The worn and weary warrior stumbled past the prostrate worshipers toward their bloody god. His sword felt heavy. It was, perhaps, the one piece of his armament he’d managed to maintain. Its keen edge and ready gleam in the green firelight held a memory of that promising young knight who’d set out in fine armor and with finer ideals. His shield was gone now, and with it the images of his heraldry, replaced with a sturdy buckler that, wrapped tightly round his arm by a long scrap of leather he’d stolen, held the broken bones in place.
Though all else had fallen away, been broken, been replaced, the sword remained, polished, cared for, ready; the sword and the swordsman.
The mad priest came at him with the dagger, the blade still dripping with the victim’s blood, and with nothing more than a glance at the aged murderer, the knight’s sword flicked in a short arc. The priest fell down dead, and his god lent a free tentacle to the task of wrapping around the still warm ankle and dragging the bleeding corpse toward one of its mouths.
Come to me, it seemed to say with a whispering voice inside the knight’s head. I have seen many knights better than you die within me, and wiser knights flee. Broken hero, you are too late. Your love is gone, your promise failed. I am the god of darkness, and no light will help you. Despair and die.
But despair, the knight had tasted that sin ere now, and he had despaired of its succulent promise. Though “Nevermore” screamed in his ears, he lifted his sword and swung, a wild swing, caring nothing for reserve or strategy, only skill, taught him by long and painful lessons, that the sharp and ready edge should fall true and that all the force of his body and soul should drive that cleaving blade through the monster these people worshiped.
Into the darkness the sword fell, sinking deeply into the blubbery rot. The darkness screamed as fire erupted from the wound, a pale, luminous blaze as bright as the sun which bathed the shadowy chamber and worshipers in a blinding light.
Their weird, green fires retreated into darkened coals, and the false images died under the brilliant truth. Behind the night, the worshipers shrieked. He was wresting his sword from the god’s shivering mass, readying a second blow as they all rose to their feet. They rushed toward their altar, shrieking a desperate and incomprehensible cry as the sword fell again.
Again, a rift, and new light dawning, and under this fatal light, their flesh dissolved like the memories of a dream.
The knight leaned into a third, mighty blow, stumbling forward, blinking and half blind, but there was nothing left of the creature he’d killed. The sun was before him, rising, and he saw that he stood in a great wreckage, a ruin of someplace that nature had long ago covered in moss and vines. He turned from the light of the sun and saw behind him a field of bones, bleached white.
He sighed, shivering as a cold breeze passed over the fallen stones. It was a cold world, but he smiled and welcomed the new day.
Tale Told 