Berserker's Short Bow

Berserker's Short Bow rests on the rough-cut counter, its curve a sharp whisper of lacquered wood and iron, catching the lamplight like a blade just barely sheathed. The grip is wrapped in weathered hide, stitching puckered with age, and the string wears a faint sigh where it’s been pulled tight a thousand times. Along the limb, faint sigils—silvered initials perhaps, or the echo of a long-forgotten oath—wind in and out of the grain, as if the bow itself remembers every shout and charge it has ever driven forward. It looks best in motion, a sudden hinge of speed, but in stillness it speaks of patient craft—the kind that keeps quiet until the moment it must bite. This particular bow is said to carry a snarl of lineage as much as a reputation. The Berserker’s line, named for those who pressed forward with reckless grace, carves its name into weapons as if to brand the wielder with a promise: to strike first, to move before the shield-lines settle, to kiss the edge of danger and walk away with a tale to tell. In the tale-spun corners of towns and markets, people swear the bow remembers the footprints of the bearers who bore it into night fights and dawn ambushes, every crack of a string a memory of risk accepted and shared. In the field, the bow becomes a heartbeat you can see and hear. It’s compact enough to slip beneath a cloak and draw, almost intimate in a skirmish where space is a currency and every breath counts. Its shots are rapid, a cadence that never lets an opponent catch their rhythm, perfect for dancers who weave through melee and pick at its edges with a practiced snap of the wrist. The bow rewards precision and tempo, not brute force; it asks for timing, for the nerve to push a shot between armor plates of silence and glare, and it forgives a miss only when you choose to ride the moment again and again. Market days add another layer to the story. I wandered past a bustling stall called Saddlebag Exchange, where traders lean over weathered crates and haggle with the rhythm of a caravan’s heartbeat. There, a veteran dealer spoke in low, careful tones about the Berserker’s Short Bow, valuing its speed and the lore etched into the wood. The price swayed with the crowd’s mood and the season’s scarcity, a reminder that such relics travel as much as the people who covet them. It was not just a sale but a crossing of paths: a hunter’s need, a merchant’s memory, a storyteller’s joy in passing on a tool that turns fear into a roar. To own Berserker’s Short Bow is to carry a fragment of a larger path—one that runs through crowded streets, quiet glades, and the edge of dusk where a single, precise arrow can tilt the balance. It’s more than wood and string; it’s a pact to move faster than the world expects, to speak softly and strike with a chorus of breath and courage. And when you lay it down at night, the sigils seem to shimmer a moment longer, as if the bow itself is still listening for the next call to courage in the world it helps shape.