The series never touches on whether the malice-killing sharing knives have to be knives? Would arrowheads be too small to hold the lethal ground needed? If that's the case, why not spears? Can the knives be thrown, as to keep a safer distance from a malice? Given the hidebound attitudes Lakewalkers have to their traditions, it would not be so out of place for Lakewalkers to have simply never considered alternate forms.
- This was actually addressed directly in Horizon: Spears don't offer any advantage over knives in close quarters combat, like the caves and tunnels likely to be malice lairs. And Lakewalkers don't want to use spears (more easily broken in combat) or arrows (not a guaranteed hit) and have a greater risk of losing the bone blade and wasting the sacrifice that made it.
- Exactly. Think about the intense shame and grief involved when a sharing knife is broken accidentally and the bonded death wasted, as happened with Remo in Passage. The Lakewalkers are extremely careful with their blades, and prefer to keep hold of them with their own hands, right up until the moment when they pierce a malice's skin, to forestall any accidental damage. "Carelessly" tossing one around is such a cultural taboo that it took the outside perspective of a group of young farmers to think of a "sharing arrow" and attempt it successfully.
