Longbow

The Yew Rain

She falls on a whole army, and no one knows for whom.The longbow reaches farther than any other thrown weapon, looses faster than a crossbow can be reloaded, and costs only some wood and feather. In return, it lends itself to no one, and it hates the damp that slackens its string. Left strung at rest, its wood takes the set and loses its spring. So the archer keeps his string waxed and dry: the damp is the only enemy he cannot aim at.
The bow shapes its master long before the master holds it. He must start as a child and shoot every day for years, for war bows are drawn at up to two hundred pounds for the hardest. A lifetime of this work leaves its mark in the bones: one shoulder higher than the other, a twisted back, a left arm thickened like a root. You know an old master by his body before you see his bow.
Alone, the master chooses his target. He places an aimed shot every four seconds and plucks a man at ranges where no one yet believes himself in danger. In numbers, he chooses nothing anymore. The archers aim at the air above a company and loose together, two or three arrows in flight before the first comes down. What falls then is a downpour, thick and blind, that neither raised shield nor close rank truly stops. Where the ordinary archer hits a target, the master drowns an army.
Here lies the whole nature of this weapon: you do not take it up, you give it a life, and it returns that life as a rain of iron.