J?kob was overflowing with excitement by the promise of the ash-stave; sleep never found his eyes. He paced his small room long before the sun dared to touch the horizon, his mind racing with the images of the hunter he might become. He crept to Matáo’s door to rouse his brother, but the Golden Son merely grunted and sent him back to his straw mattress. He promised to fetch the boy only when the morning chores were satisfied. This was a bitter tonic for J?kob to swallow, yet he retreated as he was bid. He lay in the dark, staring at the rafters until his excitement finally blurred into heavy, restorative dreams.
Matáo awoke with the first grey light of daybreak. He moved through the farm with the steady, unthinking rhythm of a man born to labor: he gathered the pale eggs, scattered grain for the chickens, and retreated to the barn to draw the morning milk. Once the pails were foaming and the wood-box was replenished, he finally went to wake his brother. Nìa had prepared a modest traveler’s breakfast of fried ham, eggs, and biscuits heavy with butter. The meal was eaten in a focused silence before the two brothers retreated to the shadowed sanctuary of the barn to begin their work.
Matáo gathered the tools of the trade: the draw-knife, the rasps, and the fine-edged chisels. He then handed the stave to J?kob. The boy held the wood as if it were a holy relic; he realized in that moment that he possessed no true inkling of how to begin. He had watched their father work the wood in the years before the sickness, but those memories were like smoke in his mind. He turned to Matáo, his voice humble.
“Where is the first cut?”
“We begin at the heart,” Matáo replied, gesturing to the center of the stave. “The grip is the soul of the weapon; the rest of the limb must follow its lead.”
J?kob could recall the feel of his old bow, but the exact shape of the handle escaped him. He asked to see Matáo’s personal weapon as a guide. While his brother went to fetch it, J?kob set about finding the center of his own wood. He used a straight-edge to mark an ‘X’ across the grain, finding the true pivot-point of the ash. When Matáo returned, J?kob studied the grip of the larger bow. It was built for a man’s hand, far too thick for J?kob’s slender fingers, but it provided the blueprint he needed. Matáo left him then, trusting the boy to find the shape of the wood on his own.
It took the better part of the day. J?kob worked with a feverish, agonizing slowness; he was terrified that a single over-zealous stroke of the knife would ruin two years of seasoning. He ignored the midday call for food, his world shrinking until it consisted only of the scent of shaved ash and the silver gleam of the blade. By the time the sun began to dip, his palms were a map of raw blisters and red-hot soreness, but the handle was shaped. He presented the work to Matáo, who studied the curves with a critical, silent eye before offering a nod of genuine approval.
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“What follows the handle?” J?kob asked, his voice weary but bright.
“What follows is the feast,” Matáo replied. “A craftsman who starves his body will eventually starve his work.”
They returned to the house to find Nìa finishing a meal of roast beef, carrots, and potatoes pulled from the autumn soil. Over the steam of the meat, they discussed the tapering of the limbs and the delicate balance of the wood. Afterward, they sat in the cooling night air, watching the stars pierce the velvet sky of Echo before the chill drove them toward their beds.
The following days were a test of endurance. They rose early to dispatch their chores so that every spare hour could be sacrificed to the wood-shop. J?kob watched with wide-eyed reverence as Matáo took up the heavy chisel to remove the excess bulk of the limbs; every stroke was a master-class in woodwork, the shavings falling like pale ribbons around their boots. Once the rough shape was achieved, they moved to the smaller blades, working with a surgical slowness to ensure the limbs were symmetrical.
By the third morning, the bow looked like a weapon, but it remained as straight and stubborn as a fence-post. Matáo chuckled at J?kob’s concern. “We have carved the body, little brother. Now we must give it a spine. We must steam the wood until it learns to bend.”
Matáo spent the morning constructing a steam-box of cedar with a hinged lid and leather tubes that channeled the breath of a boiling pot. He fashioned a jig: a complex frame of pegs and adjustable half-moons, to hold the bow in its new, curved posture. Once the fire was lit and the water began to hiss, the air in the barn grew thick and humid.
For days, J?kob became the guardian of the flame. It was his task to ensure the pot never ran dry and the fire never faltered. He added wood and water through the days and woke at intervals throughout the nights, his excitement acting as a shield against his exhaustion. Every twelve hours, they would tighten the jig, coaxing the softened ash into a deep, lethal curve.
While the wood sat in its humid prison, J?kob sat by the fire and began the tedious work of fletching arrows. Matáo worked beside him, braiding high-tension strings from gut and silk. On the fifth day, they finally doused the fire and opened the box to let the wood dry. They used the remaining coals to provide a low, constant heat, ensuring the bow dried slowly so the grain wouldn't crack.
On the final night of the cure, while J?kob slept the heavy sleep of the truly spent, Matáo returned to the shop alone. He took up a fine-pointed needle-file and worked until the first light of dawn, adding a secret flourish to the handle.
The next morning, J?kob prepared a dark stain from crushed walnut skins and poke-berry juice. As he rubbed the mixture into the grain, the wood began to glow with a deep, rich luster. It was then that he saw it. Carved into the heart of the grip, wrapping around the handle and snaking up the lower limb, was the unmistakable form of a dragon. Its scales were meticulously detailed; it looked as though it were ready to breathe fire the moment the string was pulled.
J?kob applied two coats of sealant, his heart hammering with pride. While he slept that night, Matáo performed the final service; he fitted the string and placed the finished bow, along with a quiver of new arrows, beside J?kob’s bed.
The boy woke to the sight of his own strength made manifest in wood and string. He was no longer just the survivor of a sickness; he was a hunter of Echo, armed with Dragon’s Heart.
