”No saw teeth,” Margo repeated.
”The Bowie is an excellent survival knife. it’s strong enough to use for camp chores like cutting small branches for firewood if you don’t have a hand axe. The blade’s thick enough to use as a prybar without too much risk of snapping the tip off. Unfortunately, it has drawbacks as a fighting knife, such as sheer size, lack of a second sharp edge all the way back to the guard, not to mention its worst drawback: its anachronistic as hell most places or times you’d end up in. But you’ll learn to use one because we’re being thorough.”
”Okay.”
”This, he unsheathed a beautiful, perfectly symmetrical blade some eight inches in length, “is a leaf-point or spear point dagger. The shape is exactly the same as ancient spear points, even the Roman short sword, the gladius. Unlike the gladius, it’s. small enough and sharp enough along both edges to make a nearly perfect fighting knife. It’ll slash the hell out of anything you cut with it. And it’s thin enough and symmetrical enough to make a beautiful stabbing point, although the point isn’t strong and it may snap off. A bodkin or stiletto,” he drew out a thing like a knitting needle or an ice pick with slim grips, “is a perfect stabbing weapon, designed to stab through the links of chain-mail armor. Its use is limited, however, to stabbing.”
He put away the blades he’d shown her so far.
”Now, something that’s neither Bowie nor leaf-point is the world-famous Randall #1.” He slipped a glittering ten-inch blade from a worn sheathe. “Some people will tell you it’s a modified Bowie. Bo Randall, who invented it back before World War II, pointed out rightly that the shape of this second edge is nothing at all like a Bowie. It’s straight, not curved. He didn’t design it as a Bowie and he took great exception to having his knife classified as a Bowie. This is one of the best all-around fighting knives ever made. Again, the problem you have is the anachronistic shape for most of history.”