The Sheath

The Sheath

“We searched him three times at the door.”
A chamberlain, after the feast

What it is

A lord had it made because he had to stand unarmed before his peers, at treaties and at feasts, without ever truly being so. The arms on the breastplate are those of his house. It is the work of two hands. The armorer Master Aldric Fallow spent seven years finishing it: bull hide boiled three times in wax, steel scales riveted one by one onto a lined canvas, brass fittings. The enchanter who made it able to enter a body left his name in no ledger. It obeys whoever wears it when the word is spoken, whoever that may be.

What it does

It protects like a far heavier suit of plate. On a moving man, the scales slide over one another without a clink, and the leather never creaks. At the word “Intus,” it presses against its wearer and sinks into his flesh like warm water, in a few heartbeats. What remains on his skin is a pattern of scales, slightly darker and warm to the touch, running from neck to wrists, and his clothes go on over it. At the word “Foris,” it comes back out and closes around him in a single breath, belt buckled. A search by touch finds nothing. Only a search that strips him bare gives it away, through the pattern under the skin.