Wes went deeper, past furnaces where men still shoveled coal, even as the city fell down around them. They paused in their work to watch Wes pass. I could not see their eyes behind soot-fogged goggles, but I knew they were watching me. I could feel the awe and the envy. The curse at work.
We found the enormous iron vault that was the heart. Lava spewed from it like the arteries of a real heart. It beat like a real heart too, just like the one pounding in Wes’ chest. Before he could lose his nerve, he swung me at it.
It sang a dead song, familiar and static and so unlike me. My blade bounced off.
Wes squinted at it. I had scratched the surface. A weakness that could be beaten into submission.
“It will take repetition, but I can do it.”
“Good.”
He swung me again and again and I made sure to hit the same exact point again and again.
Slowly the scratch became a dent and then a gash. I was filled with grim purpose. It was an enemy, just like the Brinn. Just a shield to batter down.
“Master smith?” the nearest coal shoveler asked Wes. “What are you doing?”
“Destroying this sword.”
The shoveler appeared dubious. “It looks more like you are trying to destroy the Forgeheart, sir.”
“Aye, I am doing that too.”
“But…” the man reeled back. “That would destroy the whole quarter.”
“And all the Brinn in it,” Wes said with a gritty glee.
“And everyone else too!” the man cried. “Sir, that is madness.” He tried to pull him away from the forge, but Wes whirled around, waving me about.
“They shall die anyway. This will be quicker. What does it matter to you?”
The man’s horror morphed into fury. “You speak of the annihilation of my family and dare to ask what does it matter!” He brandished his shovel. “I will not let them burn for a madman’s delusion.”
“Come no closer,” Wes warned. “I wield the last blade this forge shall ever make. All your effort through the long months of this siege had been for this one weapon. Do not come closer.”
“No! Please Wes, don’t.” The shoveler stepped forward and Wes swung. I could not stop him. To my relief, the man parried with his shovel. I could have cut through it if I chose to, but I didn’t.
Wes knew that.
“Bonesong, aid me!”
“I’m not going to help you kill Datrean innocents.”
Now Wes was afraid. I could not stop him, yes, but I could choose not to help him, and without me, he was just a small steelsinger with no experience against a giant.
“Was this your plan all along?” Wes spat. “Delay me with a false desire for penance."
“My sentiments are sincere.” I was offended. “I was cutting an impenetrable vault, was I not?
“Then prove it! You’re willing to blow this man up, but not cut him down yourself?”
I was not sure I could blow him up now that I saw him, now that I had a face to the random innocents we would be sacrificing. The shoveler was a weathered man. Broad and bold, yet wrinkled and rough. I did not want to kill him.
“That’s what I thought.” Wes laughed. “If that is how it is then I will take you with me.”
Without warning, he threw himself into the lava clutching me close.
Flesh melted faster than my blade. My father’s songs woven in my steel left me untouched just long enough to feel the slow agony of Wes’ death.
I reeled from his absence, but perhaps it was right of me to die alongside my final remaining maker. It was what I told myself as I sank deeper and nearer to oblivion.
Then the man I had refused to kill fished me out with his shovel. Despite drowning in lava just moments before, I did not burn his hand when he grasped my handle.
Erjed.
I knew his name as we were bound together. “Erjed,” I said. “Listen to me—”
He yelped, dropping me in startlement. “Oh! When the smith talked to you, I thought he had gone mad.” He hastily picked me up. “Are you truly the last sword of Master Daened?”
“Yes. He made me so that any who held me could be a nigh undefeatable warrior, which is why I must ask you to wield me against the Brinn—”
“You can cut through the Brinn?”
“Yes.”
A reckless hope suddenly seized Erjed; it was so intense it gave me pause. So far, I had been passed around by despairing smiths certain of their imminent deaths. This…this hope was new.
I liked it.
“You understand? We need to confront the Brinn and—”
“Get my family out of the city,” Erjed said. He was already making for the exit.
“Abandon the city?” I was horrified. “But I need to protect Datrea.
“Datrea is the people, sword. The walls and streets don’t matter if we’re all dead.”
Datrea was the people. It was a new concept for me. Now that I thought about it: my love of the city came from my love for my makers. They had been the only part of the city I had ever known.
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And I had wanted to save them, just as Erjed wanted to save his family.
I could not fault him.
“Wes said that people were escaping through the palace tunnels.”
“Then I’ll take them there.”
He went back the way Wes had come, passing fellow coal shovelers. They abandoned their work to follow us.
“Jed, did you just take a sword from a smith?”
“That madman tried to destabilize the heart and annihilate the quarter. When he failed, he gave himself to the lava and left this sword.”
“Can I see?”
Erjed recoiled. He explained away his aggressive rejection with his need for haste, but I knew a symptom of my curse when I saw it. I knew, even if Erjed did not, that he would fight this entire room before he handed me over.
Many soot-covered faces were frowning, and I was nervous. I did not want to cause another Datrean massacre
“What’s the rush, Jed?”
“I’m going to cut a swathe through the Brinn to reach my wife and daughter. I have to try to take my family out of Datrea. You’re all welcome to join me to try for the same.”
After a tense moment, the men nodded. They all joined and to my relief, did not argue about me further. The curse did have limits, I realized. Mine was a slow-acting poison. My makers’ long exposure and suicidal mindset made them easy prey, but these men did not want to die for glory and have their names remembered for the ages.
They just wanted their families to live. So long as I was serving that end, they would not fight over who got to hold me.
Even so.
“That was lucky,” I told him. “You should not parade me in front of people you don’t intend to kill. I am cursed to be desired by all who see me.”
Erjed grunted. “It’s not my fault you didn’t come with a sheathe.”
It was true, of course. He was forced to hold me as he climbed upstairs out of the forge. To my shameful joy, he used a different entrance than the smiths, which meant I didn’t have to see the butchered remains of my family again.
I did not want to have to explain that to my new wielder regardless.
Our group came out onto the street. It was chaos. Screams were louder than the songs woven into the stone streets. People were running. Brinn were everywhere, looting and burning everything they saw.
I felt Erjed’s terror. “Stay calm,” I told him. “I will protect you.”
He took a breath to steel himself. “Stay together,” he told the group following him. “And whatever you do, keep near me. The sword is…apparently going to protect us.”
Before he could convince himself otherwise, he charged down the street, his fellows brandishing shovels behind him.
Raiding Brinn turned to head our group off and there was panic. Erjed was panicking, and I was nervous. A tall Brinn, curly hair already matted in blood, came at us. With Mona, control had been effortless by the time we faced the Brinn. Now, I would have to face a seasoned warrior when my command over my wielder was so weak.
Erjed swung wildly. The Brinn tried to punish the sloppy form, but I adjusted just in time to parry.
It was a struggle though. Erjed’s muscles were fighting me.
“Relax. Let me help you.”
To his credit, he tried. It was stiff, but I managed to direct the exchange. Erjed was strong, bulky, and tall for a man of Datrea. The Brinn was taller, but he was lankier, and I did my best to exploit that every chance I got.
The fight was seconds long. It felt like an age to me—an eternity of little adjustments and little power plays, culminating in severing the Brinn soldier’s neck in two.
The corpse’s memories and life flowed into me, but I ignored the taste to feel how my grip on Erjed grew stronger with proper blood now on his hands.
Erjed didn’t notice; he was already moving on to the next Brinn in his path, but I noticed. Killing the next one was easier and the next was even easier than that. Erjed swung where I bid and I marveled at how different it felt to Mona.
Mona’s carnage had been suicidal, fueled by the fires of despair, vengeance, and fury. Erjed was fighting to live and to reach a specific destination. He burned with fear, focus and desperation.
Every battle was charged with panic; every fight was too long; every fight was keeping him from reaching his family’s home.
We fought through street after street, helping Erjed’s fellow shovelers reach their homes when they happened to be on the way.
I knew Erjed’s home the moment he saw it. It was a stone hovel that looked like everyone else’s and I knew immediately it was the one.
I could taste his terror when we realized the Brinn were ransacking it.
Erjed sprinted to the door. His wife was butchered at his feet and his blind fury consumed me. The next thing I knew, I had slaughtered everyone in that room. The taste of their lives felt bitter when Erjed was barely even seeing them fall.
“Malinda!” he called, searching for someone. “ Malinda!” He was opening cupboards and looking behind doors. “Demons below, girl, answer me!” He was panicking; he was despairing.
“Papa?”
A small head of dark hair popped out of a discreet chest.
Erjed’s daughter.
His love for her eclipsed everything. It was bigger and greater and more precious than anything I had ever known in my short existence. I was swept away by it. All at once, she was as good as my daughter. I would kill for her, be unmade for her, anything to keep her safe.
“Don’t let your daughter see me! I don’t want to curse her.”
Erjed laughed bitterly. “That’s unlikely.”
“Do not take my curse lightly!” I cried. “My makers were all destroyed because of it.”
“I am taking it seriously,” he said placatingly, but I could feel him laughing at me.
Malinda emerged from her hiding place and I could see why.
The girl—now my little girl, as far as I was concerned—had no eyes in her sockets, just eerie holes.
“What happened to her?” I cried.
Erjed rushed to her side. “We had to sacrifice her eyes in the tithe to the Demon Zaukket.”
“What? Why?”
“Who are you talking to?” Malinda asked, sightless and lost.
Erjed held me in one hand to help her out of her hiding spot. “A magical talking sword.”
“Really? Can I see?” She reached out her hand.
“Don’t let her touch me!”
I forced Erjed’s arm to hold her back. It was my first real display of just how much power I now had over him, and I felt his wariness. “Don’t do that, sword. I wasn’t going to let her touch you.” His voice softened for Malinda. “It’s sharp, sweet thing. You’d cut yourself.”
“Or worse. My father says I will doom anyone who holds me. Keep me away from her.”
Erjed swallowed, gripped with dread. “Me included?”
“It is my mission to prevent that.”
Malinda was frowning in her father’s silence. “Are you going to be alright, Papa?”
“Yes,” he soothed, even though I could feel that his dread had not diminished. “Everything is going to be alright. Mama is—”
“Dead,” the girl said bluntly. “I heard her screaming.”
“Yes.” Erjed paused, at a loss on how to comfort her. “But right now we have to focus on getting out of here.” He heaved her onto his back so that he could have both hands free for me. “The sword says we can get out through the Palace of Songs.”
Malinda wrapped her little arms around her father's neck. “That’s where important spellsingers are. They will let us in?”
He arched his eyebrow at me. “They will let us in because we have you, right?”
“I don’t know. I manifested into full consciousness barely an hour ago.”
I was startled at the horror that Erjed felt at my words. “Demons below, you’re practically an infant.”
I felt him pity me, although I didn’t understand why.
“The child here is on your back, not in your hand,” I said. “She is what matters. Whatever happens, I will get Malinda out of the city. This I vow to you.”
Erjed’s dread faded, replaced by resolve.
“Whatever it takes?”
“Whatever it takes.”
Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate all the support I have gotten during the transition to move this story to Royal Road. Do tell me what you think! I love comments and often respond to them
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What should be Bonesong's priority?
