Alas, for Our Time is Near
"Again," I said mercilessly.
"How many do you need?" Eragon groaned.
"Five more. All like the first one. Now keep going."
We were sitting in front of Horst's makeshift forge, and I was having Eragon shape a chunk of molten metal with magic. To make sure he got it right I had to actually let him into my mind, which was a really bizarre feeling, but it was worth it to make sure he did exactly what I wanted.
When he had finished the last of the metal tubes and muttered a spell to cool them instantly, I took them gingerly and carefully screwed them into a boxy contraption with a crank on one side.
When I was sure that it was secure, I said, "Why does anyone bother with forging if magic does it so quickly?"
He groaned and rubbed his back. "Because now I feel like a piece of -"
Saphira rumbled gently to stop him finishing the sentence, but I got the point.
I tested the crank, making sure that it rotated the barrels and cocked back the hammer.
"Thanks. You've been a big help," I told Eragon, who grumbled something in reply. To be honest, we weren't on the best terms, especially after I'd made the mistake of telling him what Arya had said. Nonetheless, he had no choice but to help me. The alternative was explaining himself to an angry Nasuada, who would give him the "William is bettering the Varden" speech, which he hated even more than helping me, because it rubbed in how important it was to help me.
I bowed to Saphira, who was sitting on a hurriedly cleared patch of grass, and returned to my command tent, as I had taken to calling it. Following the battle against the anestheticals, I had ordered that my assistants train in fighting as well, as they were the only people I would ever trust with advanced weapons like the one I was carrying now.
"Did anyone prepare the batch of ammunition I said I needed?" I asked the tent at large.
"I did," said one of them, looking up from the grenade he was making and gesturing to a box sitting on a table. "I didn't make too many because I figured you could have the magicians duplicate as many as you needed." A stifled groan sounded from the corner that the magicians liked to hang out in.
I opened the box and grinned. Several rows of thick cartridges sat connected by a chain. I loaded the first on into the boxy device and racked the large slide on the top.
"Party time," I announced. I carried the box and my machine out to the edge of the camp, an excited crowd of my assistants following me.
My personal testing grounds consisted of a field full of straw stuffed dummies. Most had bullet holes and arrows sticking out of them. Some were charred and burned. One was just a smoldering post sticking out of the ground.
I set the contraption down on a table and aimed it at a dummy. I gave the crank and experimental turn. The barrel turned, the hammer snapped back and forward and the gun let out the satisfying CRACK of a shot. I grinned. Excellent.
My assistants cheered me on as I spun the crank, the six barrels spinning as fast as I could turn them. I must have cooked off more than a hundred rounds in fifteen seconds. The dummy slowly shredded itself and finally dropped to the ground, the supporting post having been completely severed. I moved to a second on, and then a third.
I stopped just short of the last shell when the three dummies were just smoldering lumps on the ground. I opened the Gatling and removed the empty ammo belt. I tossed the last bullet to one of the magicians as I walked away.
"More."
"There is no way in Angvard that this is going to work."
"Three crowns say it will."
"Ha! You're on."
"Shut up," I said irritably. "I made it, so it's going to work."
The idea that had them in frenzy was that I had painstakingly hooked one of my Gatlings (after another "proof of concept" Nasuada hastily cleared Eragon's schedule for a few days) up to the chassis of a cart pulled by a horse. No, the cart did not come with a chassis. I had to add that on myself. The plan was to get the horse at a gallop, spinning the thing faster than any normal human could. That was the best outcome. The worst was that it would explode in my face.
I climbed up onto the cart and gripped the minigun fiercely. I stood there for half a minute before straightening up and saying angrily, "How do I start this thing?"
One of my assistants walked up and slapped the horse on the rear. That started her right up.
"This...is...madness!" I screamed as I plummeted away at forty miles an hour, holding onto the gun mount for dear life. My hair flapped in my face as I carefully spun the gun around, blinking my eyes and trying to see the targets. When I thought I might have a 1% chance of hitting the damn things, I jammed the lever down, connecting the static gears of the Gatling with the wildly spinning ones of the cart, which were driven by a belt that came out of the floor.
"AAAHHHHH!" I screamed as I zoomed around, bullets flying every which way. Fortunately, most of them hit the targets. Some of them ricocheted around before burying themselves in the ground. My assistants dived for cover. Events seemed to unfold in slow motion. There was a pop...pop...pop as the gun belched flame and smoke and then a thwack...thwack...thwack as they impacted. After another minute, the ammo belt clicked and fell at my feet, empty. The immediate danger of everyone dying having been lifted, I decided to jump. I hit the ground and rolled on the soft grass.
When I came up, I dizzily staggered over to my group of assistants, who were picking themselves up and dusting themselves off.
"Well, I don't think we're ever doing that again," I said shakily.
There was silence, then-
"Are you kidding?" shouted one lad.
"That was amazing!" cried another.
"You looked totally badass!" another yelled.
I grinned in spite of myself. After I had taught them to use that word they used it frequently. Also, it meant that my little exploit must have looked better from the sidelines.
"You completely hammered the targets!" one of them said. I looked, and saw to my surprise that the majority of the bullets had actually hit the targets lined up across the field.
Hmm...maybe with some shock absorbers and iron sights I may actually use this thing correctly, I thought. Maybe I could get a smoother ride, too…
"NO," Saphira and Eragon said together.
"Aw, come one," I pleaded. "Don't you know how crucial air support can be?"
"What are you talking about?" said Eragon irritably.
It was hopeless. I had been begging him to let me ride Saphira for the last half-hour and the answer had remained the same. It wasn't worth another hour of my time explaining it all to him either. Just because you had a dragon didn't give you the right to be a jerk. If he weren't able to kill me in half a second with magic, I would have had the advantage. I could shoot him about ten times faster than he could pull a sword on me. Saphira would have barbequed me where I stood, of course, but you got the idea.
I muttered a few more obscenities and trudged away. I had enough things to do without arguing with a pubescent, testosterone-fueled teenager. He was a complete idiot, and yet he was the only hope "Good" seemed to have in this fight.
My work became more frantic as the Varden closed in on Feinster. Nasuada wanted me to invent equipment to either open the large gates to the city or destroy the walls surrounding it. Since Feinster would be ideal as a fallback point if we lost at Belatona or Dras-Leona, I was told that destroying the walls was a last resort. Naturally, I set about this challenge with relish. When word reached me that Eragon would be negotiating with the Dwarves in one of their far off cities, I quickly booked up all his free time, having him shape every possible design I could think of. My plan would be to somehow scale the walls of Feinster, open the gate, and then stop them from being closed again, most likely by damaging whatever gears were used to operate them. I picked a group of my brightest and most loyal assistants to help me and set to work.
After the success of my pistol, I knew that guns were the way to go. Since I was able to share the exact designs of them with Eragon in our minds, it was with ease that I produced a small armory of weapons in relative secrecy. Eragon must have grown to hate me, since I must have completely tired him out every night, but apparently his fear of a reprimand from Nasuada was great enough that he performed admirably and without complaint.
Among my arsenal were sniper rifles and sub-machine guns. I was well aware of the dangers if friend or foe alike stole these weapons, so I had forged a large metal gun cabinet and kept it in my storage tent. I was very glad I had sworn everyone I worked with to secrecy. I figured it would be best to keep it a secret that I had the power to kill people with the flick of a finger.
On a lighter note, I had taken my notions about Assassin's Creed deeply to heart. I had converted my switchblades to lever-activated hidden blade gauntlets. If I unlocked the devices by pulling a lever (I didn't want to accidently cut my hand off), I could deploy the blade by flicking my wrist, which locked it into place. Once I pressed the release button and gravity pulled it back into its sheath, I could lock it in place again. They were, as my assistants were happy to call them, badass. They looked a little weird when worn without the right contemporary clothing, but hey, it was the thought that counted.
After Eragon left for the Dwarven city of Tronjheim, the Varden began to travel in earnest, and my little mobile tent platform proved its worth. I didn't have to bother waiting until we stopped for a few days before I could resume my work; I could do it while we trundled along. In fact, I was amazed that no one else here had already thought of a covered wagon. The fabric was light enough to let the sunlight in so we didn't need torches (fire in a laboratory is always a risky business) but it was heavy enough to prevent sunburn, a common condition among the Varden. If I was never able to escape from this place, I could at least make myself rich by selling sunscreen.
Days passed. I labored away the hours, working and sleeping, eating and exercising. I had finally come up with my plan to capture Feinster, and it required that I stay in shape. There weren't any fast foods to eat around here, so this was relatively easy.
When night fell when we were only a day away from Feinster, I gathered my assistants together around a large bonfire. I explained my plan and told them all what needed to happen. I double checked the equipment, and lubricated the Gatlings a final time (you didn't think I wasn't using them, did you?). Then we spent a fun night finding creative ways to destroy the last of the target dummies, trying to ignore the battle looming on the horizon.