Sentinel's Soft Wood Short Bow

Sentinel's Soft Wood Short Bow rests on the table, a slender thing of quiet purpose. Its limbs are pale as dawn, cured soft wood curved with a patient grace, the grain running like a river between the fingers. The grip is wrapped in weathered leather that has darkened to honey-brown, the stitching still precise as a watchmaker’s. The riser bears a faint sigil—an eye set within a shield—where brass threads catch the light and hint at a warder's attention. The string is a whisper-thin sinew, taut and responsive, and the bow’s balance sits in the hand as though made to accompany a march rather than a lone shot. A faint glaze of oil beads along the surface, proof of careful maintenance, and the scent of resin and rain clings to it, as if this weapon kept a memory of forest paths. Lore will tell you the Sentinel lineage did not seek glory with loud archer’s bells, but kept watch along gateways and woodland lanes, where every rustle might reveal friend or foe. The Soft Wood bow, named in tavern tales and whispered trades, is said to come from a grove tended by old wardens, trees that drank dew and remembered weather. It is not the longest reach, nor the loudest crack, but it teaches a quiet patience: read the wind, time the release, let the arrow sing its own brief story before the silence settles. In the field, it is a companion for faster skirmishes, where speed and precision outrun brute force. Draw, release, and the short limbs snap forward with a crispness that invites you to follow with another breath. Rangers prize it for light fieldwork, for slipping through brush with hardly a sound, for the back-and-forth of quick shots and retreat. A hunter can thread through cover and lay a bead on a distant mark, then vanish into the brush before the bird’s alarm branches into a chorus. The Soft Wood’s forgiving texture reduces recoil, helping new hands keep aim as the world tilts and the ground shifts beneath—an ally when footing is uncertain. Market life lends color to every deal. I found mine in Saddlebag Exchange, a stall where traders haggle over gloved hands and glints of metal, where the day’s heat and the promise of a good trade mingle with the scent of wood shavings. The posted price hovered around three silver, with a little more if a knot happened to catch the sun in just the right way. A tidy bundle of arrows followed the bow home, strapped across a rider’s thigh as we rolled into the evening light, and the exchange’s owner nodded, as if to say the road itself approved this choice. With it in hand, the road becomes a slow countdown to moments of focus, and the forest itself seems to lean closer, offering counsel in every rustle. Each outing tests the patience the wood teaches, and when the sun sinks, the bow rests again in its leather sling, quietly ready for whatever tomorrow may bring.