It was not what I’d envisioned, but the more the knight in the picture gazed back at me, the more it fit my needs. He said, “We have several scabbards for broadswords we could easily modify for a bow. Mind you, it will not be custom-made unless you have ten days to wait, but I believe my idea may solve your problem.”
“Do it,” Kendra said. “By tonight. Now, we both need good knives, and I also want a pair to conceal and throw.”
With hardly a thought, he selected a pair of heavy knives and said, “Sharp enough to shave the beard off your face, and heavy enough to chop down small trees, although they will need sharpening if you cut trees and then want to shave.” His laugh was quick and infectious.
They were far better knives than what we had. He reached under his desk again and came out with a pair of dull, flat, ugly weapons, each pointed at both ends. All four edges of each were sharpened before coming to their points, the middle thin and narrow so they were weighted near the tips. They were like two small pointed blades bonded end to end. There was no hint of decoration. The metal was dull, gray, and ordinary.
Kendra said, “I’ve never seen the like of these.”
He handed one to her. “The silly idea that you can make a knife spin exactly the right number of times, so it will always land on one point is a myth. Even if you are willing to spend a few years practicing every day and always stand at the exact same distance, which means you need your opponent to kindly remain at that distance while you throw. Do you plan to do that?”
She said, “No.”
“Good. Because I’ve never met an attacker willing to stand still for you at exactly four paces. More than likely, he’s charging right at you. It’s best to stop him before he reaches you, at a distance.”
She felt the balance and placed her thumb under the flat of the blade and fingers on top. “If I throw this, what happens?”
He smiled. “You’re holding it correctly. Use your wrist when you throw, so it spins fast. Unless it strikes armor, whoever it hits will bleed. How much? That depends on where you hit, and luck, and of course the rotation. A perfect throw will penetrate. A less perfect throw will slash and cut as it spins. But you will also have a second knife ready to fly, and one is usually enough to stop a thief or highwayman.”
She handled them, examining the knives from every angle, and he was a good enough salesman to let her be without comment or trying to over-sell her. She ran a thumb down one edge. “Is this good steel?”
“Oh, no. It’ll hardly hold an edge if you cut an apple with it.”
She turned up her nose, but Kendra could read people almost as well as Elizabeth. She knew there was more. “Then, why would I buy these?”
“Because they are sharp! And heavy enough to penetrate. A common sharpening stone will put the edge back with a few swipes. I usually sell them in sets of four, two to carry and two for spares.”
She was interested. “How do I keep from cutting myself with two points and four edges?”
He showed her the arm-scabbards with metal reinforcing the bottom and top, and small leather cups held in place by thin thongs for the other point. He said, “One under each forearm. When you pull them free of the metal cups at the tips, you will naturally be gripping them in the center, in the same position you will use to throw. No wasted motion to adjust your hands or grip.”
The scabbards, if that was the proper name, were made of flat cowhide to cradle the knives on the inside of the forearm, with straps to hold them in place. Simple. Effective. Kendra put them on and managed to free a knife on her first try. The shop owner had hay stuffed inside a crude pillow for a target, and her first two attempts did as he said. If it had been a man, he would bleed. One of the blades had raked a cut as long as my palm before falling to the floor. The other stuck parallel to the floor, half the shaft protruding inside the pillow.
Had it been an enemy, the first throw would have had blood flowing freely and it would take a strong man not to pause to examine the wound. That pause would allow her second knife to fly, or for her to turn and escape. Throwing knives were not offensive weapons, but defensive. With luck, they provided time to get away, or for her to attack with another weapon.
We left him to work on our new weapons and scabbards, as well as making a gift to him of the knives we’d entered his shop carrying. The two of us now carried our new knives, and he might even find homes and earn a few small copper coins for our old ones. We headed for the bazaar where we purchased new clothing, heavy blankets, hats to shield our faces from the sun, and loose-fitting shirts with arms that hung to our fingers. We were thinking of the hot sun in Kondor although neither of us spoke out loud about it.
There was no doubt Kendra also wanted to cover her new knives with the long sleeves when she wore them. I considered making a few jokes, but she wasn’t in the mood.
As we shopped, Kendra talked with merchants and other shoppers. On the surface, it seemed light and cheerful, simply interacting with the locals. Kendra was not a social person like that, so I searched for and found the reason behind her prattling. She always managed to steer the conversations to the recent deaths in the city. Finally, while examining boots, a woman mentioned a murder that had happened on the road right outside of town. She thought it may have been a mage.
Kendra said absently, “Where are the dead taken in Andover? At home, we have a building where they are prepared for burial.”
“Oh, here we use the old Hall of Justice. It’s right next to the cemetery, so it’s convenient.”
Kendra flashed me a look that told it would be our next place to visit. After obtaining directions, we walked the few blocks to the old Hall of Justice, which conveniently stood next to the new one. We entered and found an old man sitting in a tall, high-back chair, his eyes drooping. When we entered, he woke with a start and asked our business as if we’d intruded on his nap, which we may have.
My role was to follow her lead. Kendra had something in mind and hadn’t yet shared it with me. Not unusual, but at times she had a hard sense of duty. She said to him, “We are searching for a man. He died within the last two days, about thirty years old, and he may have been found on the road leading north.”
“Do you wish to simply inquire or examine the dead?”
“Examine,” she said to my surprise.
He stiffly stood and lumbered through the large open room to a small door while limping heavily on a cane. We passed through and down a flight of stairs where the air temperature fell to a chill. Five bodies lay on the floor, neatly in a row, each covered with a sheet of thin material. He respectfully lifted a corner of the sheet over the first with his cane and reset it. At the third, he lifted the shroud higher and said, “Is this the man you are seeking?”
“It is.” Kendra turned her head away.
“Then you know him, or of him?”
“We do.”
“For our records, and so we might notify family and friends, please stop on your way out and I will make an official record of his name and anything you might share.” He turned and started limping away.
Kendra called after him, “May we examine him?”
“Certainly. But you will not find what you’re looking for.”
With that cryptic remark, he reached the stairs and struggled to climb them one at a time, much like I’d climbed the stone stairs above Mercia. Kendra knelt on the stone floor and removed the cloth. I knelt across from her, thinking I might contribute to her effort. She said, “I see no blood.”
There was none on the front of his body or on his clothing, and no signs of bruising or injury. We rolled him face-down. Again, there was no sign of why he had died. He had been a mage, and that fact brought unwelcome ideas leaping to mind. He had marginally helped us, decided to return to his homeland and have nothing else to do with magic. Now he was dead with no external indications of why he had died. When we had last seen him a few days ago, he appeared as healthy as either of us.