Work Text:
Excerpt from The Eagle of the Ninth:
Marcus had already turned to the hunter, for that other spear had caught his interest, and been in his mind even while he made his choice.
It was to the rest of the sheaf what a king is to his bodyguard; the shaft darkened with much handling, the iron blade perfect in shape as a laurel leaf, engraved with a strange and potent design that swirled like the eddies in running water. The weight of the head was counterbalanced by a ball of enamelled bronze on the butt, and about its neck was a collar of blue-grey heron's feathers.
'I have not seen the like of this before,' Marcus said. 'It is a war spear, is it not?'
Cradoc's hand caressed the smooth shaft. 'It was my father's war spear,' he said. 'It was in his hand when he died - up yonder under our old ramparts where the fortress walls stand now. See, the mark is still upon it ... his own blood, and the blood of his enemy.'
He parted the heron's feathers to show the neck of the shaft blackened by an old stain.
