Ash Arrow

A weapon tipped with ash wood, one of the few things that can kill a faerie.

The ash arrow is the mortal world's great equalizer, a simple thing that carries the weight of centuries of fear and war. It is not enchanted, not blessed, not forged in any fire but the common hearth—and that is precisely why it works. Against a faerie, an ash arrow pierces flesh that iron alone cannot reach, and the wound it leaves does not heal.

Appearance

A slender shaft of pale, almost white wood, fletched with dark feathers—crow or raven, usually—and tipped with a head of cold iron or sharpened bone. The wood itself seems to drink the light, and the grain runs straight and tight, as if the tree that gave it grew in a hurry to escape something.

Also known as: Ash Shaft, White Arrow, Mortal's Mercy, Faerie-Bane Bolt

What They Know

Ash wood is one of the three substances—along with cold iron and faebane—that can wound or kill a faerie, and it is the only one that can be shaped into a projectile that flies true.
The Treaty signed after the last War forbade the fae from crossing the Wall to harm mortals, but it did not forbid mortals from making ash arrows—and they have never stopped.
An ash arrow does not need to be enchanted to kill a High Fae; the wood itself carries a property that unravels fae flesh, and a shot to the heart or head is almost always fatal.
The best ash arrows are cut from trees that grow in the shadow of the Wall itself, where the magic of the fae lands seeps into the soil and makes the wood harder and more potent.
Mortal queens and lords south of the Wall keep caches of ash arrows in their armories, and a single arrow can fetch a price that feeds a village for a winter.

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