Swords with Souls
A Medieval Fantasy Fiction Story
By Dan Watt
(Author of BARD series)
(Author of the Plagueborn series)
– Adult content –
The Sword Maker’s Shop
Lara sits atop Aminah swatting bugs away as they follow an old path full of roots. There’s just enough room for the carnival wagon. On either side is a forest that walls off a bog, but not the smell. Occasionally, there’s a rickety house on stilts. Faces peer out windows but no one comes out. “Why would anyone want to live here?” she asks out loud but no replies.
They come to a slat board bridge with thick ropes for rails.
“We must walk from here,” Haashir says with a deep and distant voice. “The rest of the caravan will watch over the horses.”
Lara slaps a mosquito off her bare arm, much to Endellion’s amusement. “Your hood doesn’t hide your malicious smirk,” Lara snaps.
“Let me help you with this problem,” she hears Endellion say as the girl saunters up to her. From a pocket in her light blue cloak, Endellion pulls out a ceramic jar with a glass lid. She dabs two fingers in the jar and begins rubbing a cool ointment onto Lara’s arm. In a whisper Lara hears Endellion say, “If you decide men are no good, I could rub this all over you.”
Lara shoves Endellion back. “Give it,” she demands.
“Sister than,” Endellion says with an amused chuckle as she passes Lara the jar.
As she crosses the swinging bridge, she notices the bog thins into marsh. The farther the bridge goes the more alder, aspen, and beech sprout out of the sediment rich water. The bridge becomes surrounded by great reedmace and reedbeds. Finally, the bridge ends on rich soil covered in bladderwort and common reed. A barely visible path leads through willow and poplar trees to an open area covered in purple loosestrife with patches of ragged robin. Beyond is an open river or lake. The land to either side is made up of rolling hills. One of the nearby hills looks like the section closest to the river has been cleaved off with a mound attached to it it’s base. Whisps of smoke puff out of the mound. As she walks closer, she realizes the mound is an abode with a slanting sod covered roof.
Lara hears a deep melancholic voice speak up to her.
“That’s the Sword Master’s shop,” Haashir informs her.
She feels her heart beat harder. The moment of truth is here. Does she have the bells? Is the blood still moist enough? Does she still have her grandfather’s and the baron’s soul? Taking in a deep breath, she knocks on a heavy oak door with an arched top and covered in a variety of claw gouges.
The door opens. From inside a gruff voice scowls, “You’re many days late.”
She steps inside. In the centre of the single room is a fire pit. Hanging from a large brass spit is a large fish. To her left is a bed covered in cedar bows and leaves with a deer skin cover folded at the bottom. On her left is a clay chamber pot and basin. Around the entire abode is sisal string held up by wooden pegs mortared into the walls. All kinds of herbs hang from the string. Under the basin is a wooden bucket. At the back, leaning against a stone and dirt wall dug into the hill, are a variety of bows and arrows, and numerous swords of different lengths. Before her, holding a skinning knife, and dressed in a partially laced up cotton shirt and cotton pants stands a lean man with a barrel chest and thick forearms. The face is a mixture of Far East and this very island’s own. The eyes are covered in slightly slanting eyelids stare at her with blue eyes that have a splotch of brown around the pupil. The face is wide at the cheeks but narrows to a dimpled chin. Even the man’s skin is a mixture of brown and pink depending on how the dying firelight flickers on it. Light brown hair, that looks self-trimmed pokes upwards. The hair on his face is scraggly as if it isn’t sure whether to grow or not. It’s a thinking face with a warrior’s body. She notices their eyes meet at equal height though his forehead is much higher. What she doesn’t like is the sense that he feels both protective and disgusted with her existence.
She passes him a bundle wrapped in canvas. “The book and wealth, as promised.”
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