Youth World

Chapter 7 – The Following Morning

I was viciously shaken by a massive man, him screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Wake up! Wake up!"

I struggled to open my eyes. Where was I? Oh, right. The apocalypse had just happened.

"Lucas! Stop shaking me!"

"Stop being lazy! Wake up! We have things to do!"

"Bro, what time is it?"

"The sun's been up for a few hours! Hurry!"

"Ugh, fine. I guess every minute matters, huh."

As I exited the shelter and took a close look at the scenery surrounding me, I couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of nature. The trees were glistening with morning dew, the scent of breakfast emanated in the air, and a cool breeze blew a swarm of evergreen needles into my face. Ignoring the camp that we had set up, this was like a massive national park. Truly a majestic sight to behold.

"Alexander! Stop wasting time! We have things to do!"

"Alright! Got it!"

"So, Lucas, what's the first thing that I have to do today? Talk with the metallurgists?"

"Not just that. You need to meet with the carpenters, the archers and Larry's gang. Me and some of the others will deal with everything else, such as the equestrian club. By the way, I've finished making a bunch of bows."

"Thanks! One man can't do everything, after all. See you later!"

The carpenters were located in the north of the camp. Guess I'd head there first.

I tried to walk as quietly as possible, careful not to wake up many of the still slumbering individuals snoozing in their shelters. I did step over a branch, waking up a kindergartener, but I had reached the carpenters relatively problem free.

Adam was already standing there, as well as most of his club. There weren't that many of them, but they were enough to get the job done.

"Ah, Alexander, so you're finally here! After talking it over with the rest of the club, we've decided that we will build the wagons first, then the carriages. The former seems to be more vital than the latter."

"You're totally right. When can you guys start working?"

"We can start today. We'll start chopping some trees today, and then we'll craft some tools that would be more suitable for carving and shaping wood."

"Not for now. Today will mainly be a day of prep work."

"Well, it was a pŀėȧsurė meeting with you guys. See you later!"

"Later!"

That meeting was shorter than expected. Now, it was time to meet with the archers. Although I never formally joined the archery club, I frequently hung out with them. I mainly focused my archery efforts on mounted archery, learning from the great Lars Andersen's and his draw hand firing technique. This allowed me to fire faster than a guy with a bolt action rifle. The archery club had always wanted me to join them, and even offered me the role of captain, but I declined due to time concerns, and the fact I was playing football.

The archers' shelters were at the easternmost edge of the camp, close to the former location of the elementary school. They had picked this location because it was relatively flat and allowed them to enter and exit the camp without going through anybody else.

On the way there, I passed through the makeshift armory, which in reality was just a bunch of weapons thrown into a pile under a roof made of sticks and mud. I picked up a longbow and a recurve bow, as well as some arrows that the kids probably fletched. As I left the armory, I saw a few kids drop off more arrows and spears in the pile. Those guys were really good at making weapons.

Luckily for me, I had taught most of the archery club to use Lars Anderson's style of shooting instead of the conventional one. That had led to our school winning the state archery competition year after year. That gave us a massive edge over the rest. Due to our constant victories, the archery club had ballooned to nearly a hundred.

As I approached the archery club's shelters, I noticed that they were already hard at work, picking up sharpened sticks to use as arrows to preserve the actual arrows for hunting purposes. There weren't enough bows for all of them, but there would be soon. For now, they were just rotating every shot, which was a good idea.

First things first, I had to find their captain.

"Good morning, Alexander! As you can see, we've been practicing archery this morning. Since it's blindly obvious that we're going to have to fight animals and other people, it would be idiotic to use the usual firing method used against 2D targets. That's why we're using the bow hand and draw hand methods you've taught us. Now we can easily hit targets while on the run!"

"Could I take a shot?"

"Nice pun. Sure thing! You are the best archer after all. Show us how it's done!"

"I mean, I wouldn't say I'm the best. But I'll give it a try."

I grabbed three sticks from the ground and held them in my draw hand. Running to my right, I loaded one into my bow string, aimed at a hole bored into a tree, and fired.

PFEWWWW!

The stick lodged directly into the hole.

The archery club members were clapping at this demonstration.

Immediately after firing that arrow, with less than half a second of delay, I loaded the stick, drew my bowstring, and let it rip. The stick soared through the air, knocking exactly one leaf off of a tree.

There was no reaction. Turning around, I could see that all of them were agape.

"Well, sorry to distract you guys. I just wanted to check what was going on. Well, I do have one thing to say."

After a bit of silence, Robin spoke up.

"What do you need from us? We'd be happy to do it."

"Well, we won't have horses for around three weeks, but I'll need you guys to practice mounted archery as soon as we get them. To prepare for that, I'll need you guys to make a dummy horse out of logs and sticks, and practice firing off them while hanging off the side."

"What the what?"

The archery club members seemed confused.

"As the Comanches of Northern Texas once did, we should probably learn how to fire an arrow on a horse while hanging off the side. I know you guys can shoot while riding a horse normally, but you guys will need to take it to the next step if we truly want to be unstoppable. Anyways, Robin can do it, so he'll teach you guys. Isn't that right?"

"I'll try my best, but it is a very complicated technique. I'm sure that you'll all get it if I drill you guys for a week or two. You guys are a bunch of smart cookies."

"Well, it was a pŀėȧsurė meeting you guys. Now, I have to go meet with the metallurgy club, so see you guys later!"

"Bye, Alexander!"

Ah, another issue dealt with. Last on my mental checklist before lunchtime would be the metallurgy club. Well, iron ore was quite plentiful around here, and I knew a few techniques to make steel from nothing more than terminate nests, so maybe I could be of help to them? There was a reason I left them for last, and that was because they had the most arduous and lengthy task.

The metallurgists were located at the southern edge of the camp, for easier access to the iron rich hill that abutted our settlement. However, once I arrived, there was nobody there. They were probably out collecting ores in baskets, and they probably gathered a bunch of the elementary school kids to serve as porters. To be fair, the elementary school kids' best use was as light labor, since they largely didn't have any other talents.

Come to think of it, many of the kids in the metallurgy club already knew how to make steel out of iron ore, and to forge that steel into useful weapons. Since they weren't here anyways, it was a waste of time to stick around. I'd meet with them later.

Well, its time to do what I do best. Make some weapon related stuff! Nobody has made any quivers so far, so I'd do that. Of course, I was making side quivers that would be fastened to the right side of a person's waist, not something silly like a back quiver! Those are Hollywood fallacies and only exist in movies and target practice.

First things first, you need a piece of leather. Luckily, since the hunters had killed so many cows yesterday, there was plenty to spare. These were all located near the middle of the camp so the chefs would have easier access to the carcasses. I wouldn't use furs, though, since those were reserved for making coats.

Well, time to head there. It didn't take too long to get there, since the camp wasn't very big.

Using the bone needle that I had preserved from the first day, I strung some thin vines through it to serve as string. Then, I sewed the pieces of leather together to create a nice quiver. There really weren't any words to describe it, as it just looked like a regular side quiver. However, if I had to compare its shape to anything, it would be a mini golf bag.

Afterwards, I used pieces of leather to make a strap, that would tie the quiver to an archer's vine belt. The process to make a quiver was relatively simple, but the problem was that I had to make a few dozen of them to supply the entire archery club. Some help would be nice, but it would seem that everybody else was hard at work. Guess this was a one-man job.

Grab a piece of leather, sew, attach straps, complete. I had to do this over and over again for who knows how long. As I was doing this, might as well think of military strategies, for those would be very important.

We had to send a scavenging party westward past the lake to the sound, which was really just a giant, mostly saltwater bay. Since we needed the salt from this place to preserve meats for such a long journey to the east, we would have no choice but to send some people there. However, the areas along the sound are very populated, such as the former location of Seattle, a city which used to be populated by over 700,000 people.

There was no doubt in my mind that we would run into bands of raiders or hostile peoples on the way there. Which was why we needed a good strategy.

In all honesty, sending a hundred workers and fifty spearmen and slingers would be sufficient. We needed to keep everyone else around to complete preparations, so those would really be all that we could spare for this trek.

Thump! Thump! THUMP!

The sound of a djembe drum interrupted my thoughts.

"Everyone!" Anderson screamed at the top of his lungs. "Food's ready!"

Well, preparations for an expedition would have to be left for later. It's lunchtime!