Remo sat upright, eyes widening. “What’s that?”
“That’s my bow.” Dag unscrewed his hook from his wooden wrist cuff, dropping it into the leather pouch on his belt. He stood, put his weight into bending the short, heavy bow, and strung it. Setting into his cuff slot the carved bolt that stuck out where the grip would be, he rotated the bow once to seat it, making sure the string ended up to the inside, and snapped the lock down.
“A farmer artificer that Fairbolt Crow knew up in Tripoint made it for me, some years ago,” Dag went on. “And my arm harness and all my gear that goes with it. It took us four tries to get a design that would work. Interesting fellow. He started out making wooden arms and legs for miners and foundry men, see, as the folks in those hills do a deal of that dangerous work. He’d been a friend of Fairbolt’s back when Fairbolt was a young patroller up that way. Seems you never know when you’ll need an old friend.”
Remo’s ground was as shuttered as his expression; hard to tell how he took this pointed moral. He said only, “It looks like it has a heavy draw.”
“Aye, it’s a right bear. It was all compromises by that point. We needed a short length, to keep it out of my way if I had to move in a hurry, because putting it down takes a minute and dropping it isn’t an option. At the same time, I needed penetrating power. When I had two hands, I used a much longer bow, matching my height and arm length. Took me months of practice to finally change all my long-bow habits.” His remaining fingers had bled.
“You’re pretty matter-of-fact about it all.”
Dag had no idea what Remo was going to hear out of this, but he chose the truth anyway. “I wasn’t at first. I took a long time getting over it.” A little jerk of his left arm made his meaning clear. “I won’t say no one can be a blighted fool forever, because I’ve seen some try for it. But I finally decided I didn’t care to be in that company.”
Remo grew rather quiet.
The appearance of this fascinating new device brought Hawthorn back, bouncing in curiosity. Whit, trailing amiably, said, “Oh, yeah, give us a show, Dag!”
“This rig’s no good for teaching you, mind. It takes a different stance and style than your bow, and besides, I’m full of old bad habits you likely shouldn’t be allowed to watch.”
Whit grinned. “Do as I say, not as I do?”
“There is that,” Dag agreed.
Hawthorn pulled one of Dag’s heavy, steel-tipped arrows from the quiver. “Hey, these are lots fancier than the ones we were using! I bet these’d work better!”
“Nothing wrong with the ones you were using. They all had the same maker.” Dag winked at Fawn. “Here, give yours to me—put that one back, now…”
Hawthorn said Ow, and Fawn pried the arrow out of his bloodstained grip, saying, “Give that over before you poke your eye out. Those are Dag’s good arrows. He doesn’t waste them on target practice.”
“Well, what does he use ’em for?”
Dag prudently let that one go by unanswered, and swapped for Whit’s quiver. He strolled up to a distance from the target about equal to Whit’s longest range, hitched his shoulders, and spent a leisurely few minutes putting the dozen flint-tipped arrows into the general vicinity of the two circles. It felt good enough. “Nope, Hawthorn, they all work just fine. See? You can go collect those.” Hawthorn scampered off.
“My style isn’t pretty enough for contest bow-work,” Dag remarked to Whit. “I argue with the purists about that. I claim a patroller is going to have to shoot from all sorts of strange positions, and that it doesn’t pay to get too fussy. They claim—well, maybe I won’t repeat what they claim.”
His muscles felt reasonably warm and loose, now. Fawn was watching him. Humming unmusically under his breath, Dag took up his quiver, clamped it awkwardly under his left arm, and removed about half its contents to give to her for safekeeping, leaving twelve of the heavy arrows more loosely packed. He shrugged the quiver up over his shoulder and walked back to the shooting spot. Made an estimate of the range to the straw bale, turned, and added another dozen paces to it. Stretched, emptied his mind, turned back.
The first arrow went its way with a notably louder twang; Whit’s head snapped around from the gangplank where he’d been talking to Berry. The second followed before the first hit the target, then the third. One after another, Dag reached, set, pulled, released. The extra range hadn’t been just swagger; he needed all that distance to get that lovely streaming effect of two and three arrows in the air at a time.
Twelve shots in less than a minute. It’s been a while since you did that, old patroller!
He lowered his stubby bow and studied the results. Well, they had all ended up somewhere within the outer circle. Not a tidy heart-shot, but that straw bale sure wasn’t getting away. He rather regretted not being able to spell out D + F in quivering feather shafts. He could imagine them spelling a trailing sort of argh! maybe, if he squinted a lot, which was almost as good.
Fawn came up beside him, peering in fascination. “Was that the pure flight? My stars, it did look like something!”
“Almost,” Dag said in satisfaction. “Right workmanlike, leastways. You can go fetch those, Whit.”
Whit trotted off. Dag sensibly decided to quit while he was ahead. He did off his equipment and turned the makeshift range back over to Whit. Hawthorn was ruthlessly set aside when Berry, watching from a seat on the gangplank, barely hinted that she might like to try her hand. Dag gave himself over to an indolent seat on the log and a cozy cuddle with his wife. It was getting chilly; he’d favor going in soon.
Fawn nudged him and pointed, grinning. Remo was now standing up talking to Whit, earnestly demonstrating some fine point of gripping a bow. Dag replied with a finger laid to the side of his nose and a lift of his eyebrows. His lips twitched up. When next it came time to collect Berry’s misses, Remo waved Dag back and went with Whit.
A loud thump from the boat turned both Berry’s and Dag’s heads around. “What was that?” said Berry. But as no more noises followed, she turned back to watch Whit and Remo.
Dag stayed twisted, brows knotted. Hod. What’s the fool boy gone and done now?
In another few moments Bo stuck his head through the front hatch, and called, “Lakewalker, you want to come in here for a minute?”
No, I don’t, Dag could not answer. He rose, waving the concerned Berry back to the game with Whit and Remo. Fawn gave him a sharp look and tagged along.
In the kitchen and bunk space, he found Hod sitting on the floor in front of the hearth with his right trouser leg rolled up, rocking and whimpering.
“What happened?” Dag asked.
“I fell down out on the back deck,” sniveled Hod. “Hurt my knee. Fix, can’t you fix it again, please?”
Fawn drew breath in ready sympathy. Dag sighed, knelt, and let his palm hover above the joint, opening himself briefly. The damage was not deep, but Hod had definitely re-cracked one of the healing fissures in his kneecap, blight it.
Fawn said sternly, “Hod, were you trying to carry too much at a time again? Remember what I told you about a lazy man’s load?”
“No, I just fell down,” Hod protested. He seemed to think a moment.
“I was trying not to step on the raccoon.”
A quick groundsense check found the kit snoozing peacefully in Dag and Fawn’s bedroll. Dag looked up and frowned.
Bo caught his gaze and lifted his hairy brows. After a long, considering pause, he said slowly, “Actually, that kit was nowhere around. Didn’t sound like Hod tripped on the deck, either. I think he slammed into the back wall.”
Hod blurted in a flustered voice, “You didn’t see me!” Then added belatedly, “Yeah, that’s right. I tripped and fell against the wall.”
Dag sat back on his heels, taking in the ugly implications. “Hod, tell me the truth. Did you just go and knock your own knee into the wall on purpose?”