, as he thought those would be better to start with.

Achilles then went back to the training grounds, Agamemnon said to him to show his basic ability, he would do an overall avaliation.

-So since you are a hunter, I would bet that you are familiar with the long bow. First let me see how you draw it. Then I will ask you to shoot on different targets.

Achilles nodded then picked his bow. The long bow was about the size of a person, about 1,80 meters, you needed to have a strong arm to even draw it. But no matter, because in this region the long bow was widely utilised, many families had to hunt sometimes to be able to survive, so fathers would teach their sons how to use a bow from a young age and would practice almost every week.

Achilles picked the bow, put his hand on the string, with his index, middle and ring finger in one side and his thumb on the other, he takes a breath and quickly draws the bow, then keeps it drawn for half a minute then let it go.

Half a minute might not sound much, but imagine having to draw a thin string with one arm needing to use 80 kilos of force, that is little less the the avarage weight of a american man. I bet you wouldn't be able to do it, much less with a thin string. Imagine if, for exemple, having a bag of food from the supermarket, imagine that this is the strongest plastic bag to ever exist and can carry 80 kilos of food alone, now knowing very well that when you carry the plastic bag it's handles roll on each other and become thin, how would your fingers feel? Yeah, not great.

Agamemnon was impressed, although he expected that Achilles would be good with it, since he watched Achilles use the bow when he was accompaning in the hunts.

-Impressive, very good indeed. Now we will do something a bit different, you see that target over there? I want you to shoot as many arrows as possible in under 3 minutes, go.

Holding the arrow was one thing, but to be able to continually draw this heavy bow for 3 minutes and while maintaining enough formation to be able to be somewhat accurate no less. Achilles already had a sore arm from drawing the bow for a long time, yet he continued.

Achilles went to the target area, the target was over 300 meters, so far that you couldn't really see the target with precision. Achilles squinted his eyes, took a deep breath, relaxed his arms and picked the bow.

Achilles picked the first arrow out of the quilt and placed it in his bow, draw, shoot, picked another arrow, took a deep breath, draw, shoot, another arrow, draw, shoot. It kept up for 3 minutes based on the sandglass Agamemnon had.

-About seven per minute, not bad not great, a little under the avarage, you took to much time between arrows breathing and aiming. I am not looking for accuracy in this test but speed, not that I think you can do much better then that.

-Yes.. I am sorry, sir. I didn't thought much about the your words.

Achilles said so, with a frustraded but determined expression, sweat was running on his face, the spring wind cooling down his face.

-Ok, get the horse, next test.

-Horse?

-Yeah! What are you deaf? Get your horse, lad.

Achilles went to the small stable in the side of his house, there were two horses, one was a light brown horse, the other was a black with big white spots over his body, in a way that kinda resembles the stereotypical milk bottle cows. Achilles saddled the light brown horse, who he called Wooden, and went back to Agamemnon.

-A fine mare that is, you should thank Lord Constantine for his generosity.

-She is, isn't? I will make sure next time I may talk with M'lord I will show him my gratitude.

-Be sure you do. But anyway, this time you will make the horse run in a good speed and at a distance you will have to quickly be able to hit this.

-A stake? There is no way I can shoot a stake this thin from a distance, sir.

Achilles was perplexed, shooting a arrow in a moving horse was already difficult, the horse running can destroy your aim completely, now having to shoot at this thin stake at a distance multiple times, it would be easier to know who will be next person to get hit by a lighting.

-Don't complain, just do it, lad. This is only part of todays training, you won't be able to be great among men if you don't try.

Agamemnon meant that if Achilles don't do it, then it would be an out right insult to Constantine, as he would have then lied about his wish, and threw away his generosity. Of course that was somewhat implied, but it wasn't exactly what it was supposed to mean. it is more about showing how ungrateful he was being.

Achilles took a deep breath, got on the horse, picked his bow, Agamemnon had some servants put the stake on the ground of a open field.

Achilles kicked the horse on the belly with his heel to make the horse start running. He carefully made the horse run in circle around the stake until it did by itself. Achilles picked his bow, it was difficult to use it in the horse, it was to big. Achilles noticed his mistake, turned away and went back to his house.

When using a bow in a horse, you use a small bow, a recurve bow, is what it's called, that makes a powerful bow but smaller, it is about 60 centimeters in size, with variations of course. The recurve bow is actually more powerful then a long bow, but it's expensive, more difficult to make and can't stand bad weather and damage, so Achilles never had the opportunity to use it before. When he went hunting he used weaker and smaller bows but Achilles didn't bother to use it in the training grounds that is a open field that the long bow can be used freely, unlike the hunting forests.

Achilles was kinda sick of going back and forth all the time from the training grounds to his house over and over, but he hopes that now it will end, Achilles was determined to find a place as a warrior.

Finnaly arriving at the training grounds one more time, he rides Wooden in circles around the stake until she doesn't need to be guided anymore, Achilles grabs his bow, he never used a recurve bow before, so he stranges strenght needed to draw it, but in the end he was able to.

Achilles has been running around the stake for some time, he's been getting used to swing of the running horse, finnaly feeling confident he he draws the bow, it needs strenght to draw but is't somewhat simple, in the way that it feels easy to draw quickly.

Achilles let go of the string holding the arrow, the arrow quickly flies.

*zwoon*

It missed, but Achilles tried again. He draws the bow and shoots.

*zwoon*

Missed. Achilles tries again.

*zwoon*

Missed another time, but Achilles continued.

*zwoon*

*zwoon*

*zwoon*

Achilles tries again and again, they all missed. Achilles stop, Wooden was starting to slow down, she was getting tired.

Deafeated Achilles goes back to Agamemnon who was already tired of having to watch Achilles, and was thinking of getting some wine or beer.

-Sir!

Achilles shouted, making Agamemnon come back to reality.

-Uh? Oh, lad.

-I couldn't hit the stake, sir.

Achilles said frustrated and tired.

-Well of course you didn't. Only some legend would be able to hit a stake that thin from a distance in a running horse! What you were expecting to actually be able to hit it?

-Yeah...?

-Now that is a good joke, if we had an army that could do it then we already would have won the war.

-Right, so what was this test suposed to do?

-Lad, think about war. Let's say there is a enemy infantry unit at distance from you, you won't ever be able to hit the exact person you want to hit while mounted. Now what if you were able to at least hit in the proximity?

-I would be able to hit at least one of them.

-Exactly!

Agamemnon walked with Achilles to the place where the stake was while talking. Agamemnon looked for the arrows and where they landed.

-How many arrows did you shoot?

-24, I think.

-So you broke 3 of them with your horse and 5 you shot upwards by the look of it.

-I guess I lost some arrows in the distance and others I shot to the other side of the way I was circling the stake, breaking it.

-Right, the arrow you shot the closest of the stake was this one, about three meter of distance of the stake. But that was an exception by the looks of it. You will need to train more but I have seen worse begginers.

-Yessir!

At the end of the test it was about noon, lunch should be served soon, so Agamemnon told Achilles that that was it for the day and that tomorrow would be basic training.

Truly a good tutorial this was, can't wait for the main story begin!