Bandit Longbow

Bandit Longbow rests on a rough wooden peg, its limbs of yew the color of old honey, curved with the patience of a thief who has waited a hundred nights. The grip is wrapped in cracked leather that darkens with sweat and rain, and a thin thread of varnish has peeled away near the arrow slit, revealing a lane of grain like a weathered map. The bowstring is pale and taut, humming faintly when rubbed with a thumb, while a brass ferrule at the tip bears the simple sigil of a masked face, a badge old enough to be rumored in campfire tales. The wood carries the scent of smoke and pine, and along the belly runs a dozen fine scratches—not a flaw, but a ledger of the battles the bow has seen, of caravans spared and ambushes narrowly averted. Lore says this bow came out of the salty caravans that once threaded the southern pass, forged by a woodsman who traded loyalty for coin and who carved into the grip a reminder: never forget who you are when you aim at someone’s back. Some claim the markings were pressed into the varnish by a thief-queen who believed a longbow should sing like a shadow rushing through a tarp of rain; others insist it passed between hands so many times that it learned to listen, to wait for a breath before the first arrow breaks the air. In the field, the Bandit Longbow is less a weapon than a companion. It asks for steady hands and a patient eye, rewarding a hunter who studies the wind and the lull between footfalls. When you notch an arrow, the draw is quiet but decisive, the limbs giving slightly, then snapping forward with a clean crack that seems to travel farther than the steel of a sword can reach. Arrows find their mark with a hunter’s certainty, slipping through brush and fog to strike where a target might not expect. It is the sort of bow that threads an ambush, that paints a memory of the skirmish onto the smoke of the hillside, and for that reason soldiers, scouts, and caravan guards have coveted it for generations. The Bandit Longbow does not shout glory; it whispers success into the hands of someone who respects range, patience, and the quiet arithmetic of a well-timed shot. Pricing, though, is a river that never runs straight. On a busy market morning, the chatter around Saddlebag Exchange grows loud enough to make the leather straps tremble, and someone mentions that a Bandit Longbow would fetch a handsome ransom there, traded as readily as a map or a piece of salted hide. In the meantime, a traveling dealer might offer a fair coin in coin, or trade for a week’s rations and a solid story. The bow remains, heavy with memory, waiting for the next traveler to read its grain and learn its language, to turn a corner of the world with a single, well-timed arrow into dawn.