Hand crossbow

The Confidante

She hides beneath a coat and settles what words could not.The hand crossbow is shot with a single hand, hides beneath a coat, and fires before the gesture is even seen, where any other weapon is noticed from afar. In return, it carries only one bolt, strikes short and weak, and frightens no one once revealed.
No weapon drags a worse name behind it. It is carried to kill without risk, at point-blank range, in the back or under the table, where the other can neither see the blow coming nor answer it. It is the weapon of poison and of the smile, the one kept beneath a coat to close a bargain or settle a grudge, and every man of the sword despises it as the mark of a coward. So it is banned in many cities: carrying it at the gates can cost a hand, using it against a person of rank, the rope. This has never stopped those who live by it, since it was never made to be seen. Whoever masters it spans it without a sound, foot in the stirrup or with a small lever, carries it ready under the fold of a coat, and draws it only at the last instant: a greeting, an embrace, an offered hand, and the shot leaves within the same motion.
There is a smaller one still, which owes everything to the halflings, who have never made a single one. Their clockmakers can shrink a mechanism beyond what seems possible, but for automatons and toys; it was human armorers who took those marvels apart and drew from them crossbows so slender they sit under a man's wrist, hidden by a sleeve, released by a simple bend of the arm. Whoever owns one never boasts of it: a weapon hidden so well leaves no doubt about its bearer's intent, and its discovery alone is enough to hang him.
Here lies the whole nature of this weapon: the others speak loudly, this one whispers once, and it is over.