Strong Longbow

Strong Longbow rests on a rough oak table, the type you find in a hunter's saddlebag room and not in a showroom. Its limbs are forged of yew, stained the color of old maple bark, with a curvature that whispers of who drew it first under a pine canopy. The grip is wrapped in two thin layers of leather, worn smooth by decades of use, and the string, a taut, pale thread, hums faintly when the bow is drawn. Along the belly, a brass inlay coils like a river's bend, a hawk's head pressed into the metal at the grip end. The crest above the grip bears a maker's mark: a winding river and a cornered lion, half-forgotten by time, half-remembered by the market scribes. In the lore of the keepers, this bow was said to be tempered in the heart of a storm-wracked forest by a hunter who pledged to pass it only to those who could outthink a shadow. When drawn and loosed, the Strong Longbow seems to carry a breath of wind itself. It rewards patience and precision, rewarding the archer who loiters on a hill and studies the patrol. Its arrows cut clean through light armor and keep their flight true over long distances; it punishes hurried shots with wobble and drift. In skirmishes that spill into twilight, it becomes a voice in the chorus—a clear signal to friends and foes alike: keep your position, hold your breath, and wait for the right moment. The wielder learns to pair the bow with arrows of trueflight and ground-borne fire, to exploit openings, to thread shots around cover, to drop a guard from a cliff's edge before the rest know what's happened. More than a weapon, it is an extension of the hunter's will—a quiet partner in a world where every decision travels faster than a messenger hawk. Prices in the market these days drift like autumn leaves, but the Saddlebag Exchange keeps a steadier rhythm, trading tails and tall tales as freely as copper for a night's sleep. A seasoned dealer might name a price in gold and silver and expect a story in return—the Strong Longbow being a conversation piece as much as a field instrument. I watched a buyer trade flat silk and a map of the eastern marches for such a bow, the old stall-keeper whispering that in the autumn caravans this model finds a second life: a trusted companion for rangers who walk the border between settled towns and untamed wood. The tag on the bow carried its own weathered note: 'Strong Longbow—testimony of a hunter's vow.' It felt less like a price and more like a handshake, a measure of trust between trader and keeper, the story of its next journey already taking shape in the buyer's eyes. On the road that follows an old river, the Strong Longbow keeps pace with the wind itself, waiting for the moment to answer a call that is older than the market stalls and newer than the first dawn. In the world it walks, power is measured not only by raw force but by the patience to wait for a shot, the skill to aim true, and the courage to tell a story with every arrow.