Dragon Alliance: Rise Against Shadow by J. Michael Fluck Read Free Book Online

wall or castle battlement as well. A select number of bolts combined a mithril alloy tip with the bursting bolt for powerful opponents. These first penetrated then exploded, capable of taking out a giant or similar sized creature. Mkel carried sixty of each of these types on Gallanth’s flying rig.
    Mkel put his first quarrel on the post, put his right arm through the attached sling, and secured it with the hook that was anchored to his dragon hide armor, which doubled as his riding jacket. His dragon hide jacket was made from red, blue, white, and green dragon scales, and the hides taken from dragons that Gallanth slew during the last Great Dragon War. The hide and scales were meshed together with mithril thread, making the jacket as strong as actual dragon hide, and giving Mkel some protection against fire, electricity, acid and frost weapons. The hide-and-mithril-thread combination made the jacket almost impenetrable by all but the most powerful magic weapons, yet it weighed no more than thin leather armor. It had a soft padded interior, making it very comfortable to wear, and fit both his heating and cooling crystals at the top of the back of the jacket just below the neck area.
    Mkel lay down on his shooting mat and planted his elbows firmly. His right hand, with his riding glove on, slid up to the sling hook, where it met the steel swivel handstop on the bottom of the stock. He put the elven-oak butt stock of the crossbow firmly into his shoulder and rested his cheek on the raised comb. He leaned into the bow and felt his hand take the pressure. He took a couple of breaths, slowing each one down, until his final exhalation, when he looked through the sight and placed the crosshair on the center of the target (the circle reticule did not appear since the target was stationary). He grasped the contoured firing hand grip firmly with his left hand and rested his finger on the trigger, just in front of the first joint. As his pulse settled to a minor blip, he squeezed the trigger smoothly, taking up the one pound of pressure needed to release the catch, and the string snapped forward, sending the bolt screaming to the target. The bolt struck the target face, cutting the center one-half-inch scoring ring on the right side.
    He then pushed the cocking handle forward and pulled it back to its original position, locking the string back, and put another bolt in the ready position. He was loading his bolts one at a time since he was practicing and did not need to rapid fire, and chose to shoot from the sling versus resting the nine-inch magazine on the ground in combat mode instead of target style. Again he squeezed the sensitive trigger, and the second bolt landed directly beside the first. He put his next three bolts in a small cluster, all cutting the small center ring. His next five also put a group in the second target’s center ring. He reloaded and proceeded to put five bolts on each target’s center rings (his bow could be loaded with ten bolts at a time). His last bolt just slightly missed the center ring, and he teasingly cursed himself for slightly jerking the trigger.
    Mkel then got up and fired twenty bolts from the standing position and a final twenty bolts from a sling-supported kneeling position. He walked over to the target line and pulled out all sixty bolts, returned to the firing line, and then reloaded his magazines. He then picked up his crossbow and mat and moved to the one-hundred-yard line. After shooting a twenty-bolt target from the prone position with a sling, he shot with the metal magazine planted on the ground, taking care to firmly put his right hand on the upper front of the magazine, putting slight rearward pressure and firing in a smooth cadence. His next position was to move the crossbow to the supported mount that simulated the firing platform on Gallanth’s flying rig. He fired twenty more shots from that position, and after he felt reasonably satisfied, he retrieved the bolts and reloaded.