Arrowshot Woman

by Boso Thosengar

I heard this story on good authority from a good and honest friend, whose friend was witness to the incident. I do truly believe it happened, as fantastical as it may seem.

My friend Gaolan was visiting a city in the far-away land of Shedom called Al-Shedim during a very hot summer and went to the marketplace there. You've most likely never been to that city, but the marketplace is very crowded, much more than in the other cities of the desert. People from the regions out of the city flock to the marketplace daily in their wagons and carriages.

Gaolan was passing one such carriage, sweating as a Vengard in heat would do, and noticed that the sole occupant was a dusky woman, seated with her eyes closed and her hands behind her head. An odd sight, to be sure, but he assumed she must be sleeping. Gaolan continued on. A little while later, after Gaolan had finished shopping in the marketplace, he passed the same carriage. The same woman was sitting in it. Her eyes were open now, but her hands were still behind her head.

"Are you all right, my lady?" he asked in broken Shedomite.

"An arrow shot me in my head and I'm holding my brains in," came the woman's reply. Gaolan did not know what to do. He ran into the marketplace, shouting for a healer, and came across a good man who offered to help.

The carriage door had to be torn off its hinges, as the lady had locked it and feared to move to unlock it. What they found when they finally could get into the carriage was this: the woman was holding barley dough on the back of her head with her hands.

Apparently, in the heat of the day, a jar of barley dough had exploded with the thwang of an arrowshot and struck the woman in the back of her head. When she reached back to feel what had hit her, she felt the dough and reasoned that she was feeling her brains.