Berserker's Soft Wood Warhorn

Berserker's Soft Wood Warhorn rests on the table with the quiet gravity of a relic that has seen both campfires and dawns. Its body is carved from pale softwood, the grain a pale ladder of rings that tease the eye into tracing every year the wood survived. The surface is smooth as polished bone, yet warm to the touch, emitting a faint resinous scent when the leather-wrapped mouthpiece is pressed to the lips. Along its length, delicate runes are etched in a spiral, almost like a whisper of ancient tactics that once guided a berserker crew into the teeth of a nightmare. The horn widens at the bell, then tapers to a precise throat, the edges beveled and finished so that it sings rather than shouts when blown. A slim brass ferrule anchors the bore to the wood, catching the lamplight and turning it into a little halo of bronze. Dust motes drift in the air above it, and for a moment the room feels still, as if the horn has paused the world to listen. Lore has always clung to this piece, insisting it carries the memory of a wandering berserker who carved the horn from the heartwood of a sentinel tree that stood in a circle of oaths and old blood. The soft wood, said to yield a warmer, quicker resonance than harder timbers, became a vessel for more than sound: it carried a creed. In the stories told around the last embers of the night watch, the horn’s voice is described as both hammer and hymn—a call to charge and a reminder that the line between courage and recklessness is thin as the horn’s own throat. When the wind threads through its hollow belly, listeners swear they hear a heartbeat—rapid, stubborn, unyielding. In the world of battle, this horn isn’t just ornament. It’s a tool of tempo, a way to bend the rhythm of a skirmish to a single, decisive moment. Blown at the start of a push, its notes slice through chatter and clamor, drawing the eye and the blade toward a shared target. When used in harmony with fellow fighters, it can sharpen the team’s focus, turning scattered efforts into a coordinated surge. For those who chase a berserker’s ethos—bold, unflinching, and brave enough to gamble on the next breath—the Soft Wood Warhorn becomes a talisman as much as a weapon. It’s not about loudness alone; it’s about controlling the cadence of a fight, nudging allies into a braver, more sustained strike, and nudging enemies into a moment of hesitation. The market, of course, tells its own stories. I wandered into Saddlebag Exchange one late afternoon, where traders lay their wares on tarps like weathered map pages. The horn’s price hovered in a range that spoke to both desire and rarity, soft enough to tempt a careful buyer, sturdy enough to justify the risk for a collector or a battlefield courier. The vendor’s hands spoke the truth—sellers traded stories as freely as they did gold—so I listened for who had carried a Berserker’s creed into the day’s work, who had blown to lead a caravan, who had heard the horn reply from a distant hill when the drums started again. In the end, the horn’s worth wasn’t just measured in coins but in the way it threads through a world of camps and marches—the way it calls people to stand up, shoulder to shoulder, and listen for the next note in the long, stubborn song.