Luck in the Shadows

gently away from the hilt, terminating in small flattened knobs carved to look like the tightly curled head of an unopened fern. The blade was unadorned but mirrored the light with a faintly bluish sheen.
    "A pleasing design," Seregil remarked, taking the sword in his hands and fingering the quillons. "Not fancy, as you said, but not cheap-plain, either. See how the quillons curve away from the grip, Alec? Just the thing to snap your enemy's sword out of his hand or break his blade, if you know what you're doing."
    Drawing his own sword, he held the two up together to show Alec the similarity between them. For the first time Alec noted that the quillons of Seregil's weapon, which ended in worn dragon's heads, were notched and scarred with use.
    "It's a fine blade, Maklin. How much?" asked Seregil.
    "Fifty marks with the sheath," the smith replied.
    Seregil paid his price without quibbling and Maklin threw in a sword belt, showing Alec how to wrap it twice around his waist and fix the lacings so that the blade hung at the proper angle against his left hip.
    Back in the street again, Alec tried to thank Seregil.
    "One way or another, you'll repay me,"
    Seregil said, brushing the matter aside. "For now, just promise me that you won't draw it in public until you've learned how to use it. You hold it just well enough for someone to give you a fight."
    As they passed the bowyer shops again, Seregil paused in front of Radly's.
    "There's no point going in there," Alec told him.
    "A good Radly bow costs as much as this sword."
    "Are they worth it?"
    "Well, yes."
    "Then come on. If it comes down to you protecting our lives with it, I for one don't want you using some three-penny stick."
    Alec's heart beat a bit faster as they entered the shop. His father, a competent bowyer himself, had often pointed the place out with uncommon reverence. Master Radly, he'd told his son, had gifts beyond the natural for bow making. Alec had never imagined that he'd enter the place as a customer.
    The master bowyer, a stern, grizzled man, was instructing an apprentice in the finer points of fletching as they came in. Inviting them to look about for a moment, he continued on with his instruction.
    Alec was in his element here, inspecting the array of bows with the same relish that Seregil had obviously felt at the swordsmith's.
    Great longbows, six feet tall unstrung, hung on cords from the ceiling. Crossbows of various types were
    displayed on wide shelves, along with lady's hunters, composite horse bows-nearly every type common in the north. But Alec's eye settled on those known simply as the Black Radly.
    Somewhat shorter than the regular longbow, these were fashioned from the Lake Wood's black yew, a difficult wood to work. Less experienced bowyers were likely to ruin half a dozen staves for every bow they came out with, but Radly and his apprentices had the knack. Rubbed with oil and beeswax, the black bows gleamed like polished horn.
    Seven of these lay on a long table in the center of the shop and Alec inspected each one, checking the straightness of the tapered limbs, the smoothness of the nocks and the ivory maker's plate set flush into the back of the grip. Then, choosing one, he grasped it on either side of the grip and twisted sharply; the lower limb of the bow came free in his hand.
    "What are you doing?" Seregil hissed in alarm.
    "It's a wayfarer's bow." Alec showed Seregil the steel ferrule on the end of the limb, with its tiny pin that locked in place inside the sheath of the hand grip. "They're easier to carry in rough country, or riding."
    "Easier to conceal, too," Seregil noted, fitting the sections back together. "Is it as powerful as a longbow?"
    "They can have better than eighty pounds pull, depending on the length."
    "And what, pray tell, does that mean?"
    Alec picked up another bow and held it out in front of him as if to draw. "It means that if you could get two men to stand one in front of the other, you could shoot a broadhead arrow through the both of them.
    They'll take down most anything from a hare to a stag. I've heard they can even shoot through chainmail."
    "They'll draw heart's blood from a brass weathercock!" said Radly, joining them at last. "Sounds like you know something of archery, young sir. What do you think of 'em?"
    "I like these." Alec indicated the two he'd laid aside. "But I'm not certain on the length."
    "We'd best check your draw," Radly said.
    Alec held out the bow and drew an invisible string