Glories Past

To the patrons, it was just a sword. A slab of dark metal that hung above the hearth, its nicks and grooves illuminated from beneath by the ochre flame that blossomed amidst the lumps of coal every evening, when the townsfolk slumped in from the fields and mercenaries paused their quests in search of food and board. On occasion one of the mercenaries might comment on the archaic design, but only as a passing curiosity, in much the same way they might remark about an odd-shaped cloud that resembled a war-pachyderm, or a collection of rocks stacked in what once might have been some ancient cairn.

To Ruther, the sword was indeed a cairn: a relic from glories past, denoting the great landmarks of his life’s geography. The soaring peaks of his victories over the Partridge Lord and the Cauling Wilds, the low gully of his incarceration in Blackmarsh, the jagged plains of his long years as a sell-sword. But as time had passed, those landmarks had faded, until they were little more than odd-shaped clouds themselves. And there was only Ruther to remark upon them. Old, haggard Ruther, as faded as his victories, if not yet quite as forgotten.

It did not trouble him most nights. He contented himself behind the bar, polishing the steins so that they, at least, remained clear and dragging another barrel from the cellar when thirsty patrons drained the pervious one. But like his arthritis when he polished the steins, or his alchemically-wrought pseudo-spine when he dragged barrels up, there were the occasional flashes. His joints would sear, his back would twitch involuntarily. And the prowess he had once possessed would leave his hands trembling for the weight of his sword and his ears ringing with the distant sounds of battle.

In the early days of his retirement, Ruther had shuffled over to the hearth whenever those pangs overtook so that he might take his blade in hand once more. Just to let the grip rest in his palm and hear the edge swim through the air. For a few years he had managed to stagger around the hall of his tavern, swinging clumsy, overbearing strokes and tripping over his worn sandals. Slowly his strength had seeped even further from him, leaving his form as frail and drained as a rotten wooden bucket. Then came the day when his palms looked more gnarled and leathery than the grip of his blade. The two had never touched since.

Like his glories, time had slowly faded the ache in his chest too.

The evening had started out as all the rest that month. Sun set and the lone men, having little elsewhere to go, found themselves seats near the bar and bought themselves frothed pints of cider made from the apples they had probably helped pick that harvest. It was enough to keep the tavern’s costs managed, but Ruther would have admitted to feeling a breath of relief slip from his tired lungs as the rune carved across the front door chimed and four armoured men sauntered in. Mercenaries were liberal with their drinking, and that meant they were liberal with their coin.

Ruther was slowly working out the sums in his head for the profit he might make off the mercenaries for drink and lodging when it caught his eye. A blush. Searing red across three of their cheeks that seemed to glow with its own furious glare when their faces were turned from the hearth. It was a summer’s eve beyond the thick stone walls of the tavern, the muggy, close, moist-ridden air slowly cooling beneath the moon’s icy watch.

He knew what it was. Gut instinct. The one thing that had never faded. He could have identified what breed of dragon made that kreening siren blare fifty years ago, and he could tell what narcotic was blistering its way through those mercenaries’ veins now. He didn’t need to be sitting with his regulars as the sell-swords loomed over them with mocking tones and menacing looks to smell the cinnamon stench on their breath, or see the twisting ropes of blood in their eyes. He just knew.

Fire-moss.

‘If’n you boys ent round here to cool yer embers, I’ll be askin’ for youse to leave.’ Even through cracked, yellowed and missing teeth, there was still steel in Ruther’s voice. The fact that his fingers were brushing the trigger of the crossbow he kept beneath the counter probably leant some strength to his words.

One mercenary, tall and wiry with a rapier dangling from his lip, looked up an over at him. ‘Quiet, sandstone. We’re looking for some actual sport.’ He gave a grating chuckle, like a jagged shard of glass scouring over bone, and patted one of the regular’s shoulders. ‘Strapping farming stock, you know?’

‘I ent lettin’ youse go burnin’ up in my tavern.’

The rapier-man didn’t even look up this time. ‘I said quiet, old man. You’re not worth the effort of fighting.’

Ruther didn’t need to be fast. He just needed to be accurate. Or damn lucky. He wasn’t sure which resulted in the crossbow bolt finding itself jammed into the rapier-man’s leg, but he didn’t question or complain. He just reloaded and trained it between the man’s eyes.

‘You’ll be forgivin’ me if I ent extendin’ the same courtesy.’

The situation lurched. One of the rapier-man’s comrades, a large brute with fists the size of mallets, and a mallet the size of a small sheep, lunged towards the bar. He was a boulder: large and unwieldy, but full of a terrifying momentum that crushed down upon Ruther. And, also like a boulder, he was entirely unfazed by the bolt Ruther unloaded into his shoulder.

The situation lurched again, Ruther’s sense of time and everything else blurring as he was hauled over the bar and launched onto the table. Still reeling from the fastest he’d been made to move in years, Ruther could do nothing as the brute pinned him to the table, and a gore-drenched arrowhead was brandished inches from his face.

‘Okay, now you’re going to make good sport,’ the rapier-man snarled, pupils dilated so wide with rage and fire-moss that between his eyelids there was only black, white and increasing amounts of red. He opened his mouth, presumably to threaten Ruther some more, but with a heavy crack there grew a halo of splinters and wooden fragments around his head. He slumped to the side, staggering into the path of the brute and revealing one of Ruther’s regulars standing behind with the remnants of the upper half of a chair clutched in shaking hands.

Filled with desperate strength, and aided by the brute’s distraction, Ruther managed to scrabble off the table but found himself tripping and slipping over the detritus of the chair beneath his feet. Knees and palms jarred against the cold flagstones of the hearth and a blunt ache of impact rippled along his lips, but as Ruther struggled to stand everything stopped. The tavern fell silent, the mercenaries fell still. The pain, the ache, the tiredness, the age… They all evaporated. For a brief, beautiful moment all the long, worn years of retirement were cast into an oubliette and left to languish.

There, hanging above the hearth, its nicks and grooves illuminated from beneath by the ochre flame, was his sword. He couldn’t see the wrinkles when his hand closed around the grip, and although the weapon dragged his arm down with its weight, it didn’t matter. Yes, it was heavy, but it was strong too, and still sharp.

Ruther’s tired lungs managed to force out a grunt of exertion as he raised his sword. To either side stood his regulars and across from him snarled the mercenaries, the fire-moss searing every last nerve in their bodies with bloodlust. And it didn’t matter that they were hopelessly outclassed either. Because even if this was his last fight, Ruther was happy. The sword had been his cairn, marking every high and low on the long trail of his life. Having it mark the end… Yes, he was happy with that.

Because maybe, just maybe, when they cleared away the broken bodies and smashed tables, they’d find his sword and realise that it was more than just an old blade. That it had always been much, much more.

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