My Brother, the Blade

by Dreux Amgard

''This tale I wrote about a famed warrior from Holden called Angar, who has been convicted to an existence behind the dreaded Barrier of King Wulfgar. His exploits are renowned throughout the kingdom, and I was fortunate enough to have been allowed several conversations with the man before his final judgement.'' Angar barged through the door and knocked it hard against the wall. The metal bar lock flipped out of its switch and was sent swirling about the room. Oric got up from his chair and flipped the table over. Two tankards flew off and sprayed ale across the walls. Oric was sweaty like a dog, and the mail he wore was rusty and worn. “There you are, you bastard,” Angar gasped, drawing heaving breaths of air into his lungs. They burned like a forge gone wild.

Oric’s lackey got up as well. Thin and wiry, with a slimy looking moustache drooping off the sides of his crusty lips. “Look what the cat dragged in.” A cold breeze swept past Angar’s shoulders from the back, snow falling off his bald pate as he weighed the two.

“An ugly son of a bitch, that’s for sure,” Oric said, looking at Angar. “Come to get me? Shame it has to be here,” he said, waving his hand about the room. It was nothing more than a cramped hovel over by the edge of the Commons, where good folk didn’t stray for fear of assault or worse. “Ah. Don’t matter where we die though, does it?” A candlestick fell off the fireplace. Oric flinched.

“I’ve been looking for you far and wide.” Angar stood up straight, the sword in his hand glinting in the light cast by the open fire behind his targets. Their shadows spilled across the floor. He had been yearning for this moment so much that he almost wanted to strike at them. Cut them in half, just like Oric had done to so many. But they were too far, and his blade wanted to taste more than just shadows.

Lackey drew his dagger. Oric picked a nasty looking cudgel with a sharp point off the table and gripped it tightly, knuckles taut and white with pressure. He blinked slowly, pig eyes glinting in the wild as if caught doing something bad.

“I’m here now. But let’s not figh-” he croaked as Angar leapt forward and swept his sword from left to right. The tip of his blade scratched across the wall. Oric yelled in pain as the sword cleaved through his throat, the edge cutting his flesh clean through and drawing streaks of dark and bubbling blood.

Lackey edged close and aimed for a stab. Angar’s left hand let go of its sword grip and shot forward, grabbing Lackey’s wrist. He twisted the dagger out of his hands with a practiced flick and then shoved him across the room with a powerful push.

Oric grunted, swinging the cudgel limply at Angar. It slammed into his ribs, the tip puncturing his skin and drawing a grunt and a bead of blood. By the time that he had done it, Angar grabbed Oric by the shoulder and decisively pulled him into his blade. Their faces got close as the blade united them. Angar could smell Oric’s acrid last breath. When the damage was done, Angar pushed him off. He collapsed onto the ground and bled like a pig. Lackey got up and waved his dagger around.

Angar raised his sword and positioned it over the crown of his head. “Get out of here.” Lackey’s resolve broke and he ran for the door. Angar cut through his artery as he ran past, caking the walls in even more than just drink. He gurgled and slid across the floor, his head sticking out of the doorway.

Angar wiped his sword on the dead man’s tunic and sheathed it. Then he took a deep breath and sat down on the floor, all hard-packed dirt underneath him. His back hurt where he had once taken an arrow, and now the pain started speaking to him. The pain of bygone memories, clawing their way out of his skin. Sometimes he felt as if the tip of the arrow was still deeply embedded into his flesh, the sharp edges occasionally slicing him so as to punish him for all that he had done. He started feeling it now, but cleared his thoughts as he had taught himself to do all those years ago. There was nothing more left to do now except to live.

It was all in the past now, what he had struggled with for so many years. Part of him did not feel as if he deserved his rest yet, that there was still something left to do. His instinct compelled him to draw his whetstone and set it to work upon his blade, to prepare yet again for the tumultuous series of events that was his life. His muscles twitched in anticipation of fictitious battles to come, even though he knew that this was supposed to be the last. But it never was. That’s what life taught Angar over and over again, and he’d consider himself a fool not to learn from his mistakes.

The weariness set in. His strength, his vigor, now sapped and weakened by fatigue, did not offer Angar as much confidence as it had done this morning when he woke up. He had travelled the kingdom thrice over and had encountered all manners of monsters - whether in the form of men or creatures - and had survived through many more battles than he would have ever imagined. He had always said that death does not want to meet him. Yet he feared that it would, sooner or later. He feared it the most now, kneeling in Oric’s cramped hut. He had just cut down the last tattered strip of his purpose. What if death would claim him now, when he had earned his right to rest?

“It is finished,” he told himself, desperately trying to reaffirm his hope. “It is done.” Perhaps it was truly the time to set down the blade and throw away the whetstone. “I have seen too much,” he said, his severe voice faint, and closed his eyes, falling into a dreamy haze darkened by his worried thoughts.