Infantry in the Middle Ages heavy toll on the English invaders of their lands. Adapted by the English, the longbow was nevertheless a difficult weapon to master, requiring long years of use and practice. Even bow construction was extended, sometimes taking as much as four years for seasoned staves to be prepared and shaped for final deployment. A skilled longbowman could shoot 12 arrows a minute, a rate of fire superior to competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons. The nearest competitor to the longbow was the much more expensive crossbow or Arbalest, used often by urban militias and mercenary forces. It required
The Soft Weapon a Kzinti restraint field to fail, allowing Jason and Nessus to escape with the weapon. While free, Jason manages to discover a hidden setting for a matter-to-energy conversion beam, which is far more powerful than anything possessed by either human or Kzinti. Although Nessus remains free, Jason and the weapon are recaptured by the Kzinti. The Kzinti, desperate to know how to access the hidden setting, threaten Jason's wife in an attempt to get him to divulge it, but he refuses. Her life is spared when the device, which is intelligent (and loyal to its long-extinct Tnuctipun masters), begins to