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Chronicles of the Black Swords

By: MSTarot



Chronicles of the Black Swords

Black Steel Reborn

I can smell the smoke of the burning towns. The harsh smell of the farms we put to the torch to deny the orcs forage. They burned everything else to show us their displeasure.

It was a stupid thing to do anyway. The orcs just started eating our dead. To them it doesn't much matter. Meat is meat.

I take a long pull at the leather wine skin. The bitter swill Hakum found needs to be drank up. Before it eats through the leather. Sour and vinegary it's still wine.

I can hear the cries of the orc scout they found earlier. They have been trying to make him talk ever since. I could have told them it was a waste of effort.

I saw the foul thing bite out it's own tongue when it was caught.

What do they hope to find out anyway? We were over run at the ford, driven back into these hills. There is no way out behind us. They have filled the valley below us in the thousands. Come night they will attack. If they can't kill us all tonight they will keep us pined down here till tomorrow night then finish the job.

What more do they want to know?

The only good that has come to us in the past week was when Hakum and her brothers came up out their mine tunnels and helped us get higher into the hills, to a stronger point to make a stand.

I look up to see Hakum walking up the hill.

Never seen a dwarf woman till yesterday. Must say she's cute in a stocky, surly, bearded way. If you like that type of woman.

Don't know if I do yet or not. Maybe it's the beard that's giving me pause. Though in truth it's more like long side burns in her case. Her chin and upper lip are bare of the dark yellow hair. She has a splattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks and the most beautiful blue eyes.

She looks up from the ground to see me starring at her. She gives me a lopsided grin.

"You're too tall for my taste. Like my men short with a long beard you can sink your teeth into." She tosses me a wineskin. "Here, stop drinking that elf piss."

I pull the cork out the bag and turn it up. It's like drinking liquid fire, but oh I need this burn. After a long drink I hand it back to her.

Hakum plops down her ample ass next to me.

"Got tired of watching them try to make a mute orc talk?" I ask as I try to hold down the belly full of hot coals I just drank.

She chuckles.

"Given what they do to my people when they catch one of us I could watch that for hours. No I traded a dagger I pulled off one of those scouts for that skin of fire brandy. I owe you for my brother's life. Thought I would come pay off that dept before you die tonight."

I can't help but laugh. Not that I disagree with her.

"I was in the right place at the right time. Just glad I was." I watch her take a long pull of the brandy. I see the little droplets sparking in her beard, like morning dew on wheat.

Her eyes shift to me as she drinks and I see that lopsided grin comes back as she hands me the wineskin.

"Like what you see then? Like short hairy women do you?" She gives my shoulder a friendly slap. Thank god for my armor! "Well if we live the night out I might even give you a taste of Dwarven honey."

I stop as I raise the skin again. The orc's screaming is cut off with a wet gurgle. Then silence.

Hakum spits on a nearby rock.

"About time. He was starting to make my head hurt." She reaches into her pants and gives herself a hard scratch.

I lower the skin after taking only a small sip.

"You and your brothers staying the night?" Part of me hopes so. Part of me wants her safe. I chuckle at the idea. She's by far deadlier than I am with a blade.

"Can't let you humans have all the fun. We're going to take a stand near the opening of our mine. When things go bad we'll fall back. If they want to chase us down into there... well lets say then the real fun begins... for them." I see her eyes go hard and focus down the hill. Following her gaze I see Lord Drake coming up the path.

One of the kings chosen. A Dreadlord they call them. After yesterday I know why. In the end he was all they held the foot of the pass while we retreated higher. Even from here I can feel that sickening feeling his sword brings.

A hell blade.

I've heard the legends, didn't really give them belief till I saw him cleave through an orc like he was made of cloth.

The black armored form comes to a stop before me. I look up at dark hollow eyes.

"You two shouldn't be drinking." He looks like he might reach for the skin so I hand it to Hakum. She takes it and just to piss him off take another sip.

I hear a gleeful sound from his scabbard...from the sword. Like a maniac laughing in a nut house. I know there isn't any sound for my ears to hear. I'm hearing this inside my skull.

His eyes look holes in her for a second then turn to me.

"If you're sober enough to stand, go down to the barrier. They are coming soon."

He walks away heading up the hill. I shudder as the feeling of his sword leaves me.

"My people should never have forged those damn things." She says looking after him.

"Dwarves made them? Never heard that before." I look back at her blue eyes. In the growing dusk they glow like blue coals.

She nods.

"We were tricked. Told one thing, then a lie within a lie. We wanted to believe we were doing good. The king was a good man then. He was trying to do what was right for your race. But now..."

I nod. The king had found a taste for power and he liked the taste too well.

I'm about to get up when I feel her hand on my shoulder armor. I turn towards her.

I feel her thick fingers slip into the front of my armor just under my throat. I'm pulled to her with a strength I couldn't begin to defy. 

Her lips are hot and moist against mine. Her breath tastes of brandy. I feel her hand come up to caress the side of my face.

I smell a heavy musk from her fingers. I realize it's from when she scratched herself.

She pushes me from her lips.

"Go. Kill orcs. Live." Her word are harsh, I can hear the emotions underneath.

I get up slowly; I turn to look at her. Maybe it's because I might not live through the night but the beard just doesn't mater all that much.

"Do the same. When things... get bad, get your brothers back into the mine. Give em hell." I turn and head down the hill.

"Hey!" 

I look back at her.

"You don't kiss too bad for a beardless human." She grins at me.

I grin back.

"Hope I survive. I want to take you up on that offer of some honey."

She laughs

"I said might."

My left eye is swollen shut till I can't see from it. I feel like I'm never going to get a full breath again. A mace has the side of my armor caved in. I look around me in the light of the fires.

I'm in good shape compared to most around me. All of us are bathed in blood, some our own. I feel the bite of at least a half dozen small wounds. The arrow I pulled from my side by far the worst.

Only Lord Drake stands undamaged. Like a rock, nay a column of black steel he has been. The anchor point of our line. Twice we've been overborne and had to fall back. Twice he has been all that held the rear as all others fled up the hill. We stand now with out backs to our camp. To fall back now will leave the wounded to the gentle mercies of the orcs.

I look down the hill. They seem to be in even greater numbers now that at the start of the night. I see our bon fires bathing their green skin in a hellish light.

Down bellow I see they have some of our fallen comrades. They are impaled on long poles.

Roasting over the fires.

Then I hear the scream. I look down to see them pulling someone from the piles of dead. He screams in pain. In fear. I hear their hideous laughter filling the valley below.

I shiver as Lord Drake steps up beside me.

"He's beyond arrow range. I would put a shaft into his heart if I could." He tells me. I nod. I can see the long lines of orc archers looking up at us grinning. Their bows have ours by a good dozen yards. To try to get a man close enough to shoot is suicide.

I see the orcs strip the man out of his armor. I watch unable to do anything as an orc with a mace break both of the man's arms. His screams are drowned out in the orc's laughter.

"What are they doing?" asks a pike man next to us.

I see them drag the man to a bolder and drape him over it. I see a large orc, one of their champion's, step up behind the man.

I realize a second before the man screams out.

A rage starts to build in me as I watch the orc hunching his brutish body behind the man.

The orcs are laughing.

I feel Lord Drakes hand grab my shoulder as I start forward.

"There is nothing you can do. You would be dead long before you could reach him." The Dreadlord watches as the orcs defile his warrior before the whole of our force. First the champion, then another and another. Then man's screams become whimpers, then a silence that I hope means he's dead.

He's not.

I feel Lord Drake's hand holding me back when the orc with a glowing hot spear steps up behind the man.

His scream as the fiery blade enters his violated bowels if hideous. Mainly... because it continues on for so very long.

I turn away as they carry his still twitching body to one of the bon fires.

"Avenge him. That's all any of us can do." I hear the grin voice behind me say.

"Even you?" I ask harshly.

"Even Dreadlords can die. Against such numbers as this, yes even I." He turns and walks up the hill. "Rest if you can. They will come as soon as they finish their feast."

I wake in the dark. I only know I'm awake because of the pain. I didn't hurt till I woke.

I tighten my fingers around my sword hilt. It pleases me to at least still have it. I try to sit up, but strong fingers push me back down.

"Lay down." Says a deep voice. I tighten my fingers around my sword hilt . I won't die like the man I saw. "Rest easy. You're among friends."

There is a spark of light. Like a shooting star in the pitch blackness. Then a candle is lit. I see a bearded face. I relax as I recognize the dwarf whose life I saved. He grins down at me.

"You're a mess long shanks. Here this'll help."

A wineskin is put to my lips. I only just get a whiff before the fiery stuff in flowing into my smoke burned throat.

I choke and cough but manage to keep it down.

"Good? Now you're ready to take on the whole stinky lot of them right?" he gives me a huge grin. His teeth look like white block of marble in the mass of hair that surrounds his mouth

I bring a hand to my side.

"In a minute maybe." I probe the side. The pain is indescribable.

He chuckles, I nod as he offers me the skin again.

"You have several broken ribs." He tells me this like he's describing the weather.

I nod having guessed that.

"Take strips of my cloak and wrap me up. Strap my armor down tight. I'll live long enough to kill a few more."

I hear a softer laugh from off in the dark.

I see blue eyes first then, the tip of her nose.

"No one to fight at the moment. But you may yet get your chance." Says Hakum as she steps into the light. She is covered in dried blood. Mostly on her right side.

"Any of that yours" I ask nodding towards her side.

She laughs.

"Your tall ass is drug in here half dead and you're worried about me. What you think Dain, I think this human's got some kind of feelings for me? Maybe just a fetish for short women?"

The dwarf beside me chuckles.

"You'll have to raise your ceilings at home, or he'll knock his tall ass out every time he goes to stand up." They both laugh. "Plus if he doesn't grow a beard Dad will disown you."

Hakum laughs. She comes over to me and sits down on a barrel. Her brother leaves but gives her the wineskin. He stops at the door and looks back at me. Then her. Then when he meets my eyes again he gives a shrug.

"The orcs?" I ask.

She looks grim.

"Feasting."

My fingers tighten about my sword hilt. I see her eyes go there. A look of revulsion crosses her face.

"We tried to pry that hellish thing from your hand when we pulled you into the mine, but I couldn't make your fingers move."

Looking down I see the length of black steel in my hand. Like a shadow from the darkness that light could not make fade. I try to drop it but my hand won't respond.

"It wont let me turn it lose!" I tell her horrified.

She nods.

"Not till you've killed with it. Then you'll be like him. A Dreadlord."

I shake my head.

"Take your axe. Cut my hand off before that happens."

She chuckles grimly

"Might as well put it between your eyes. You've lost so much blood already your wouldn't live through it."

There's a loud rumble and dust settles down from the ceiling.

"What was that?" I ask looking around me suddenly aware of the tons of rock surrounding me.

She sighs.

"That would be one of my brothers giving his life to drop a section of the tunnel." She takes a long pull from the skin.

"Giving his life?"

She nods.

"Yea. To drop the pins you have to hammer them out. When you do that the roof falls down... on top of you. It also falls on a few hundred orcs. Were not selling ourselves cheaply." She looks up. Then with a grin chuckles. "They've been trying to dig us out since dawn. We've made them bleed real heavy for it."

"Will they get down here? If it looks like they will put that axe between my eyes. I won't be captured by them."

She laughs grandly.

"For someone who only lives as short a time as your kind does, your sure in a hurry to die. Look up."

She lifts the candle higher and I see an iron pin in the ceiling.

"I pop that and this whole last section of the mine drops."

I lean back relieved. I feel the wine skin at my lips and I take a slow sip. It helps with the pain. I close my eyes. I only briefly open them when she caresses my face with her forge scared fingers.

"Sleep. Dwarves guard you. You're safer than in your mothers arms." Her words are soft.

I listen as the second to the last pin is dropped. I remember Dain's face, now buried under tons of stone. Only Hakum and I remain. I've managed to sit up with her help. I wait to hear the sound of digging resume. It will take them hours to get through the ruble but orcs are skilled with stone in a crude way.

I rock nervously.

"What's the matter?" she asks me softly. Though she has not shed a tear I can hear them in her voice. All her kin are gone.

"I feel like the fox. With a pack of dogs digging it out for the hunter to kill."

She chuckles.

"Ever seen what happens when they dig up a badger? That's more like what 's going to happen here." She tosses me the last of the wineskin. I drain the last drop of the brandy.

"Well it's a good time to die. There's no drink left." She says ginning.

I wish I could laugh, but it hurts too much to even think about doing it.

She hops up beside me and leans her head back against the wall. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

I turn to look at her face. The candles have burned down to stubs. She's saving the last few for when they come. She can see well enough in the dark, but I would be helpless.

"You're starring at me again. What is it you like about my face? Never seen a Dwarven woman before?" she turns and opens her eyes to look at me.

"Not till you." I start to give shrug, but it hurts." I just think you're very beautiful."

She chuckles.

"If you weren't half dead I would say we could have some fun to pass the time. Never had me a human before. Even healthy you might not survive the night."

I smile. I slowly reach over and lay my empty hand onto hers. I see her give me a slow smile.

I have heard it said that dwarves don't have emotion. Looking at her I know the truth. They have them. They have them even more so than us. They just hide them real well. If you know what to look for though...well they are all but shouting how they feel."

Holding her hand I fall back asleep.

I wake to hear the movement of stone. I see Hakum has climbed up and holds her large smithing hammer up near the pin in the roof. I see the grim determination in her face.

I lift the hated black sword from off the stone table I'm laying on. I pull myself to my feet; teeth clinched through the pain.

The stones fall away and a few second latter in rush, a swarm of the foul green skins pour into the room. They howl at the sight of me in the candle light. They rush across the room towards me. I lift the black sword with a snarl.

I hear Hakum strike the pin.

The orcs look up and see her. They recoil in terror. As they try to stumble away she knocks the pin out!

With a huge rumble the ceiling give way and falls into the room. I see Hakum's face. Her eyes widen with horror. I look up.

Only half of the ceiling has fallen!

Then an orc is on me. I feel the hot edge of a sword scrape my ribs. Then I hear him howl as the black blade cleaves into his side.

My screams are, by far, louder than his are!

My blood is on fire! I feel it tearing through my body like lightning through the sky. I feel every injury on me light up in pain. A huge up welling of agony drives me to my knees.

Vaguely I hear a Dwarven voice yelling a battle cry. I can dimly see her defending me. There are about twenty orcs in the chamber with us that survived the collapse. Some are injured, but all are insanely angry. They attack in surges. Her defense of me would be worthy of song.

I can hear it! Rising through the pain I hear the chorus. A song of battle, a song of slaughter. It builds in me. I feel a change begin. The pain is lessening. There is a building of rage. I'm shaking with it. I see the thrown spear sink into an opening in her armor. I hear her grunt of pain, then see her topple.

The orcs surge forward sensing the end.

They are right.

With the black blade held in both hands I come up onto my feet. All the pain from my injuries has faded. I feel alive like never before. I scream at them as I throw myself into their ranks.

The song of slaughter is ringing through me as the black blade rises and falls. Their bodies part like wheat before the scythe! They soon claw at each other to get away from me. Then I feel a blade enter my side. It burns like hot fire. But as the sword leaves my flesh I feel the pain lessening. I drive my blade into the orc and the pain fades. I feel a huge surge of strength flow through me. I turn to kill the last and find that they are already dead.

I look around and find Hakum lying in a large pool of her own blood.

I grab the spear and pull it from her side. She hardly whimpers. I turn her over. I see her eyes barely focus on me. She slowly lifts a hand to the side of my face. I catch it as it starts to fall away.

I grab the straps of her armor. They break like wet paper in my hands. I toss the metal away. I pull the blood soaked cloth off her. I, not even knowing why I do it, place my hand on her side.

There is a surge of power from the sword, through me, and into her. I see her arch her back up off the floor her eyes going wide.

Looking down I see my hand glowing.

Her strong fingers grab my arm and try to push me away. She can't!

I'm the stronger!

I lift my hand from her skin. The wound is gone. Only a pale pink scar remains, in the white imprint of my hand. She looks at it then at me.

"Dreadlord." She whispers.

I turn and drive the black blade into the stone floor with all my strength. The tip goes into stone as easily as into flesh. I pull my hands from it. I hear soft laughter coming from the blade. 

My blade.

I slide back away from it across the blood slick floor. I feel her against my back. Then her strong arms are around me. She holds me to her chest.

"It will be alright. It will."

I turn in her arms to face her. I see that not only the wound in her side but every wound on her body has healed. I realize the same is true for me.


Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 02



Chronicles of the Black Swords


'The Love of the Shadows, the Life of a Thief"



"This tale is taken from the well known play of the same title. I first saw it many a long years before the King set me to the task of putting the history of the Hellblades down before they are lost to time. I saw the play again just days ago and remembered the story of the thief and the Hellsword that he carried. I dug my way into city records and found that there was more than a small grain of truth to the old story. Then I came across a few pages of crumbly parchment. They were, I truly believe, penned by the hand of the thief himself in the days following the destruction of the Maskrin knights. An order known for their brutality to those around them who didn't live up to their code."

Chronicler Albreth Ravenclaw




I'm sitting in a small room above a noisy tavern, in a town whose name I have forgotten. My hands shake with age and my eyes strain to see the words I pen here. My life, as it has long been, is now nearing it end and I wanted this down for all who dare follow in my path to see...

Pardon me, my eyes and thoughts wandered for a second. Drifted to the black sword that hangs in it worn gray scabbard from a peg on the wall.

Andric Vang.

It grows to be the only thing I can see clearly. A pommel shaped like three skulls above a blade of the blackest ebony...

"Oh how I curse that stinking sword!"

But I wander again. Please forgive my ramblings, my mind is not what it once was and it has been on other things of late. Teresa is coming soon. I must finish this.

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am Bandara. Von Jeric Bandara.

"I was a thief."




**** **** **** **** **** **** **** 



When Von looked out from the shadows he was hard pressed to stay silent. The urge to laugh was so very strong. The 'pigeons', as the younger thieves had taken to calling the rich people in town, were out in force. He starred out from the darkness with a strong contempt of ...pigeons. The rich.  They wander the streets in their frilly clothes with the powdered wigs and perfumed silk cloths press to their noses. The snobbish airs of grandeur burned at him. He had been to the bigger cites, he had seen the real thing. True kings and queens

These...pigeons... were a sickness. A sickness without a cure.

"They don't break a sweat in their lives except in their mistresses bed." Von says softly to himself. He has of late taken to talking to himself. It's a habit he's trying to break but it seems to be growing. "And this is what calls me a thief? What do I take from them? Bits of rock, shiny pieces of metal? They have their lives! That's more than most of them deserve given their actions."

The alley smells of piss and other less pleasant things. Still it's a familiar smell to the young thief. He grew up living off these streets. A vulture in the shadows, a common rat in the eyes of the guards. To some little more than a maggot in the heart of their city. 

To Von? This is home.

His dark eyes sparkle when he sees a fat merchant on the street. The large man looks to be in a great hurry. Von can't help himself, he has to grin. The only time a man that fat would be moving that quickly would be when he had a goodly amount on him. Von almost laughs out loud when he sees the man looking around him suspiciously.

"Why doesn't he just where a sign?" The young thief's voice is low but it could have been heard. He shakes his head at the noise. "I have got to stop doing that."
Von then realizes he just said that out loud as well. Angry now at himself he follows the man with his eyes for a few seconds more, then with a grim chuckle, fades back into the shadows. 

Running a parallel course to the merchant, he weaves his way through the rats and filth that has come to choke this part of the city. He leapes over drunks and trash on silent feet. Without a pause Von reaches to his side and pulls back a bolt on the side of the scabbard. The lock thrown the ebony blade all but leaps into his hand. Two foot of black steel that seems to swallow the light. An evil hiss fills the corners of Von's mind. Then a soft and wicked chuckle echoes through him.

Andric Vang is not a pleasant blade to wield but it does add a certain zest to life.

Sliding into the side of a building the shadows swallow Von. His eyes alone shine out into the night giving little warning to the merchant. Using a small steel mirror, from a pocket sewn into the back of his gloves, Von looks around the corner. With a tight-lipped grin the young thief see the man turn into one of the side streets.

"Taking sweets from children would be harder." Von says to himself as he moves back to the other end of this alley to wait. When he see the merchant pass he eases the dark blade around, turning it till it's held blade down. The three skulls that make up the pommel have been used more than a few times as a bludgeon. A quick look shows the street empty.

The strike hits before the man even knows that Von is there. As he crumples Von catches the man under the arms and drags the heavy weight back into the shadows.

Seeing as well as in daylight Von uses his left-hand to do a quick search of the man. The pouch on his side gains him a sizable amount of coins that ring like silver.

It is.

A grin slowly comes to split his face when he finds what it was that had been making the man hurry. Around his flabby neck he had hung a leather pouch. A small bag filed with ten rubies each the size of the first knuckle on Von's little finger. The thief has to let out a soft chuckle as he pours them back into their bag. He stuffs it into a pocket made into the inside of his belt.

"You are a fool indeed." He says to the man in a whisper. His lips near the unconscious man's ear. "You shouldn't have been carrying these without ten guards around you. Well to each their own foolishness. It just makes my job easier."

Von Jeric was just about to move out when he hears the heavy booted feet not far behind him. Moving without though Von's hand drops to the hilt of Andric Vang. Dark power flows from the sword up his arm like a river of shadow. With a leap none could copy Von goes straight up. His fingers lock onto the edge of the roof tile a good twenty feet above the cobblestones! He pulls himself up onto the tiles as silent as a mouse.

The young thief watches the two city guards walk up the alley and find the merchant. He smiles when he sees them looking around for him. They never look up. Of course not the roofs are far to high to reach here.

The feeling of eyes on them must be making the guards nervous though. They don't wait for the fat merchant to wake they simply drag him out behind them. Von stays where he is till they are gone from sight.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they don't steal the man's boots then blame it on Me. " he says to himself as he rises to his feet.

Looking around for a second, then deciding that where he is will do just as well, he takes off across the rooftops. The night was still young but what he has in his belt more than fills his required tribute. All but sprinting across rain slick tiles he is soon within sight of the old manor house that serves as the towns thieves guild.

Once a grand structure the city grew up around it, then abandoned it to the Sons of the Shadows. This whole part of the city has been falling to neglect for the last dozen years.

Now it belongs to the poor, the sick, the wicked!

The thieves!

Von is about two houses away when he is brought up short by a knife against his throat.

"Va Shada?" a voice behind him asks in thief chant. The knife's edge presses harder into the skin.

Bandara moves his hands out from his sides slowly to show that they are empty. His left arm, held just a little straighter than the other, tenses for a half second required to loosen the leather thong. His hidden dagger slips from down his sleeve and into his palm. The smoke blackened blade giving no hint to its presence.

"Beth van Shada Va till." He tells the man as he holds himself limber waiting for the feel of the knife cutting his throat. He holds the strike that will carry his killer with him ready.

The knife slowly moves away.

"Vo gastra C'on isha Von Jeric." The man says in a whisper. "You should have been more observant Von." The guilds guard tells him as he puts his knife away. "If I been one of..."

The older thief falls silent when Von's dagger appears just behind his left ear.

"If you had been one of ...who?" Asks the young thief. He flashes a quick grin then drops the dagger back up his sleeve. The guild guard gives him a tired smile to show that he had underestimated him.

Von asks the question he already has a good idea of the answer to.

"Is the Guild Master in."

The guard nods silently.

Von Jeric jingles the bag of his newly acquired pouch of silver. The guard grins.

"A good haul aye?" he ask not expecting an answer. "Master Terrell will be please with you. Go ahead." He turns and walks back to his post.

Walking to the edge of the roof Von drops down to the ground below, landing silently. Moving as quietly as a shadow he makes his way to the sewer opening that is his assigned exit and entrance for this week. Water trickles around his boots as he drops into the darkness. His nose wrinkles at the smell.

"The Shit Feet." He says to himself, then silently cusses himself for speaking. Let alone saying that. The city guard's name for the thieves.

Making no further noise he makes his way to where the entrance to the guild is hidden. The wood panel looks and feels like the stone.  The lack of light is no hindrance to him finding the opening. His sensitive fingers can tell the difference.

Plus with his hand on Andric Vang it might as well be full daylight.

His knuckles rap twice before the guard inside gives the call sign.

"Va Shada va Tool?"

The young thief gives the proper response and the door opens for him. As he steps into the room he keeps his hands clear of weapons. The crossbows are on him even if he can't see them. He slowly carefully rolls back his sleeve. A candle behind a large piece of blue glass is uncovered and a pale blue light floods the room. The normally invisible tattoo on his arms glows from his skin like it's backlit.

A heavy bolt is thrown and the door into the guild opens.

From beyond the opening comes the welcome feeling of home. A warm comforting blend of noises, voices and smells that come out to welcome and envelop him. He smiles as it wraps around him.

Safe at home.

Stepping into the receiving room, Von Jeric Bandara, begins to undo the various buckles of his weapon belt. He places his nights work into the white bowl on the table then, start to remove the various hidden weapons. Weapons and thieves tools they come from every part of his clothing to quickly cover the table in a growing pile. A servant with a basket enters. With him comes one of the guild lieutenants.

He points to the white bowl.

"Your haul Von?"

"No Bart, I put my lunch in there. You know just for a change of pace" the sarcasm drips from his words. Then a smile graces Von's lips. "The Master will like what I got tonight." The smile grows at the look of disbelief that appears on the guild lieutenant's face.

"Oh Really? Like I've never heard that before." Bart moves over to the bowl and picks up a bag. He shakes it warily, Von has been known to bring him live rats before. When it doesn't move he open the first bag and pours it into his hand. He let the coins drop out his hand and into the bowl. As he looks up at Von. "Silver?"

Von just shakes his head and nods towards the other bag.

Taking the second bag Bart just dumps it into the bowl on top of the silver. A gasp leaves him as the pile of blood red stones spills out.

Von grins at the mesmerized look on his face as he lifts on into the light.

"Very, very good Von." The stone sparkles as Bart turns it. 

"Thank you. Now pay me." Von takes the towel handed to him by the servant. He watches the man leave with the basket of weapons to be sharpened and 'cleaned'. There are ways to trace things, if the right amount of money touches the right hands. Ways Von doesn't like to think about. Dark ways.

Again he feels the loss as Andric Vang leaves the room. That sense that a part of him has been taken.  He wonders for a second if he should have warned the servant about the sword.  Von doesn't have to worry about the smiths but a servant might be fool enough to try drawing the black sword. One of the smith's apprentices had unlatched the blade on a dare.

Von had never had to say a word about it to 'them' ever again.

Watching the lieutenant pick several of the stones out of the pile he drops them into one of the bags. He then adds about a third of the silver. Finally Von see him drop the gold half crown into the bag. A thief's wage per night. More than all the silver coins combined but a far less amount than even one of the stones. Wrapping up the top he tosses the bag to Von.

"Get some rest. The Lots have you up for the next two nights." Bart picks up the bowl and leaves. He smiles knowing the look that's on Vons face.

Cussing with disgust at how his luck is running with the lots Von stalks out the room and into the baths. The previous owner made the old manor's basement into a huge hot water bathhouse. It has large rooms surrounding it that once were for pleasures other than hot water. They now house wooden wardrobes for the younger thieves to store clothes in.

Von starts to undress already feeling the luxury that awaits him. He is just placing his dark soft leather pants into the cabinet when there is a whistle behind him.

Looking over his shoulder he grins to see Teresa La Blades leaning against the doorframe. She's grinning and eyeing his legs.

"Nice." She says softly then blows him a kiss. The dark silk robe, stolen by Von just for her, moves a bit showing him a lot of pale skin. "Very nice indeed."

Grinning Von gives her the best 'Bow to Royalty' he can, then a rakish look comes to his face.

"You don't look that bad from here either. You wear that so very much better than the previous owner."

"True, but then she was a whore." Teresa runs a hand across the short robe making the silk slide across the skin under it.

"Nobleman's mistress..." Von tries to correct.

"Highly paid whore."

With a sigh the young thief crosses the room to where she stands waiting for him. She slides into his arms with a sensual grace that the robes previous owner wishes she had.

Terrisa's lips are warm and soft, then fierce and demanding! Her long nimble fingers, deft enough to lift a purse full of bells without a sound, dig into the hard muscles of the young thief.

Von fills his hand with a silk covered breast and moves his fingers till her nipple, hard as a pebble under his touch, is found. He starts to rub the silk of the robe across it till she starts to moan.

"Want to go soak with me?" he asks kissing next to her neck.

She chuckles.

"More like would I like to come to the baths and ride your cock in the water? Is that what you really mean?" she asks her hand going down to wrap around him. "You want me to straddle you and let you stuff me full? You want to look at the envious faces of the others as I let you fuck me while they watch?"

Von gives a little groan as she pulls hard on him.

 "Is it?" she asks with a second jerk.

"Yes?"

She licks the side of his neck.

"I thought so. If you want the others to watch so much why not do me here?" she glances to the long table. "That would work."

The idea of it flashes through his mind. What they would look like when the other thieves walk in. Her...face down he thinks, clawing at the wood as he has her from behind.

Von notices her moving as he has his little daydream. Her lips are kissing his neck her hand is stroking his cock. Her thighs have parted just a bit. Her other hand...?

Von's hand strikes downward and catches her wrist just before the hidden blade leaves a sash of the robe.

Turning her he slams her into the wooden wardrobe fighting for control of the little knife. Her legs leave the ground and scissors around his waist. Using her weight trying to take him down. He pushes her against the wardrobe to hold her up. Her fingers are still a vice around his cock.

Finally he pushes fingers into the tendons on her wrist hard enough to make her drop the knife.

She puts up a pout on her face and lets one leg drop.

"You're no fun at all."

Von chuckles and shakes his head.

"My idea of fun doesn't involve knives!"

Her hand leaves his cock and opens the door next to her. The three belts with their braces of throwing knives hang from the pegs next to Von's leathers. She looks him in the eye with a look that say "oh really?"

Von shrugs.

"Well at least not all the time." He says correcting himself.

She lifts an eyebrow and smiles.

His hands moving quickly Von grabs her before she can do whatever that smile heralded. He lets her free only to spin her around and lock one of her arms up behind her back. Then she's driven back into the wooden wardrobe hard enough to make her grunt.

She looks back over her shoulder and gives a little purr.

"You keep teasing I'm going to have to take you seriously."

Leaning into her Von runs his hand around to the front of the robe. The silk knot parts under his skilled fingers. As the robe opens his hand drifts down into the valley of her thighs.

The wiry black curls that have tickled his nose on many a night brush under his fingers as she wiggles her ass back against him.

He has just managed to place a finger on her clit when he see her hand going for the knives on belt hanging on the peg. He catches her hand before she can reach it and hold it hard to the wood.

"Do I have to use your belt to tie your hands?" he asks.

She lifts up and her ass bare and warm rubs across his cock. 

"So many promises from you so little time. I have to go out tonight. If you don't stop teasing I'm going to leave."

Dropping her and Von grabs her hips and forces his cock between the cheeks of her ass. A slight stoop of his legs and her wet lips brush the head of him. A thrust hard enough to lift her feet from the floor makes her cry out then moan.

She wiggles her way down on to him fully.

"Um much better." She moans.

Leaning into her back Von kisses the side of her neck his mouth finding the soft skin just under her ear. His teeth nibble lightly. Then he mouths the lobe of her ear. He teases it with his teeth as well.

She lets out a sensuous moan.

"Oh...uum. I like that." She gives a thrust back into him. "Harder now I don't have a lot of time.'

"What's your rush?" Von asks pumping her harder.

"I'm a thief. I need to go steal things." She says her fingernails scratching the wooden door.

"You've stolen my heart does that count." Von asks her softly by her ear.

She purrs. Then chuckles.

"Only if I can put it into the tithe bowl."

Harder thrusts from him drive away speech from them both. 

Hearing bare feet on stone Von glances over and see two of the younger lady thieves walk into the room. Their robes are not half as nice as Terrisa's. But then they don't have Von to steal for them.

Enjoying the look on their faces Von gives a grunt as he feels the tightening under his balls that heralds the start.

Driving into her till the last possible second listening to her moan, Von, pulls out and lets his cum splash across the cheeks of her ass and down onto her thighs. He smiles as she moans and pushes her bare ass back against his still hard cock.  The wet plump flesh pushes him flat back against himself. His hand reaches around her and his fingers come to rest above hers. He pressing into the slight bulge above her lips knowing that gives her pleasure as she works herself to the last.




Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 02



Looking over at the two ladies that stand watching in mute appreciation of the show as Teresa starts to cum.  Pulling back Von takes his still thick if not fully hard cock and lets it push between the cheeks of her ass.

Teresa grinds herself to a quick second release against that.

Panting a bit she leans her head into the door.

"Ladies, I'm done with this one if any one else feels the need for a toy." She says with a turn of her head towards the other thieves.

They both chuckle.

"But you broke it?" she the youngest. "He's all limp and floppy now. Not worth much that way." She says looking to he other. They both nod and then with a chuckle move to their lockers and start to dress.

Von watches them for a second admiring their tight young bodies then turns back to look at the woman in his arms.

"Shall I go steal them for you?" she asks. "I could leave them tied up with silk in your room as a present."

A deep breath and half-closed eyes gives Von the seconds to enjoy that fantasy.

"How will you tithe them. Remember what we're told no stealing unless you give your part to the guild."

Stepping back she wraps her arms around him and kisses him.

"I'm sure we cold find something to put in the bowl." She jokes with a tilt of her head.

Without giving it away she rakes his back with her nails.

"Yeouch!" he yelps and arches himself away from her. The girls in a state of half dress look up and laugh.

Teresa looks over to them.

"Always mark your things ladies. That way other know not to use them without permission." She repeats the part of the lecture we were all give when we first joined. "We are a bunch of thieves after all."

They laugh again.

Trying to look over his shoulder at the bloody scratches he flinches back when she moves forward. 

"You minx!" he say to her holding out a bloody finger.

"You could always say a kitty cat got you." She smiles. "Meow, meow."

She turns and opens her wardrobe and lets the silk robe drop away.

Von admires her long tight body, the muscles hard and firm, the curves, not too plump, the long hair in its braid. The nimble fingers. He enjoys the little things that move as she dresses though. The parts that show she's not all muscle and bone.

"How were the picking tonight?" she asks as she starts to place tools in her clothes. The small roll of picks, the little blade for cutting purses. The mirror for looking around corners. 

"They were good. I did real well. Caught me a fat 'pigeon'."

She wrinkles her nose at the term.

"I hate that new saying. I prefer the truth. Rich maggots with more coin that brains."

Von shrugs.

"Pigeon's... maggots... whatever you want to call them. I saw several targets that looked good. Most of them will be home in their beds with their...rich whores...by now, but a few may have stayed out drinking. You should do rather well."

She nods.

"Maskrins?" she asks with a whisper. It's an almost lusty whisper.

Von shakes his head

"I didn't see any. But I'm sure a few are still around out there. Ignore them they never have much on them anyway. Monks and all that, vows of poverty."

"Poverty?" she scoffs. "Would that I was so poor! I've seen their palaces. Call them chapter houses if you wish but they are what they are."

Von nods. The worry he has for her must show on his face.

Teresa smiles and runs a hand up the side of his face. With lighting speed her fingers seize the back of his head and his mouth is driven into hers. Her tongue all but rapes him in an assault of mouths that leaves him breathless. She turns them and then slams him brutally hard back against the wardrobe. He filches when the scratches hit wood.

Her teeth pull his bottom lips out as she moves back.

"You better hope I do well, Von. If I don't I may have to take my frustrations out on you."

Von watches the curves of her black leather encased ass as she walks away. For a second worry hits him again. Her habit of hunting the Maskrin Knight is a thing neither he nor the guild master likes. Both know that telling her to stop is a useless idea.

Turing he sees the two younger thieves just looking at him.

"Keep an eye out for her tonight...and every night. For me if you would. I'll point you in the direction of some rich ...pigeons."

The older of the two walks over to him. She gently lifts herself to his lips and places a soft kiss there. So very different from the one he just received.

"We watch out for our sister, every night."

The younger one comes over and also places a kiss on his lips. Then her eyes drop to his cock.

"Too bad she broke you."

Watching them leave Von feel some of his worry leave him. Grabbing the male mate to the robe hie stole for her Von heads for the baths.



It was much later in the night when Von would see Teresa again. The coming dawn was not far away. Right on the edge of sleep her heard a loud commotion coming from downstairs. Fearing a guard attack He grabs up a blade he keeps hidden and goes to the door. The instincts of a thief made him move with caution. His door opens only a slip he looks down the hall with his little mirror. Then slowly he eases his head outside. He sees a large group standing by the head of the stairs looking down.

There doesn't seem to be and clash of arms or screams so he put his sword back and threw a robe around his shoulders. Moving silently more by habit than need he moved to the back of the group and tried to peer past their heads.

"What is it?" He asks the man standing just ahead of him.

"A group of Maskrins caught one of ours. She was cut up pretty bad." He says over his shoulder without looking to see who asked him.

Von nods. He turns and starts to walk back to his room just taking it as part of the life. He has seen this happen more than once over the years that's why he avoids the Maskrins. Unlike...

Turning Von grabs the man's shoulder and spins him about.

"She? She who?" he demands "Who was caught?"

The man's eyes go wide.

"Oh Von! I didn't know it was you. I wouldn't have told you if I had..."

Bandara doesn't wait to hear the rest. The young thief goes though the people ahead of him like a bull. Pushing people out the way when he has to. Catching the railing he vaults it and drops the seventeen feet to the main floor. Rolling to take the shock out of his bare feet he's up and moving in a second. He is almost instantly by the improvised pallet of cloaks.

Teresa La Blades lay in a pool of her own blood. The cloaks under her too soaked to catch it all. The guild's healer was applying bandages to her wounds but for the moment seems to be ignoring the most obvious wound.

Point up from her chest was a crossbow quarrel!

"Teresa? Teresa can you hear me?" Von asks, nearly frantic as he looks over the other wounds trying to see just how badly she was hurt.

She opens her eyes and looks up at him. The lady thief flashes him a pain filled smile.

"I should have taken you up on that offer for a bath." She tries to chuckle but the pain of it draws a wracking moan from her. She lifts her hand to the side of his face. Von can feel where her blood smears his cheek. He catches her hand before she grows to week to hold it there.

"Who was it? The Maskrin?" he sees her eyes start to flutter. "Teresa who was it? The city guard?"

She shakes her head and tries to focus on his face.

"Three Maskrin Knights..." she says in a low whisper. When her eyes close his go to her chest. The continued rise and fall of her breast gives him hope. The little shake of the quarrel point tells him her heart still beats. He brings her fingers to his lips and kisses the bloody golden ring he had given her just a few weeks before. After a second of looking at her still face he looks up at the healer.

The old white haired healer flinches back from the look in his eyes.

"Will she live?' Von asks him.

The old man gives a tilt of his head and a shrug.

As Von watches two of the guild's younger men appear with a body carrier. Under the supervision of the guild healer they get her onto it and carry her off towards the rooms set aside in the manor for the sick.

Von just stood there then, not really seeing the people around him.

"Maskrin Knights." He says under his breath. The words carry the sound of a curse to them. Turning he ignores the other thieves that are trying to catch his attention and walks without pause to the weapons room.



Standing in his skin Von opens his wardrobe. His leathers hang from their hooks, cleaned of the smell of the street and of any traceable things. He pulls out the black clothes and tosses them aside. His weapon belts, with the little pouches for thieves tools, hang also cleaned. He tosses them onto the pile at his feet.

He grabs the last belt off its hook. The bolt slides back and the black sword pops up out it's scabbard into his hand.

The hissing he has always hear when he holds the bare blade is now more of a deep growl. He could tell that the sword was reading his mind seeing what he couldn't keep hidden from it. The growl deepened as the sword begins to feed off his anger. A wicked chuckle sounds from it when Von brings it close to his mouth.

"Time to go kill my old friend." He whispers.

"I thought I might find you here, my young son." The voice of the Guild Master comes to Von from the doorway. The old skills are still in the Master as not even with Andric Vang in his hand did Von him the Guild Master approach. "I know how you must feel but I'm afraid I can't let you go start your own private war with the Maskrins."

The cool air of the room sending chills across his bare skin Von turns to face his master. His eyes take in the two older guild lieutenants that have moved up to flank the even older man. They eye Von sanding naked before them the black sword in hand.

"You can't stop Me." says Von his finger tightening around the hilt of the Hellsword.

The Guild Master sighs.

The two lieutenants surge forward towards Von their hands suddenly filled with weapons to catch and entangle. They have hardly take five steps when Von explodes into the middle of them faster than they can even see him move. His foot comes up and catches the younger of the two in the crotch with punishing force even as he uses the man as a jump point in a vault into the older thief. The black three skulls of Andric Vang connect with the man's temple and he drops like a stone. Landing in a spin Von sweeps his foot around and connects with the jaw of the man on his knees holding his swelling balls.

Less than a second.

Von stands his weight balanced on his toes the black blade begging him to continue. To give it free rain to deal out little kisses of death.

Holding himself poised looking at his master. The old guild lord has a throwing knife held between his scared fingers. He knows he can't take Von after what he just saw but he was a thief when this boy was not even born. He won't go out easy.

"I swear this to you master Terrell. There will be blood this night! Rivers of it before the dawn. It's for you to chose just where it will begin. This guild or the Maskrin Keep? I swear this as well if you turn even the whole of the guild against me it shall not matter. Their Grandmaster shall die for his people's actions! He shall not see the sun set!" Von holds the dark blade before his master showing him by what he swears.

"Their Grandmaster? You think you can get all the way to him. He has hundreds of guards around him." The guild master eyes the trim body of his naked thief. Then his eyes go to the two men lying at his feet.

For a second it looks like Von isn't going to answer then he gives a nod. Turning his back to his Master and the throwing knife he walks to his wardrobe and start to dress.

The Master just watches him as he garbs himself in leather, then hangs weapon after weapon from his hips chest and back.

After a moment he gives his head a nod.

"Bandara."

Von turns to face what ever is to come.

"Don't embarrass my guild this night." He looks down as the two lieutenants that are just starting to stir. "My son."

Von nods and cinches tight the belt with Andric Vang's scabbard.

The door to the sewer opens at his touch and he head out into the night. His eyes taking in the growing light of dawn, less than a candle's mark away.

Walking uncaring through the smelly water he makes his way past the assigned opening and further across the city than he has ever traveled under ground. By the time he crawls up onto the street and then up to the rooftops he chuckles.

"Truly one of the, Shit Feet, now I guess." He says to himself.

That the last word he speaks to himself or anyone else for a very long time.


**** **** **** **** **** **** ****



The sun is long set when Von makes his way back into the guild. In his hand he carries a bag that drips with more than sewer water.  Red spots follow him through the guild as he walks to the tithe bowl. He leaves the head of the grandmaster of the Maskrins in the bowl for the Guild Master's tithe.

Not caring if he can be traced Von walks past the apprentice thief with his basket for weapons. He makes his way through the guild towards the sick rooms.

Teresa is asleep upon one of the wood framed beds that came with the manor house. Probably meant for a servant's quarters it and many like it had been brought to this part of the manor. Looking up at the erotically painted murals on the ceiling Von like many before him guesses at the nature of the previous owners.

The healer looks up as he steps closer and get to his feet. He gestures for Von to follow him. He leads the young thief back out the doors and closes them quietly behind him.

"She's asleep." he says stating the obvious. "She needs to rest, but she should be fine. I healed the worst of her wounds and bandaged the rest. I've seen no signs of infection. She may be in luck there, I've hear tell that the Maskrins envenom their blades."

"It's a rumor they started to make us more afraid of them." Von tells the man his eyes on the door as if he can see through the thick wood. "When will she wake?"

"Go get some rest. When you wake up come back and I'll let you see her for a bit." The healer looks him up and down and points off down the hall in a way that says he expects to be obeyed.

To tired to argue Von leaves the little man alive and goes to his room on dragging feet. The awesome power that has flowed through his body this day has left him drained. He falls into his bed still dressed and is asleep before his head hits the mattress.

He sleeps a full ten hours. Though he doesn't remember doing, the empty scabbard of Andric Vang hanging on the door that makes any and all leave him in peace.

When he awakens still in his leathers and reeking of death he feels terrible. There are pains in places he didn't even know he had.

Such little discomforts pass quickly as he dresses himself in clean clothes and heads down to the sick rooms. Von takes little notice of the looks of fear and awe that he gets as he passes the others in the halls.

Teresa is smiling when she sees him walk into the room. She was sitting up trying to eat some bread dipped in meat juice but she puts it aside and holds out her hands to him.
The strength with which she pulls him down shows her well on the way to being recovered. Von holds her to him delicately for all of that. His fear of hurting her is very great.

"Von, they are saying that you killed the leader of the Maskrin knights! Is it true?" she asks breathlessly from kissing him. She clutches at his hand in the hope that it is.

Not saying a word the young thief lifts a pouch from his belt and dumps it out upon her bed. The dozens of black signet rings spill out onto the sheets.

The healer, walking up to them, had been about to say something just then but stops in disbelief.

"How many?" Teresa finally asks when she can against speak. She lets a pile of the rings fall from her palm back into the heap but the number of them is still beyond belief.

"Their grandmaster, His two Under-Dukes. The ones on watch, the ones in the barracks, and all the others that I could get to before they noticed that something was wrong and ran like children from a burning house." There is a quiet rage in Von's voice when he speaks that has never been present there before. It catches Terrisa's attention and that of the healer. It's as she's looking at Von's face that the reality of what he has done sinks in.

"Oh gods Von! What have you done?" says Teresa in a growing horror as she begins to realize just what his actions will make come to pass. "They will use magic to find out who did this to the knights!"

Von Jeric simply nods.

"You know what this means I take it?" ask the guild healer.

"I know. I packed my things before I can down here. I'll be leaving in just a few moments." Von looks over his shoulder at the door. "Could you give us a bit of privacy please?'

The healer looks for a second like he might not then his eyes take in the black sword hanging at the young man's side. He gives Teresa a look that says don't exert yourself.

Von looks back to his lady when the healer closes the door. He sees the look of pain pass through her eyes as she sits up higher in the bed. He smiles at her come hither finger and leans in for a kiss. As he parts it he slips a small rolled up scroll into her hand. His smile deepens at the confused look on her face.

"That's where I'm going. When you are well, open it. Follow me if you wish. I'll be there for about a year or so. I just... I want you to know..."

"You don't have to say it Von. I know." She gives him a smile that becomes a wicked look. "I'll be there you can count on that. I want to try that!"

Von follows her finger up towards the mural and sees what she's pointing at. He gives his head a tilt.

"I'm willing but it looks painful."" He gives her a grin. "Who's going to get the second woman first?"

"Me of course!" she tells him with a twinkle to her eye. "I'll follow you in a week or two..."

"FOUR TO FIVE MINAMAL!" says the healer through the crack in the door. He jerks his head back as pair of throwing daggers buries themselves to the hilt near where his head had been.

"...weeks from now." Says Teresa with a smile as Von walks over and retrieves their daggers. "Watch out for me after that time." She tells him. As he leans down over her she pulls him down into a fierce kiss. When he finally pulls out her grip he can see that she has exhausted herself.

"Get some rest." He tells her softly.

"Me? You're the one that needs to be resting. I'm too much for you Von. Hell I'm already putting gray in your hair."

Von laughs at the joke. He gives her a single soft kiss then turns to go.

Stopping by the door he looks back at her and sees her already asleep.

His hand resting on Andric Vang' hilt his fingers caress the three skulls as he walks back to his room, gets his things and leaves his home for the last time.


**** **** **** **** **** **** ****


At the inn, the night maid, blows out the snub of a candle and places a blanket over the shoulders of the old man.

 She shakes her head when she hears him mutter a woman's name in his sleep.

"He sure is going down hill quickly?" She says to herself then she stops and looks at the black sword hanging from a peg on the wall. Her hand goes to the little steel bolt that holds it in its scabbard. "I swear he looks like he's aging more every day." 

Her eyes go to the three grim looking skulls on the top of the sword.

"I wonder who this Teresa is?" she says to herself, then stops. "Funny never been one to talk to myself before. Wonder what's go into me?""

With a shrug she leaves the old fellow to sleep on the table, his head pillowed on his piece of parchment. The ink long dry on the quill.




Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 02



"I was a thief." Is all that is writen.



Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 03



The Chronicles of the Black Swords

 Mother's Morn


"Night gray steel
on razor edge
A heart of iron
a thousand dead
Weeping widows 
Mother's Morn
A thousand names
from life I've torn."


"This poem sent me hunting the black times of the Grull invasion. So much history was lost to their fires but finally I found the account of a manor lord, Sir Brian of Albrik. His story was far too fantastic and accurate to other details to dismiss it as fancy. What follows is one of the few stories of a black sword that lends us hope that not all of them are evil."

 Albreth Ravenclaw Kings Chronicler.



** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** 


The axe hits the tree with a huge spark of metal, a ring of steel on steel and a vibration up the handle that shakes the wood axe out of my hands.

"Yea gods what did you do, Flenn?" calls out my older brother from nearby.

"Damned if I know! All I did was hit the tree." I walk shaking my numbed hands over to pick back up the axe.

I stare in horror at the huge nick in the blade edge. It's at least and inch back into the axe head!

"Sweet lords! What the hell kind of tree is this?" I ask turning and looking up.

"It's just an oak. Let's take a look."

My brother, Steward, bends down and with his knife probes at the notch I had been cutting. I watch him for a second then point out where I think the axe hit. There is a metallic ring when he taps there.

Steward takes up the small hatchet he carries to delimb with and starts to hack near that spot. After a moment I see a band of darker wood appear.

No not wood. That's Metal!

I take my delimber and together we work around the spot a bit. I start to see the shape of a blade appearing in the wood we clear.

"Well what have we here?" ask Steward as more of it comes clear. "Some sort of blade." A large slab of wood splits from the side of the tree and I hear a creaking of the tree soon followed by a popping.

"Get clear she's going. " he warns me calmly.

As I walk away a bit Steward takes his long handled axe and gives the tree a push. I see the base start to splinter and pop as the top slowly falls towards the ground. I watch my Brother walk calmly to my side.

"Well whatever it was I'm sure it's broke or bent all to hells now."

As the tree hits with the customary thump I see that he is wrong.

Standing from the splintered stump is the handle of a sword. The black corroded blade is point down into the wood.

"Now how did that get in there I wonder?" says Steward walking back to the tree.

I shake my head unable to fathom it either. The tree was big enough around to be hundreds of years old.

"Did you see any cracks in the wood? It might could have been lightning struck at some point and split. Maybe some one hide it in there and never came back." He offers a possible explanation.

As I take my hand and wrap my fingers around the handle I know he is wrong. Some how I know this thing was driven into the ground and the tree grew up around it. How I know this I don't question. I just know.

The blade is terribly old, the steel blackened with time and tree sap. The whole length of it bares places etched into the metal by the work of centuries of sap. The handle crumbles in my fingers as I pull at it.

The sword slides free with no effort.

"Well. I guess you better take that thing to the smith. See if he might buy it. You will need the money to pay him to fix father's axe." Steward picks up his long axe and heads back over to the tree he was felling.

I look from the notch in the axe to the blade in my hand.

It bears not even a nick on its edge!

I place the old sword near my shirt and lunch and get back to work. The nick in the axe makes the rest of the day's effort an even greater chore. Every swing seems to land with a clang.

"Father's going to kill me." I say in a whisper.

"Na. Just sell that piece of scrap and get it fixed. I'll tell him how it happened. Hell the local farmers been plowing up bits of metal for the last five generation, maybe it's our turn?"

Steward grabs up his shirt and goes over to the wagon we have loaded with wood. I move over and take up one of the poles.

Between the two of us we get it moving. Then we take turns playing the 'mule' as we walk our wood towards the house.

"I wish we could afford a real mule to do this." I say for maybe the hundredth time since Gerty died this spring.

"Soon. Let winter start to bite and business will pick up like always. We will have a new mule come spring. Beside look at it this way. You're getting all big and strong just in time for Beltine."

I grimace and shake my head. I did not need reminding.

Every spring at the festival of Beltine the unmarried women of the village get to pick and chose among the young men of eighteen winters. They pick whom they will marry. My time will be this year and the idea of a wife does not hold any appeal. 

"Chin up little brother. You're handsome enough. There will be a bit of a scuffle to get you."

I shake my head in denial of Steward.

Charcoal burners don't make for good husbands. We don't get the beautiful girls because of that. I mean look at Mom and Stewards wife. I love my mom but at dawn when she wakes she could frighten a troll.

And Stewards wife if anything is worse.

Steward takes his turn as we cross into the open fields. Ahead of us I can see the ever-present column of smoke rising from beside our home.

Father is hard at work.

My admiration for him is immense. Before Steward and I took it up he would cut wood all morning then burn it till dark haul it to the smiths then return home in the blackest of night and be out again before the dawn.

Now a days he just sticks close to home and burns our efforts. He deserves it, an old man like him.

Hell I think he's beyond thirty-five.


** ** ** ** ** ** **

I see the extra wagon already loaded with coal ready for the smiths.

I walk over and take up the poles. Steward goes to unload the wood by the fires. Father waves to me as I start to pull off. I nod back.

I see Steward talking to him as I take the turn onto the main road. I can see father's shaking his head.

"Yep...I'm a dead man."

Well I think look on the bright side. If father kills me I wont have to get married come spring.

That cheers me a bit as I pull the heavy load. The leather harness straps across my chest and shoulder bites into me as I start up the very slight grade towards the village. A mule wouldn't even notice it but the backs of my legs are burning by the time I take the turn at the top down the road to the smiths.

Candler's Row they have taken to calling the place since the new candle makers moved their shop there ten years back. The local farms have never been more productive since the huge cone hives were set up but the tons of bee stings I and the others have gotten in the last decade were not an even trade.

Still the supply of honey and the odd barrel of mead that some how finds it's way, not to the lords cellars, but to the local tavern just might be.

I look at the small cluster of trees not far away. The old apple trees still have their sinister look. I remember when I was a child the other boys daring me to go there and steal apples. Would I dare a whipping from the lord's men for steeling apples or maybe the prospect of being eaten by the trolls that no doubt must live in the heart of so dark an orchard?

Being the son of a charcoal burner I had been in and out of far darker woods since before I could walk.

"Ah speaking of trolls." I whisper under my breath as I feel the wheels roll up onto the cobbles stones that surround the smithy. The smiths daughter Gertrude, hence the name of our departed mule Gerty, steps from the doorway of the house carrying a pitcher of beer out to where her fathers and brothers are working late. Seeing me she gives a wave and walks towards me.

I look over her features and cringe at the very real prospect of waking up next to her for the rest of my life. The mule was cuter, if memory serves.

She looks to the forge and quickly pours me a leather jack of the beer.

"Here, Flenn. Be quick with It." she tells me with a grin.

I smile at her as I take it and bolt it down.

Well at least her mother taught her how to cook. I might not be happy but I will at least be fat.

I hand Gertrude back the leather mug just as her father comes walking to the forge.

"Gerty, see to your brothers." He calls to her as I pull the wagon past her and around towards the side of the forge. He may like and depend on the work of my father brother and myself but that doesn't mean he likes the idea of his daughter marring a charcoal burner.

I would agree with him, except there are far uglier girl in the village.

As I push the cart up to the covered bin he looks into the back.

"Good size pieces. Flenn, tell your father to keep this kind of stuff coming. I've got a big order just come in from the Lord's stable master. Some kind of trouble down south. Likely to spread if the Lord and his peers don't put it down. Will be needing a lot of charcoal to forge shoes for the Lord's knights if they take to the field."

I know he means for their horses but the idea of seeing some of the prissy knights I've seen slumming at the tavern being shod makes me chuckle.

"Yes sir, I'll tell him." I say quickly when he looks at me after I laughed. "Speaking of that I have something to sell and something to repair." I pull the damaged axe from the back of the wagon.

"Yea gods, what did you hit a stone? I've told you cutter since your father got started never to plant an axe in the dirt."

I draw out the blackened sword.

"I hit this. It was in the middle of a tree I was cutting."  

He rests the axe by his foot and takes the old blade.

"Well the metals ruined. Still I might be able to melt it down and make a couple of horseshoes out of it. You wanting to even trade, the repair on the axe for this?"

I hadn't but given that I have very little in my belt pouch I give a nod.

"Fair enough." He says.

I dump the charcoal into the bin and start back towards the house as he walks off towards his forge carrying the axe and sword.

His daughter hands him the last of the beer and he drains it and goes into the clanging of metal on metal.

Gerty gives me a wink and a flip of her skirt that shows me her ankles. I smile seeing then slim leather-encased feet.

Well maybe a smiths daughter wouldn't be that bad to wake up next to.

And at least she can cook. I look back at her as I pull away.

And if there really are trolls in the apple woods I would have the best deterrent I could get.

It's truly dark when I turn the wagon into the yard at home. I stand and look towards the mountains in the distance. I swear I saw a line of fire moving across it for a second. Then the sun drops out of sight and it's gone.

I go in to face the consequences of damaging the axe.

Father is not pleased.

Oh well, I can always eat standing up.

** ** ** ** ** ** **


The days pass and the slow turn of the season's rolls us into the fall months. I feel a growing chill about me as I walk the cart towards the smiths. It's become a two wagon an afternoon job for the last month. Steward and I go out before daybreak, some times with Father. He selects the trees we cut then returns to burn at the kilns. They never stop now. One of us will sit half-awake through out the night watching the fires. The orders for coal have more than doubled.

We even have managed to get us a new mule before the spring.

The old beast is truly ready for a stew pot but I appreciate not having to pull the larger loads of charcoal.

Though I seem to spend just as much time pulling on him.

"Come on damn you! Turn!"

I finally get the stubborn thing to back the cart in next to the bin.

There is a clatter of metal on stone behind me that scares the mule and me.

Turning I see the black blade laying by my feet. I look up to see the smith, standing red-faced, looking at me.

"Get that hellish thing away from my forge." He goes to turn.

"What? What?" I walk the few steps and bend down.

The blade is almost cold to the touch as I wrap my fingers around the thin tang.

The smith looks at me his eyes ablaze.

"I finally got time to try melting it down. I burned half a wagon weight of charcoal and it never even got hot! I don't know what the hells that thing is but I want it away from me and mine."

The smith storms off towards his forge.

I look down at the tree sap etched blade with its twisted patterns of black and gray.

"Well I guess your mine now." I shrug and go to put the thing into the wagon.

For just a second I feel a reluctance to turn it lose. I turn in place and look up towards the distant mountains. I feel a shiver run down my spine. Like the kind I might feel it a sound in the woods caught me by surprise.

I lay the old blade into the wagon.

"Come on Gertytwo"

Now the mule doesn't want to leave.

I don't know, maybe he doesn't like his name.

Shrug.


** ** ** ** ** ** **


I sit in the loft on my cot and slide the piece of dark wood I carved today over the tang. It slips on tight. I take the piece of scrap harness strap I sliced into thin strips and start to braid it up the wood.

I watch my hands at work. They puzzle me as I watch how they work.

There is a skill about them I have never had. 

The old blade turns catching the light from the little window. The thin oiled skin that covers the window frame lets in almost no light but I see the blade with no trouble.

The patterns down its length. No tree sap made them. The little work with a scrap of leather and some sand had made them clearer. The hands of a master engraver had been at work up the sides of the sword.

I tighten back down the pommel and drive back in the little slivers of dark metal that held it in place. I tap them with the back of my hatchet.

When I look I see dents in the back of the metal axe head.

I lift Mother's Morn into the dim light.

Mother's Morn? Where did I get that name?

I shrug and set the sword to the side. Picking up the file I use to sharpen my axe I turn the blade and run the edge along the side. I see little slivers of metal curl up behind it.

Holding up the file I see all of one side is smooth!

I pick up one of the curls. I can see the little places where the file had been scored.

 "Hells laughter" I say in a soft whisper.

Getting to my feet I climb down the ladder from the loft and walk out the side door of the barn. I see the tall straight column of smoke running like an arrow up into the sky. The orders for coal doubled again yesterday. We can't keep up. I've heard that the smith told father he might have to buy real coal from the dwarf mines soon.

Despite the prospect of my family losing money I hope he does I would love to see a dwarf. I've heard about them but to my knowledge no one in the village has ever seen one. They only travel very rarely now day. And never to far from their mountains.

The mountains.

Again my gaze is drawn back to them. I look over the edge of my sword towards them and feel my teeth clinch together almost painfully.

I walk through the light snow out towards the edge of the tree line. Long left uncut by my family they have grown taller every year. By the time I'm my father's age we will be cutting and burning these.

Well all but one of them maybe.

I step up in front of one of the tall trees and lifting Mother's Morn I give it a two handed swing at the wood.

I stagger and spin into the snow as I miss the tree completely!

"Idiot!" I call myself as I get to my feet and start to brush snow off my pants with my off hand.

Then I hear it. Looking up I see the slow topple beginning.

I watch unable to believe what I'm seeing at the tree lays itself over and hits with the thump. 

Mother's Morn leaves a trail in the snow as I walk the few steps back to the stump.

The top looks like it's been planed smooth. I run a finger across it. My mother table isn't that smooth and she's been polishing it since she choosing father at Beltine.

I lift Mother's Morn into the dim moonlight and just look at the impossible.

"What in the hells are you." I ask the black sword.

In the very depths of my mind I hear the reply.

"Yours"



** ** ** ** ** ** **



Winter freezes the marrow in us all that year. The coldest in living memory. I welcome my chance to sit with the fires now. It's the only time I'm really warm. The snow soon has us hauling a single tree back to the house and cutting it there. The mule, Gertytwo, complains bitterly about the deep snow but we don't stop for our own complaints let alone his.

There is a war in the south. That's the rumor that comes up the trade road at the close of harvest. The manor lord sent out a call to all the smiths in his lands to forge arrowheads and spear points.

There is even a talk of a levy being called this spring to go fight.

Who?

That has been the big question all winter. That news didn't make it this far north.

My shoulders burn under the force of the axe. I have been splitting wood every day for the last month. Normally father's job he's been bedridden with a flux. Steward and I have taken up the full job of getting the ever-increasing demands for charcoal to not only our smith but also the ones in father villages. They have been sending their own wagons to us.

Steward only asked me once how I was managing to cut trees down out in the deep woods so cleanly that they look smooth. When I showed him he wouldn't come near me if I had Mother's Morn at my side.

Which I almost always do now.

Strange things started coming down out the hills as the snows deepened. Driven into the valleys by the growing cold higher up.

I swung Mother's Morn at something other than a tree for the first time, only weeks ago. What it was I killed I have no name for. Steward and father burned the body off in a stone pit my grandfather use to burn his charcoal in. It's deep in the woods. The trees around it are too small but maybe by the time my grand kids are my age.

"Hu...grand kids? You got to marry and have children first." 

I walk behind Gertytwo toward the smiths. He offers no protests now. I absently patted his ass with the scabbard covered blade one time to make him move faster.

It took me hours to reload the wagon when I finally got him to stop almost a league away!

Now? Just having me behind him with the sword would compel him to move faster. I see the column of black smoke drifting from the top of the forge as I get closer. 

The only person in the valley that's possibly working harder now than us is the smith. He's taken on two new apprentices and they look like they are about to drop every time I've seen them.

Before I enter the cobblestones circle around his house and forge I undo the wide leather belt and place it under the blanket on the wagon seat. I cover it with my blanket.

The smith and his two new apprentices come out to help me guide the new wagon back into the larger coal box he built. The box like the wagon must hold twice what our old one did.

It's also harder to fill up.

Also like the wagon.

As we slide the load out the back with shovels I hear a curse behind me.

"I told you not to bring that hellish thing near my house!"

I turn and see the smith looking up at me his face flushed with anger. He moves his eyes over to the front of the wagon. I see the hilt of Mother's Morn sticking out from under the blanket.

Leaving his apprentices to finish the last few bits I step off the side of the wagon and land on my feet in front of him. As I straighten up I note that my eyes and his are on level with one another. Mothers been complaining all winter about me outgrowing even Steward hand-me downs. With the mid winter festival I, like everyone born the same year I was in the valley, have passed into my eighteenth winter.




Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 03



I take a deep breath as I feel my anger rise in my chest. The seams of my shirt threaten to tear as the muscles bulge hard.

"I don't go anywhere without it Mastersmith. Not since winter started coming on and those things started coming into the woods. Now if you don't like the fact that I carry it I can see to it father sells our char to one of the other smiths. Some of the others have been offering us better prices than you but we've kept you supplied since it's tradition for our two families to do that. Do you want that?"

I see him take a half step back from me.

Is that fear I see in his eyes?

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. No

"Back to the forge!" he orders his guys. When he turns to look at me his expression changes. "If you wold please keep it out of sight. I don't like to see the thing."

I watch his broad back as he moves off towards his shop.

"Flenn." I hear my name as a whisper.

Turning to the side of the house I see Gertrude standing under the shed that houses the kitchen firewood. Looking back towards the forge I walk over to her.

She may not be a beauty but the coming of winter and her passage into her eighteenth winter has if anything managed even more of a change in her than me.

The harvest feast put a few more pounds on her and made her features a bit more plump. It's an improvement.

"You just stood down father!" she says in an awed whisper.

I shrug.

"I didn't care for his tone with me. Sorry."

Gertrude looks off towards the forge then steps the two paces towards me.

I find her in my arms before I know what to do. Her lips are cold but they quickly warm against mine as she kisses me. There is a skill there that I find interesting. I wonder even as I kiss her who else has tasted theses lips.

Sliding my hand inside her jacket I fill my hand with one of her breast. I delight in the squeak that brings from her.

I manage to slide down the top of her bodice enough that my fingers locate her nipple through the thick blouse. She gives another squeak then a moan.

I give it a tweak as I pull away from her.

Walking back to the wagon I don't look back. I know what she is doing though.  How I know it I can't say but I see her holding the breast I pinched and looking at my back with a puzzled frown and a look of growing lust.

When I reach the edge of the stones I pull Mother's Morn out and wrap the belt around my hips. As I do so I look back towards the forge and see her still looking after me.

As I pass the apple woods I feel a sudden disquiet settles about me. Looking towards the dark trees suddenly I feel that the old stories of trolls in the heart of the orchard might not be so far fetched. A definite feeling of hate filled eyes watching me settles upon me. I tighten my fingers on Mother's Morn till I'm past them.



** ** ** ** ** ** **


Beltine is normally the festival celebrating the arrival of spring.

There shouldn't been a foot of  new snow on the ground.

The Lord of the manor and his knights road in this morning to join in the feasting that normally takes place. The scramble to gather enough food from the surrounding homes for there to be a feast is frantic. I know that if the cold doesn't break soon this meal that his Lordship knights complains so bitterly about the quality of may cause several families to starve.

Mine won't be among them. Our fortunes have never been better. Father's heath took a turn for the better not long after mid winter and he managed to get out of bed enough to watch the fires. That left Steward and me to the other chores. We managed to if not double our output at least add to it some.

Mother's Morn has had to cut more than wood again this spring. Twice we have been set upon in the deep woods. Stewards axe wouldn't have been enough to save us on both occasions.

For the black sword, now always at my side, it was easy work.

"Well what have we here? A woodburner who thinks he's a knight." The words are haughty and they carry the sound of the cities about them.

I turn and give the required bow to nobility as I see the gold spurs on their heels. The two men are dressed in the most colorful of velvets one blue, one green and both wear dyed furs. One holds a piece of cloth to his nose as if the smells of the village offend him.

It's the other one that spoke though, the one in blue...

"Where did you find that sword boy?" he asks me his eyes on the dark leather at my side.

Part of me now wishes I'd followed Stewards advice and left the sword at the house.

I also know if I had tried to do that I would have gone back for it before I made it a dozen feet out the door.

"A noble asked you a question boy answer him!" Says the armored guard 
standing next to the two knights in their finery. 

I turn my head a bit and my eyes lock on the guard, I take in his chainmail shirt and the hard look to his face. He's one of the new ones that came up from the south in the middle of the winter. His eyes widen as he looks at my face and I see his hand reflexively close around the haft of the halberd he caries.

"I found it in a tree I was chopping down, my lords." I tell the man in blue.

"Ah, battlefield trash no doubt. Well come spring we will be calling up a force to go to the war in the south and that sword may find it's way into the hands of someone who can use it. Take It." he orders the guard.

The man takes a half step towards me then stops with a gasp.

My hand is on the hilt of Mother's Morn. An inch of the black sword is clear of the leather.  My eyes I know carry the fact that it won't leave my fingers while life is in me. I see a look of incredulous surprise cross the featured of the two knights.

"You would dare draw steel on a noble?" the Blue Knight asks with a hiss. He takes a half step back and a young man walking behind him dress to match moves forward. I see the boy...squire...offer the noble a gilded scabbard and the bejeweled sword slides from it easily.

I notice the guard is slowly drifting back away from me. His face is  locked on mine a look I can't place filling his eyes.

Another inch of Mother's Morn clears the scabbard.

I see the noble's features settle into a murderous look.

"Filthy peasant! I'll have to teach you your place. When I've disarmed you I'll have the life whipped from you!"

"What's going on here sir Talbric?"

I don't turn my head but I can see the face of the Lord as he and his guards walk up behind me. I see one of them go to lower his halberd towards my back but the guard in front of me almost franticly waves him off.

"This peasant would draw that piece of battlefield scrap on me!" says the Blue  Knight with a sputter.

I hear a chuckle from behind me after a second. I can see the Lord is smiling.

"Would he now? Would he indeed? Well I must say I like that kind of spirit in my people. Sheath your sword sir Talbric this is a feast not a tourney melee." 

The Blue Knight's face goes through several emotions most of them based on hate in some way. He turns and slams the gilded bejeweled sword into the, squire held, scabbard. I see the young man flinch as the hilt hits his fingers.

I slowly slid the dark steel back home. I can feel a sense of disappointment. I don't think it's mine.

I watch the two knights and their guards and squires walk off into the crowd. The guards are shoving them a clear path through the gathering.

I turn to the Lord. His eyes are hard as they met mine.

"I don't really care for sir Talbric but he is a Knight. A Noble. I could have your thumbs ripped out for what you did. He's an arrogant snobbish boot full of piss that is badly in need of dumping but he is by the grace of the King's hand... a far station above yours. I like spirit in my people...disrespect him again and I will take...umbrage... at your lack of hubris."

I nod to the Lord of the lands I live in. The man whose family has rules mine for dozens of generation.

It's the nod one equal would give to another.

I see his guard's faces tighten and their weapons shift a bit.

Mother's Morn is whispering....

The Lord slowly smiles. After a second he returns the nod.

** ** ** ** ** ** **


The reaction of the girls of marriageable age to what happened is absolutely ferocious! I soon feel like I'm the prize stud bull at a breading auction.

I hear a chuckle deep in my thoughts.

Apparently Mother's Morn agrees.

The mothers of the girls that finally will not give way to one another all come together and, with my mother directing it, they very much do bid on me!

The final offer for me is a house built new for my bride and I to dwell in. It will be constructed on a large bare tract of land not terrible far from the house of my parents. A bit too rocky for much farming, it will do well for a charcoal burner's dwelling.

I watch my Mother shake hands with the wife of the smith.

Gertrude is looking at me with a possessive grin as our mothers go to find the priest.

Oh well at least she can cook.



** ** ** ** ** ** **


The room at the tavern is almost a strange thing for me. The walls are white plastered. I've never seen that. The bed is huge and the covers many.

Again new to me.

A night here...my father and brother's Beltine gift to me.

I look down at the circlet of polished steel the priest fastened around my left wrist. In a years time it will be exchanged for a ring that will be placed upon my finger.

Steward say it will also fit just perfectly in my nose.

I turn towards Gertrude.... my wife of a whole hour. She's lighting the large wax candles her brothers and father gave her. She also bears a similar circlet. I remember Stewards and his wife's were wooden.

Marriage to a smith's daughter it sees has benefits beyond the normal.

I watch her turn towards me.

Maybe it would have been better if her father and brothers hadn't given her candles.

She moves over to me and places a soft kiss upon my lips. Stepping back she smiles up at me.

She's...actually very ...well not beautiful but not bad looking when she smiles.

She lifts my left hand and places a softer kiss upon the steel bracelet.

"May we have these taken off sooner than a year." She says in a whisper to me.

I know by that she hopes I'll get her pregnant soon. A woman with child is the fastest way the rings can be put firmly in place.

The idea of little children calling me father sends a strange feeling though me.

Then she is in my arms. This kiss is far from soft. There is a demanding need from her that I have never felt in my life from another person ...certainly not from a woman kissing me.

She breaks the kiss and places her hands on my chest. She backs me to the bed and I sit down when I feel it against the back of my thighs.

"I have something for you my love. It's something I've wanted to give you for a long time." She steps back from me. I look at her back lit from the tall candles.

The strings of her bodice begin to unravel at her quick fingers. I watch with fascination as her breast settle lower without the support. Then the laces are out of the way and she slips off the brocade cloth.

I can make out the darker points of her nipples through the white blouse as she works the laces at her throat. The blouse opens out the way and I can see her under chemise. It opens a long way down her chest and I see the tops of her breast appear before my eyes. The nipples are clearly to be seen pressed against the thin material.

"Husband?" she says softly.

I lift my eyes to her face.

"Help me with my boots."

She lifts her foot and places the leather between my legs. Her skirt falls away to reveal the tall tops of the boots she's wearing. 

Hesitantly I lift my hand up till I'm holding her leg just under the calf. I pull lose a lace and look up at her eyes as I slowly loosen it, down to her feet.

She slips her stocking encased foot from within it. I see her delicate toes for the first time and feel myself beginning to respond.

Then her next foot is between my legs.

This time I place my hand higher and I feel the soft cotton hose under my fingers and the warm heat of the back of her knees in my palm. The laces unravel in my fingers. When I look up I see her smiling at me.

Her foot slips free.

"My stockings."

Her foot is almost tiny as she places it between my legs. I look up at her then back down at her leg. 

Placing my hand under her knee I catch the top of the hose and begin to roll them down her leg. The pale skin appearing above the fabric is mesmerizing to my eyes. So forbidden.... and yet ...mine now.

That though comes up to me as I slide her foot out the stocking and it rests in my hand. I look down at her delicate toes and slowly start to caress my...wife's... foot.

I hear a low moan from her.

"Any other night and you can do that to your hearts content, my lord. But tonight, my husband, I have other things I want you to touch besides my feet. The other one please."

Her foot is taken from me and the other one placed before me. I leave it to rest on the bed and run both of my hands up her leg. She lifts her skirt higher till it clear the top of the hose then higher still till I see the pale white of her thigh. My fingers brush this as I catch the top of her hose and start to pull them slowly down. Looking up at her I see her grin.

I run my hand down her calf as the hose starts to slip free. Then her foot is in my hand. She lets me rub it for only a second then takes it away.

"As I said other things to touch tonight."

As I watch she undoes the ties of her skirt and it drops in a puddle to her feet. 
The candles back light her. I can see her body...her whole body as she lets the blouse fall to the floor on top of the skirt, backbit through the thin cloth of her chemise.

I shift on the edge of the bed uncomfortable. I've hardened to the point it's painful.

I feel the impossible happen then.

I harden even more.

The last ties are undone and the thin chemise drops like a white water fall to the floor. First her breast come clear of it. They stand full and proud up from her chest. They are far larger than I would have though she had.  Then the cloth passes her hips and I see the gentle round curves where her stomach and thighs met. Her hand covers her for a second then she moves it away.

My eyes are drawn like iron filling to lodestone to the dark tangle of hair. The forbidden land of pleasure, that the older men always discuss in whisper least the women hear them talking.

I slowly let my eyes travel up to her face again.

I was wrong, the candles were a very good idea. Bare to the world my wife is as beautiful as any woman ever born.

"Do you like what you see my husband?" she asks me with a blush to her cheeks. I see her bite at her bottom lip when I hesitate to answer for a second.

"You are so beautiful." I say in a soft whisper.

She smiles and then I see her giving me a frank look.

"You didn't think that till you saw me like this." She says after a second. "Will that opinion return when I put my clothes back on?"

I shake my head.

"I was a boy then." I tell her getting to my feet.

She looks at me with a touch of apprehension crossing her features for a second.

"Oh...and are you a man now?"

I step the few feet to my wife and look down into her beautiful face. I lean in till I'm just inches from her face.

"I'm about to be."

Her naked body fills my arms and then my hands as I lean into her lips. The warmth of her... the soft as silk feeling of her skin as I caress her back. Then down her back and onto her hips.

Her lips attack mine with a furious aggression. I feel again that skill that I did so many months ago. I don't care now who may have kissed her. I'm sure in my heart that she wasn't like she is now when he did.

After a moment her fingers find the back of my head and dig in to my hair. I start to feel an upward pull. I with great reluctance let her lips slip away. My eyes open to find hers gazing into mine from only inches away.

"Husband?"

I smile 

"Yes my wife?'

She hesitates then swallows.

"May I see you.... as...I am now?"

I nod and step back from her. I bring my hand up to the laces of my shirt.

"No!"

I stop. She moves the short distance. Her fingers come up to meet mine.

"Let Me." she says softly.

I smile and nod.

Watching with a smile I see her begin to undo the laces by my throat. The shirt falls open inch by inch as she does. I smile when I see her lift her head to look through the opening to my chest.

"Take it off if you want to see." I tell her.

She looks up at me and blushes then lowering her eyes nods. Her finger start to pull at the buckle of my sword belt. I grin when she suddenly opens it and its full weight pulls her forward. I catch it and set it to the side against the chair. Mother's Morn leans against the inner arm of the chair with a sound that's just about a chuckle.

My shirt unbelted it drifts out from my skin to brush her. I watch as she catches the bottom edge of it and lifts it up.

Her hands come to rest on my chest as she lets the shirt fall to the floor. I smile when I hear a soft growl from her throat as she runs her hands across the hard muscle.

"Oh I did not know you had this under there. My lord laughter, you are a beautiful man."

I chuckle.

"And I'm yours."

She looks up at my face and I see a sudden need flush her cheeks. Her hands drop to the rope tying my pants around my waist. She fumbles with the knot for a second then it opens. My pants drop open on the sides to past my cock. I look down and shift myself till I'm sitting on the chair that Mother's Morn is leaned against.

"Usually I take off my boots first. But feel free to remove my clothing in what ever order you feel like."

She smiles then kneels down in front of me. Her head suddenly closer to my cock than any woman's has ever been. I see her eyes go to it. The hard bulge pushing the thin small cloth.

I gasp as without warning she moves her hand to it. I lean back into the chair, the sword's hilt a cold pressure against my back. Her fingers tighten against me till it's almost painful.

Their sudden absence is almost as much a shock as their presence was. Looking down at her she's blushing scarlet.

"I just wanted to feel it." she says quickly.

I start to laugh.

She looks up at me embarrassed.

"I've never touched one before. I just wanted to see what it felt like." She says with a shrug.

Leaning forward I place a soft kiss upon her lips to still her embarrassment. When we part her eyes linger on mine.

"If you will take off my boots and get these pants out the way. We can let yourself really feel what one is like."  I tell her as I sit back. Again there is the hard poke of Mother's Morn in my back, but this time it almost feels like a hand. Like a finger taping me to get my attention.

She seems to have a lot more experience taking off a man's boots than his shirt because she quickly has the soft leather unlaced and pull from my stockings. Then my pants follow. They were already around my knees.

I go to stand so that I can get my small cloth off but she presses me back by my chest. I grin as she lifts my foot and rolls down my stocking. Then I watch her playfully eying me as she does the other one.

"Are you always this hard, my lord?"

I chuckle.

"Only when I'm around a so very naked a woman."

She grins.

"So you going to be this hard every time you see me naked? That could lead to problems."

"I can think of a solution to those problems." I tell her with a smile.

"Oh, and what be that?" she asks with a grin.

Standing up I look down at her. My hand goes to the tied cloth at the side and with practiced ease the knot comes lose. As the cloth falls away I see her mouth open in surprise.




Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 03



I see her lift a hand to touch me then stops just inches away. I make myself twitch and she jumps.

She laughs and looks up at me.

"I didn't know you could do that! You're being a very naughty husband keeping secrets already and we only been wed a few hours. What other tricks can this long thing do?"

I catch her under her arms and lift her to me. Her lips find mine as I step forward and feel the silky warmth of her all along my body. I move my mouth around to her ear.

"I don't know for sure, but I've been told it can make a woman scream in pleasure."

"Oh can it? Well I don't know for sure but I've heard tell that a woman has to scream in pain first, before she can scream in pleasure. Have you heard the same?" she asks with a knowing look and a teasing tone. "So which are you going to make me do?"

The long months chopping and hauling wood has me stronger than I've ever been. When I bend down and hook her under her leg I easily lift her off her feet.

Turning I lay us down onto the bed, feeling the so very soft mattress sink under her weight then mine. The ropes underneath give a creek then tighten.

My face is right above hers. I look down into her eyes and see there that there was a bit of uncertainty in that teasing question. I hold my weight off her and with my legs part her thighs.

"I'm afraid your going to do the screaming in pain part first, my love. But I promise, unskilled as I am at this, I will find out how to make you do the other. Before this night is over I promise you that."

Felling her wiggle around under me She finds a perfect spot and we settle in against each other. I can feel the head of me brushing through those thick curls. I move myself around a bit but I don't find an opening. With a bit of confusion I look up at her and see her start to smile, then grin.

"Need a hand there, my lord?" she asks teasing me.

Then I feel a slick wetness at the tip of me. A gentle shove and I see her eyes pop open.

"I think I found where I'm suppose to be." I push forward and see her wince. Then she presses her teeth together and hisses.

"Stop a moment. Please just give me a second." She says then.

I feel her hand go between us and then down to where the head of me is pushing inside her. I can feel an incredible tight feeling around the tip of my cock and I long for it along the rest of me. Her fingers close around me and I feel her push me down just a bit. The tightness increases.

When her hand comes out I try to shift my weight and my hand slips on the sheets!

I feel about half of me suddenly sink into her with a warm wet rush, before I can catch my weight again and stop it the other half drives home.

It's got to be the most wonderful feeling I've ever known in my life as I stop.

Judging from the sudden digging of her fingernails into my sides and the way her scream comes around the teeth she is sinking into my shoulder I can guess for her it's a different story.

I don't move but just hold her to me as I feel her starts to cry under me then. I even start to pull out but she catches me and holds me to her, shaking her head.

"No. I'm a woman and a woman lets her man do this. I just need to get use to it. It took me by surprise." She softens her hold on my sides. "Oh I'm sorry I bit you."

"It's okay, I've had worse. Are you alright, does it still hurt?'

She nods her head after a moment.

"No worse than at my time of the moon. In fact I've had worse pains down there...Oh my!"

Slowly I pull myself up then sink back down into her. The motion was done without though but felt so suddenly right. I see her eyes open wide as I do it again.

Then there is a gasp for air as I pull nearly out of her and push all the way back. I feel a tight pressure against the head of me as I push into her harder trying to make more of me enter.

Her eyes are telling me I'm hurting her.

"I'm sorry."

She shakes her head.

"Don't be. Your doing what your suppose to do, beside it's only hurting where I tore and in the very back of me when you pushed all the way in like that." I see a look cross her face and she start to breath harder. "In fact that doesn't feel bad at all." 

I see her wince. Then there is a deep moan from her as I give a harder shove.

"Okay...I think... I can ... see where ... the scream of pleasure might... be coming from." She tells me panting as I begin to thrust harder and harder into her. I don't want to hurt her but my god this feels wonderful!

I hear a mixture now, little hisses of pain, then these wonderfully deep moans of pleasure. Her fingers come around and I feel her trying to pull me in a bit deeper. I give a hard thrust and all of me goes into her.

There is a cry from her then that is almost all pain but she confuses me with her words.

"Oh, again!"

I pull out till I'm right on the edge of coming out of her then I push it into her will the full power of my back. I feel our bodies hit with a smack!

Again there is a cry of pain and her fingernails dig into my spine but at the same time I feel her thrust herself up to meet me.

"Oh Flenn, oh please Flenn! Oh yes, my husband." I listen to her whimper in what sounds like agony but I am quickly getting beyond where I could stop even if she begged me to stop. The thrusting into what is the hottest and tightest place the gods made is driving me very quickly towards spending.

She opens her thighs. They are warm and wet along my hips as she pulls them up given even more of herself to me.

I start to grunt with every thrust. I feel her placing soft kisses around my neck and throat, then up my chin. I lean down and kiss her but quickly have to pull back as need for breath makes me gasp. She is looking up at me with her mouth opening into a perfect 'O' then her eyes squint shut and she drives herself up onto to me. We hit with a hard smack and she shrieks!

As her fingers drag my back I feel the skin burn under her nails and my body tightens. I cry out joining her in bliss as I feel myself empty. Pulse after pulse shooting from me into her. She gives little quivers as my cock expands inside her. Then I feel myself just slowly collapsing. Try though I might I lower my full weight onto her body.

As I try to catch my breath she squirms herself on me. Clearly wanting more she's making her body move around the length of me as I slowly soften. Her hands caress me gently. I hear her softly whispering my name by my ear. 

After several minutes I manage to bring my hands down and push up on the mattress. 

Looking down at her I see her face is flush like she's blushing. There is sweat on her brow and her hair is sticking to her neck. She looks up at me and slowly smiles.


"Well, it did hurt, but if that's you solution for your getting hard every time you see me naked. I can live with it." I feel her legs twitch against the side of me. "Oh yea...oh my... Flenn?"

"Yes my love?"

"How soon can you get hard again?"

I start to laugh.

"Well it doesn't take very long. Why already wanting more..."

She gives a shrug and is about to answer then looks over to the window.

I follow her gaze and see the flickering light.

"Why did they light the bonfire? That's for tomorrow night." She asks her hand brushing her hair out her eyes.

Her eyes go wide as I pull myself from her and jump to my feet.

"Flenn?"

"That's not the bonfire! The square is on the other side of the inn!"

Rushing to the window I open the inner shutters and swing them in. The Velum panels open inward then the outer shutter swing out.

I hear the first screams then.

"Oh my god that's the Candler's place!"

Gertrude has come to press herself against the back of me and look out. I catch her arms as I turn and move her to the side.

"Get dress and stay here." I order as I grab up my pants and start to dress as quickly as I can. I have my boot half laced when the screams start to get louder.

"Flenn?" she screams after me as I grab my belt and rush to the door.

Turning I see my wife standing there backbit by the flickering flames from the window. Her dress clutched to her chest. I hurry back to her and plant a solid kiss on her lips.

"Your still beautiful my love. Stay here, stay safe!"

As I reach the door of the open front door of the inn I see a huge shadow pass in front of it. My hand goes to the wire and leather hilt of Mother's Morn.

The sword is screaming into my mind to be drawn!

As I plunge out into the night I toss my belt and the scabbard to the ground by the door. I run towards the sounds of a woman screaming in pain.

Her name was Merthila. She was the Bakers wife. Her screams mercifully end just as I get close.

The creature eating her didn't like the noise while it was feasting!

Without though my hand tightens around the hilt the black blade, it rises and with a cry to the gods I slash the thing in half!

As it falls I see it horrible blood ridden face. It's nothing I've ever seen in this world. I can't even take time to describe it as I hear and then see two more of them coming at me at a run.

I can see their faces then show surprise... when I run at them to close the distance.
The pale stone wall of the Apothecary shop is covered in dark black blood as I spin past them and into the town square. They fall in pieces severed far easier than any tree.

The center of towns is a mad house. The creatures are tearing into the town's folk with screams of sick pleasure while the people try to flee.  Then I see the black smith and my brother standing back to back!

A mighty swing of a hammer and a slicing cleave of a double bitten axe! They are at least holding their own against the things.

I feel hot blood splash my arm as I drive Mother's Morn effortlessly into the gut of one of the things. It howls down into my face with a stench like a bog.

I kick it from the blade and move towards my brother.

Hearing a howl I half turn, then I hear my brother screaming my name. 

Seven or more of these creatures are suddenly on top of me driving me to the ground. Claws tear at me, teeth bite at me. Hands pull me this way and that with a strength that's unholy. Then a hot bar of fire is driven into my chest. I vomit blood from my mouth as I scream denial at death. Then the sword is ripped even more painfully from me. I'm pushed to the ground to lie panting. I bring my hand to the wound only to feel it close under my fingertip.

Dragging my fingers through the bloody hair I can't find it! Just a raised white scar marks where it was.

My hand tightens on the hilt of Mother's Morn.

Power surges up through me then, powerful thought begin to fill my brain. I see armies at my call; heroes of legend call my name to save them. 

I rise.

With a scream I spin into them!

I hear their howls, I see their goat like faces, I feel the hard racking of their claws, the sharp tearing of their bites. The terrible agony when their weapons slam into me causing bloody wounds that heal in seconds. But I do not stop killing them!

Screaming in a rage of pain and primal hatred I spin and slash at them one after another as they come close to me. I slash their terrible faces from in front of me. I slash at them like I'm clearing limbs from a tree. They fall far more easily. 

Smoke from the burning town fills my nose but memories of thousands of camp fires fill me more. I see warriors in strange armor and places I have no name for.

Still I kill them. More come at me then and then more! I hear the screams of the villagers. Turning I see the Lord of the manor and the two Knights standing their blades drawn. Their eyes are on me and I see a sick horror on the faces of their guards.

Like I'm harvesting wheat I reap into the creatures as they surge into me. I shrug off the terrible slashing cuts from their weapons and fight on feeling myself heal and grow stronger second by second.

Then it stops

Blinking, dripping dark blood from every bit of me I lower the point of the black blade. It cuts its way into flagstone at my feet with ease. I slowly sink to my knees my hands clutching the hilts. I lean my head into the dark metal pommel. I feel the strange thoughts slowly slipping away but some of the memories linger longer than others.

In moments I have lived lives. I have see the bodies of hundreds of women under me and heard their cries of pleasure. Equally I've felt the deaths screams of tens of thousands of warriors. The hot impact of them when they hit the hilts, the wet spray of their blood against me, their fingers clutching to me. Their last sight my face as their eyes go blank.

"Flenn?"

My brother's voice is familiar and yet at the same time it is not. It has the feel of one of the memories. Like someone I knew in a more distant time. Ever so slowly I bring my head up and away from the sword. 

He steps back from me when he sees my face.

"Oh my god!"

My brother turns from me in horror and runs away!

Unable to believe what I'm seeing I reach out for him and I see what sent him running!

Scars! All along my arm. Hundreds of them. A spiders web pattern of scars. I follow them down my arm to my chest. I have far more there. I see some even closing and going white as I watch.

Bringing my hand to my face I feel the lines. Like piles of thatch they cross in every direction.

I realize then...every wound...every cut, claw, and stab that I took left its mark.

Using the hilts I push myself to my feet. My weight drives the sword a good foot into the paving stone.

I reluctantly lift my fingers off the pommel. . I tighten and loosen my hand flexing the fingers. I look up at the night sky and the rising column of smoke.

I feel as immense as the night, as powerful as the darkness above, to snuff out the lives of thousand would be but a simple task for my fingers now.

"I demand that sword peasant!"

With as much awareness as I would give a bee busing next to me I turn to look at the Knight.

His fine clothes and decorative weapon are hardly even stained. I can see the guards that flank him are nearly as blood drenched as myself. But him... he isn't even winded.

My eyes narrow. My finger caress the hilt of Mother's Morn. His guards stop and I see them think about raising their weapons for a second, then they exchange a look between them that speaks volumes. They then sort of half step away from the Knight.

He doesn't even notice.

"Did you hear me boy? I said give me that sword! It's a blade far to wondrous for the hand of a peasant to wield. In the hands of a true warrior like myself its power would be enough to bring an end to the war! Give it to me!"

Like pulling it from water Mother's Morn slips its black length out the stone. I lift it till its point is just a foot from his brightly colored surcoats.

"Please...come take it." I whisper.

"Insolent puppy! Kneel and lay that thing at my feet you worthless...deformed...charcoal burner! Guards. Disarm him." He looks then to either side of him and sees then that his men have moved back several feet. They are not looking away from me for even a second. It's the same kind of attention I would give a snake within striking distance.

I see the Lord of the land coming towards me. His hands are raised in a pacifying gesture. His eyes are locked with mine after a second then his face takes on a look of disgust. His eyes start to roam across me taking in all the marks. A thousand lines of pain written in white upon my skin.

His eyes go to the black sword.

My finger pop as they tighten around the hilt.

"Sir Talbric! If you value your life step away from that man. That's a hell blade he's holding and it will not be taken from him while life is in his body. You know the legends." warns the Lord.

"Yes I do you fool! Legend of power, the power to make oneself King! To lead armies too glorious victories over any and all that come at you. I will not see such in the hands of a peasant!"

He brings his sword up towards my face. I flick my wrist.

The black sword slips to the side and I hear a steel on stone clang.

Sir Talbric looks down at the hilt of his sword that now sports only about six inches of blade. The end severed as clean as I could sever a small tree branch with a razor sharp axe.

"You live because you're not worth killing." I tell him softly. "There's a another sword by your feet. Pick it up, if you wish. Make it worth my time."

My words come to me from a distant battlefield. From the lips of a General to the ear of a Prince they were spoken last.

This Knight isn't really worthy of them.

I see a snarl of rage cross his face and he starts to stoop down.

The Lord of the manor grabs his arms and pulls him back.

"Guards restrain Sir Talbric."

"Unhand me!" screams the Knight "I will have the power of that sword!"

The manor Lord grabs him and pulls him up into his face.

"You fool." He says in a whisper. I hear him as clear as if he were screaming it. "You know the legends. Not a one of those blades is without danger to its welder. Look at the boy! I wouldn't take up that hellish thing no matter the power it holds. Look!"

Sir Talbric looks away from the Lord then. I see his eyes come to rest on me for the first time. Till then I think all he's seen is the black sword.

The look on his face tells me more about what I must now look like than even my brother's reaction.

Pulling himself free of he Lord, He walks away without another word.

As the guards follow him away the Lord slowly come to stand just out of reach of me and Mother's morn. So he thinks at least.

Looking down I kick one the things with my boot.

"What are these?"

"The Kings heralds call them Grulls. I'm told they came across the sea in huge floating piles of wreckage. Hundreds maybe thousands of ship lashed together in a huge floating island. They surged ashore and began burning village after village. Then more of them arrived on another of those floating piles of timbers. Then more. We don't know how many there are in the south but for them to have come this far north the number must be huge."

I see battle plans forming at the back of my mind. Old enemies, dead centuries, move into positions of power. I look up at the man that until just awhile ago was my Lord.

"The King is losing. Isn't he? For this many to have come all the way to here he can't be stopping them."

I see a bit of anger flash across his face. His hand slips to his side but then as he moves his foot and his boot connects with Sir Talbric's sword blade.

The anger and color drains form his face. He nods.

"Are you going south?" I ask him knowing the answer.

"I was ordered to hold the North Lands."

"If the south falls that will not matter. You might can retreat back into the mountains and make a stand. At least till winter came and you froze to death in the snow." I look to where I can see my brother standing just at the far side of the village. He's talking to my father. His arms are swinging wildly and then he points towards me.

"I may go south. I wish to discuss this with my family..." I see my father take one look at me then he and my brother walk off into he night. "With my wife."

"Son...you need to see what you look like. I ... I'm sorry this fell to you."
I watch the Lord of the manor turn and walk away from me.

"Flenn!"

I hear my wife's voice calling me from the direction of the inn. I see her father holding her by the arm trying to restrain her from coming to me.

She turns and hits him, beating at his chest. Finally he has to turn her lose and she runs towards me.

Before I can see that look on her face I turn away from her.

"Flenn?" I hear her steps come to a slow stop a bit behind me. I can see her face as clearly as if I was turned towards her. "Flenn you're covered in blood! Are you hurt my love?"

"No. But I'm not the same anymore. Look at my back, my arms. You can see what's happened to me."




Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 03



"Oh ...Oh my god Flenn!" I hear he start to walk towards me. Then she stops. "Flenn? Flenn turn around...please."

"You wont like what you see." I warn her "I'm hideous now. That's what everyone's faces have shown me."

"Flenn...my husband. Turn around." She says gentle

I close my eyes but it doesn't help I can still see her face. I know now why Mother's Morn was driven into the ground all those centuries ago. It's been flung away a hundred times or more. The memories of each come to me as I turn and see my wife beloved face. It changes then. 

She smiles. Tears roll down her face but she smiles.

"You're still my beautiful man. Come here to me my husband. Lets go get you cleaned up, you look a fright."



I have to chuckle at that, even smile. I can feel my lips pull at odd scars. Even my smile doesn't feel right now but she smiles back.

Her hand comes up to brush my face her fingers gently caressing the scared surface.

"Still my beautiful man."

I see my reflection in her eyes and wince.

"How can you think I'm beautiful?" I ask turning my face away.

"You didn't think I was beautiful... till you saw me with my clothes off remember?"

"I was a boy...and a fool."

Her hand comes around and catches my chin. She turns me to look at her. Tears have cut tracts down her soot-covered face.

"And you're still a fool...if you think a few scars will make me not love my husband."

I see myself in her eyes true, but then I see myself in her heart. I know at that moment that no matter what happens, no matter how many marks I come to bear. To her I will always be her beautiful husband.

Just as she is my beautiful wife.

Pulling her to me I kiss her then, only to very quickly feel her hands pushing me away.

"Ayea! You're all covered in muck! Look what you done did to my dress." She smacks me across the chest. Then she smiles to take away the sting. "Come along you great oaf. Let go get you cleaned off." She tales my hand.

As we reach the water pump she grabs the bucket and dips it into the trough. There is a rag hanging there that doesn't look to dirty. She takes it and begins to clean off the blood.

"Your pants are ruined. When we get back to the inn you will need to take them off and leave them outside the room."

I look down started when her hand crossed under the ties of my paints and seizes my cock.

She's grinning up at me.

"This is still my wedding night and if you think one goes going to be enough, I got plenty of surprises in store for you before the dawn." She places the tip of her tongue between her front teeth and gives me a wicked look.

I grin at my wife.

I swear Mother's Morn is laughing at me then.



Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 04



Chapter 04

Stolen Souls

"I hesitate to put ink to parchment with this tale. Like no other of the Hell swords are the stories of this unholy thing. It should have been lost forever and never found. Though in truth that can and should be said of all of them.

But this one? Not a single mention of it is given where thousands do not perish. The blood cost of this one blade may surpass all the others... save one. 

That one I will not write of since it involves my own family.

If not for the love I bear my king, and how well known to the world the central character in this tale is, I would burn every reference I have and destroy this record unfinished. No mention I think should ever be given...of Shandrell, the Seducer of Souls."

Albreth Ravenclaw, King's Chronicler

The swamp mud clings to my boots threatening to pull them from my feet with every step. Yet for all of that I do not stop running through the muck. I can still hear the hounds baying behind me. They have chased me for half the day. 

All for a deer.

I know that poaching on the Lord's land is a crime, but his actions make it necessary. He has had his huntsmen in the wood making noise,driving all the game in the nearby land towards his estates. If I didn't poach I wouldn't eat. I wouldn't have the furs I sell for the coins I need. The coins for the ale I drink and for the comforting use of the tavern keepers daughter. At the time I was hunting it had seemed worth the risk.

Now? Not so much.

A hidden root sends me into the muck for the hundredth time in the last few hours. My clothes hang wet, like dead skin upon me, as I try to rise. Spitting mud from my mouth, I pull my hand up wrapped around a stick. Whipping mud from my eyes on my sleeve I see differently.

The old bone falls from my hand and sinks back into its watery grave while I retch. It was a leg bone and decidedly human.

It's the hounds, those relentless hounds that drive me to my feet. Stumbling I make it all of maybe thirty feet then I'm soaked again. In the warm stinking ooze my hand finds a piece of metal.

"Eye holes?" I say spitting muck from my mouth. Sitting up I pull the old helm from the water. For only seconds do I hold it before the skull inside drops out! Black eyeless holes look up at me, accusingly, for a few seconds then the water slurps the skull back into the muddy depths. I get to my feet shaking and stumble off into the swamp.

Deeper, ever deeper into this marsh I'm driven. The hounds drive me with their howls. Hour, after hour, after hour I stumble through the wet. The grasses clinging to me, the slime coating me. My nose filled with the rotting smell of the mud that I now know comes from the bodies of what must be thousands. More and more often now my hands find rotten bits of leather, rusted things that could have once been weapons,....and bones. Stained, cracked shards of men long dead. They move under my hands when I fall, but I no longer pull them above the water.

I've heard the rumors of this place my whole life. Some say a great battle was fought here long ago It's said that in the very heart of the marsh the survivors planted a tall black cross. Some say the body of the enemy lord was hung from it.

Black Cross Mire is its named. Drunken rumors spread over too much ale. That's what I always held them to be.

Now? Not so much.

Those same rumors have it the place is haunted.

Never believed those either. As I pull my foot up out the sucking mud for the thousandth time I think I would rather be chased by ghost than by these damn hounds. A ghost would likely be less persistent than the lord and these retched hounds.

Hounds?

I slowly come to a halt standing knee deep in the water. I look down at the dark green sludge then back the way I have come. How are hounds tracking me? I've been wading through water for hours now. I can smell like nothing else but this swamp. Not even the nose of the best hound could track me by scent. The sick smell of this rotten, flesh ridden mud is far too strong!

Looking back, I can see a long way through the twisted blackened trees that sit, like hunched nightmares, above the water. I can see almost for a mile! The hounds bay with a fury sounding all the closer for my pause. The tone changes ...they have the target in sight!

How?

Turning to the west I see to my horror how much time has passed. The sun sits near the water! I have but a short time till I lose the light.

The hounds bay even closer than before!

How?

The sound of them grows in both volume and fury! My heart enters my throat and I swallow as it flows around me in waves of growling and snarling. Then their baying is an echo coming back to me from behind me. Then, as I stand shivering from the growing cold, there is a sudden quiet that is far more frightening than anything that came before it.

As the shadows lengthen, I turn and stumbling with exhaustion make my way to a small cluster of twisted trees. My hands touch the wood just as the last light dies around me. Climbing out of the water, I cling to the warped and soggy wood. The swamp pulling at my feet almost like it's reluctant to give me up. The branches give me no solid purchase so a many a time I slip back into the waters. Waters that now seem, if anything, warmer. I shiver from the cold night air as a faint breeze blows up. I watch the moon lift it's from the edge of the swamp and drift upwards. It's huge face giving a pale white light to the lands around me.

A sick color shimmer on the top of the water under this light. I follow it to where it starts and gasp when I see the rise. A place out of the water!

Should I go there?

The nub of a broken branch trying to work it's way up my ass decides the issue for me. I try to move and the wet wood slips under my hand dropping me a half dozen feet back into the swamp. The water is warmer than the night air. I rake mud from my face and start for the rise. At first when I see them poking up I think I'm see scraggly trees on the rise. Trees draped with moss. It hangs in tatters from the straight branches. But then...as I close the distance I see they are in fact banners! What they once displayed is long since lost to time and weather but tatters of cloth hangs from them dancing wisp like in the night breeze. The wind increases as I step onto the pile of stones. The banners move back and I see it. A large black cross standing in the center of the rise!

Nay not a rise...a cairn!

The trees with their hard branches suddenly seem a much better place to spend the night.

Turning around, I see the moonlight fade. Looking up I see the moon pass behind a rolling cluster of clouds. They cross its face in long streamers almost like.... my eyes go to the shredded banners hanging behind me. I turn away and start for the trees more by guessing than by sight.

"Who's there?"

I turn sharp at the sound of a woman's voice. I see her when the clouds break away from in front of the moon for a few brief seconds. She's huddled near the cross clutching at what may be the largest rock. She's watching me her eyes glowing almost in the moonlight. Her clothes, look to be in the same state as my own. 

"Who are you?" she asks in a voice that quavers with fear.

"Just a man, lost. I'm Simon...called the Wanderer by many. The Poacher by others. I mean the no harm, good lady. I am, just as lost out here as yourself."

I see her nod.

"Yes, I am lost. Though it would seem that now I am found. I'm Shandrell. Called many things but few of them are pleasant. Even poacher would be better than what some call me."

Moving forward the moon breaks just as I near the cairn again. In it's pale light I can see her face. Under the caked on mud there is dried blood...and maybe other things as well. I can see her arm hangs limp at her side with a twist near the elbow that shouldn't be there.

"Did you hurt yourself here in the swamp?" I ask, concern driving the fear I felt earlier away.

She looks to her arm, then shakes her head.

"No, not here. This wasn't done here."

When I move forwards a bit too fast she quickly stand and backs away. I see then that her clothes are worse than my own. They are shreds. 

And under those shreds she is covered in round bruises.

"I've seen wounds like those before. On a body. The man was stones to death for Adultery. Did someone try to kill you like that, my lady?" I ask my hands held wide and opened.

She gives a nod after a few second, then stumbles. Her hand catches the black cross as she falls. I see then it's true size. 

There is no way that a man was hung from it. It's top it barely six feet off the ground! 

She sinks to the stones and starts to cry.

"I give up. Do to me what you will, sir. Just, I pray you, end my life when you are done so that I may suffer no more."

My heart turns to lead at her words. I feel again the hunted feeling that drove me here. I know what it must have been like for her. To be lost in this swamp, driven here by people that wished her dead.

"I will not harm you. In fact I will do anything I can to keep you safe. I pledge you this."

She does not respond . She lays curled up on the ground crying and shivering from the now terrible cold that sends chill through the sodden cloth on my back.

I move over to her and lay myself down next to her. I gently snuggle up next to her and hold her to me.

"It's alright my lady. I'm here now, you're safe."

She turns then. Turns in my arms and buries her face into my chest, crying.

The moon rises higher into the sky as I hold her, hearing tears fade to a steady breath that I soon take to mean she has fallen asleep. Sleep tugs at myself then too. She is so very warm against my chest . As I drift off I notice without caring that the moon is casting a shadow of that the black cross across us both.

I awaken slowly, the bed under me too soft. The pillow too firm. I breath in the scented air taking in deep the smell of lavender, sandal wood and roses. The scented smoke nearby rises in gentle spirals as I open my eyes. Turning my head, I look out the billowy curtains of silk at the tall towers that surround this place. Their tops of polished gold shine in the morning sun.

Sitting up, I look around me then. I blink away the crusty feeling from my eyes and lick my sleep gummed lips. 

I see her then.

Shandrell. She rises from a circular pool covered in rose petals. The water running slowly down her naked body. In places the petals cling to her skin hiding a bit here or there, but other than flower petals she is so gloriously bare. I feel myself begin to harden even as I go to stand.

"Where are you going my lover? Surely just a few hours sleep in my arms is not enough for you." Her hand brushed petals from off her breast uncovering a dark red almost black nipple. "Stay, I have a... need... for you. A need you would not wish left... unsatisfied."

Under the pressure of her hand, I fall back onto the bed. It's now just firm enough. The sheets feel cool under my bare skin.

I notice then what I didn't before that I am also naked. I'm about to ask when her mouth is driven into my. I'm pushed to the bed with a strength no woman her size should have. She holds me pinned as she kisses me. Her hands then dig into my wrists as she nibbles her way up from my mouth to my neck. Her teeth are leaving little marks of blood I am sure as she give my skin little bites.

Then her mouth is going lower. Her hands leave my wrists and travel down my arms to my chest as she kisses ever lower.

The little biting nibbles continue all the way to the sparse growth of hair just under my navel.

Looking down I see her eyes looking up at me. A tongue impossible long begins to slowly lick around the dimple of my navel. Then I shiver when it plunged into it.

She looks up and grins.

"Do you like such pleasures? They can be your forever...you simply have to make me yours. Come."

I watch the naked curves of her as she walks from the side of the bed. Rolling off the bed, I follow her. At first very concerned that I am naked but I soon stop caring given that we seem to be alone. As I watch she walks to a pair of tall marble columns that stand supporting a ceiling of glass. Her hands lift and set a pair of silver manacles to swinging on their chains.

Then I see the small table set behind one of the columns. Upon it lays a multi-strand whip of knotted leather.

She turns and stands between the columns

"This is your test my lord and lover. I give myself not to just any that come to me but to those that can be truly the Master of me. I allow no other hands to touch me. Can you be that, can you be a Master to me? I am not weak. It is no light hand that will tame me," she glances up towards the chains. "There is a second option though. I can be the Master if you wish. Some have, over the long years. I leave it to you... my lover for the night... my slave till you die... or my Master forever. Chose."

Panting, I look at her. My eyes go to the whip. I've felt such before, my flesh revolts at the very idea of feeling it again.

I look then at her. That body so very pleasing to the eye, it promises pleasure the like of which I have never felt.

But for one night...?

Greed turns my eyes back to the chains and the whip. My breath becomes faster as I picture what she asks. Could I? Could I hold the whip and apply it to such a delicate bit of flesh? I have certainly no wish to. Oh to hold her tight and use her with a bit of force might be fun. Done in play.

But to whip her.

"How many lashes?" I ask looking back to her face.

"Till I submit. It will not be a few."

I swallow a bit of bile at the very idea. I move forwards then to take her into my arms to hold her flesh to mine. To have her for the one night then to have her in memory only for the rest of my life. 

Then she kisses me.

My hands take up her body, so very soft and yet there is a firmness to flesh that promises endurance in the bed. I struggle to hold onto her as she kisses me with a such passion I can hardly keep her in hand.

Then she parts us.

"Will you taste but one night of my lips, lover? That seems a pity."

Greed wins out.

I catch her hand in a strong grip and lift it towards the hanging chains. Suddenly It taking all the strength I have to force her arm to lift. She has strength, she has power...incredibly perhaps even more than myself!

The manacle clicks home with a sound that is horrifyingly permanent.

Her free hand claws at me then, racking down my side drawing four deep rivers of blood from my skin. I catch it with a snarls o f pain. Suddenly the idea is not so repugnant. I fight that hand up over her head and to the chain.

With a click it is done.

I step back, fingers going to the scratches and just watch her.

She looks up at the manacle with a cool air.

"So choice is made. Now you must prove yourself my Master...or less than a slave will you be." There is a cold fire to her eyes when she looks down at me. Suddenly fear chills me to the very marrow bone.

"What do you mean?'

She smiles and I feel cold shivers run up my spine at the look in her eyes.

"You don't truly wish to know...beside you're the Master are you not?'

Swallowing, I nod. When I walk around her my eyes take in that beautiful length of unmarred skin from the nape of her neck to the under curve of her ass. That sweet valley parting them. I lift the whip between myself and her. The idea of damaging something this beautiful with this thing is sickening.

At the same time though I feel a powerful lust for her. It's been rising in me from the moment I woke. Nay before that. In the swamp when she was so ragged, hurt... helpless.

My eyes go back to her ass even as I feel my cock rise. A deep throb of need is making it twitch out from my belly. 

"Well?" she says after a moment of my standing there just looking. It's the sound of contempt that seems to be growing in her voice that decides my action.

The whip falls to the floor from nerveless fingers as I grab her hips in both hands. The little lift brings a surprised sound from her. Then a screech rips it's way from her throat as I part her ass cheeks with my cock and drive my bare cock it into her ass as deep as I can!

"By the Maker's Hand!" she yells towards the ceiling as I thrust into her again. I let her weigh slip from my hands impaling her on the length of me then. My hands slide up her body to her breasts to cup them firmly. Only for a second do I support them just long enough to give them a squeeze. Then I take her by her nipples and give them both a terrible twisting.

My breath is a hot pant near her neck, as I pull her too me closer and thrust into the incredibly tight heat that encompasses my cock.

"You are mine. Not because I can break you with a whip but because I desire you," I say by her ear in a hot pant. I thrust into her as hard as I can driving from her lips a horribly pain filled cry. "Yes?"

When she doesn't answer I again apply pressure to her nipples.

"Yes?" I ask even as I thrust again.

"Yes...oh yes. Ah! Yes my...lord...my Master."

My hand slips from one of her breast to her throat and I apply pressure to her delicate neck.

"Mine, not for a night but forever?" I ask gripping her tighter and driving every inch of me into her.

"Yes."

My hand leaves her throat and come round to catch at her hair. I wrench her head to the side and place a hard kiss into the straining skin. I can feel her pulse under my tongue as I taste her just under her chin.

"If you're mine then you should know something." With a suddenness that brings a cry from her I pull myself from inside her ass and spin her around.

Her eyes are large her cheeks tear streaked.

"I don't damage things that I own, Shandrell."

Dropping to my knees in front of her I bury my face into her sex. The heady scent of it overwhelms my nose as my lips part thick hair. I catch her under her thighs and lift her holding her legs wide as I let my tongue plunge into her.

Dark and smoky the flavor of her comes into my mouth.

"Oh, Yes!"

I smile into her sex as I hear her scream. I work her hard, my tongue finding the nub and then flogging it. Cry, after cry leaves her as I devour everything under my mouth. I hear her pulling at the chains that shackle her hands. The metal links clicking and clattering with every thrash.

A different scream leaves her then. A deeper sound, more guttural. I feel her whole body trembling as I suck hard on the nub, then scrape it with my teeth. Again she screams that almost pain filled moan.

Letting one thigh rest on my shoulder I drop my hand to the floor and fish around till I find the discarded whips handle. Standing up I lift her by her thighs. When I look up her eyes are on my face, wide with lust. I smile as they widen when my cock parts her lips.

"Yes!" Her head drops back as I run the full length of me into her. I clutch her tightly then move back pulling her out on the chins.

Her eyes pop open and come to my face. I look at her breast rising and falling with her panted breath.

"I don't damage things I own...unless they ask for it."

Her legs tighten around me, catching some of her weight as I bring one arm out from under it. The whip's appearance seems to be a shock to her.

When the strands lash across her breast though I smile at the sound she makes.

Gone now are any thought of pity or remorse at hurting her. They have faded under the overpowering lust that's tearing it's way through my body. Sexual need like I have never felt in this life I feel it now. Burning, ripping, shredding it's way down every nerve I feel it. Like a red flame I feel it now. The need. The need to make her moan and then beg and then scream. It's overpowering and terrifying. Terrifying that I have not the means to slake it with more than my cock and this whip.




Chronicles of the Black Swords Ch. 04



Her legs hold her to me now pulling me into her as I send lash after lash against her bare breast. The nipples seem to swell as they draw blow after blow across them. Her screams run the full gambit of pleasure to pain.

I feel it then. The building pressure at the base of my cock. I scream in denial at it. I do not want this to end. I want to take her hot sweet flesh for all time, whipping her till the skin peals back. 

"No! No No! NO! NO!" My cries rip my throat as I feel myself start to cum in her. It's wonderful and not enough to slake the firers of lust that devour me now. With the tip still spewing I push her thighs from around my waist, letting her fall to swing on the chains.

With all my strength I send the lash at her now. The multiple strand striking all of her body with terribly brutal power. 

"Master have mercy!" she cries out to me, but that is but fuel to the fires that consume my mind.

Blow after blow I land, my mind reeling Scream after scream leaves her. Begging pleas for mercy go unheard then cries of pain do as well. I feel myself hardening even as my arm fall limp with use.

Catching her, I pull her too me again. The whip held to the back of her head pressed into the soft sweaty hair. Our faces touch just inches apart. I breath in the hot panting breaths from her mouth.

"Mine forever." I say then. 

"Yes...oh my yes. By the Hand of the Maker I am your, Simon."

Above me I hear the chains break then her arms are around me, her lips pulling me tighter, sucking me in. I feel almost a falling sensation then as if I'm being consumed by the power of her mouth. I care not in the least. Let her consume me. Let her take all she wishes and discard the rest.

The red waves of lust builds then to unholy levels. 

I must have her again. I must take this sweet bruised flesh, have it again, then again, then again till the world shatters and my heart stops.

My eyes open to the pale light of the moon enveloping me. Panting for breath I look up at that round orb. Though hours feel like they have passed I can see that it's but moments.

Both of my hands are clutched around the top of the black cross.

Nay...not top... Hilt.

With a scream I pull the massive black war blade from the cairn I feel it's terrible power filling me, it's a familiar feeling though. That red fire lust I felt is now all that I feel. No other thought can compete with that need. I hold that massive blade to the heaven challenging even the moon to deny it is mine.

Everything is mine if I wish it!

My eyes go from the blade off towards the far distant edge of the swamp. It's far to far away but by some trick I can see the yellow lit windows of the lords castle. I know that he is sleeping his soft bed, his belly filled with roasted deer I killed.

A hunger come to me then. It cannot compete with the lust, but it is there all the same. A ravenous desire to fill my belly with rich red meat, succulent flesh torn from the bone with my teeth.

But the lust! It's there as well. A powerful desire to drive hard into soft and wet and hear screams! Like acid in my veins it is. I lift the massive war blade and look down it's dark length.

"Yours forever my lover." I hear Shandrell's voice come to me then. "Use me to fill thy needs, my master. Let them scream, let their papered flesh feel the lash. Let their wives and daughters slake your lust! USE ME!"

Shivering with desire I lift the war blade in both hand.

"ARIZE!" 

The power of my voice is starling. I know its commanding scream is being heard all across tithe swamp.

I see the stir in the still water in the soft bluish light of the moon. Draped in muck, dripping water and moss they stir from the watery mire.

"ARIZE!"

The very swamp begins to boil as those souls long given to Shandrell heed my call. Long rotted flesh stirs mud stained bone. Draped in the tatters of clothing and rusted armor they stand. First in dozens, then in hundreds they rise form the water. Then in the thousands they answer.

Around me, closest to the blade I see them then. The captains of old, war leaders. Men that Shandrell make her slaves. Who gave themselves to her whipping rather than hurt her. They hold power to themselves but it power given not taken. Among them I see others as well. Their hands bound in chains.

Far less than slaves are they. Mindless creature of lust driven rage, they failed her test. Little more than beast driven by hunger till madness took them. I know they will feed upon anything.

I hear stone stir behind me. Looking back I see him rise. The last one to wield the war blade. The Hell blade. 

Shandrell.

A massive man he was and powerful of spirit and character. Even little more than bones that power still fills him. His eyes go to me in judgment, then I feel his will fall upon me. To take Shandrell from me.

The red fires answer.

Shaking with rage I lift the six foot of midnight steel till it's tip is right in front of his eyes. Looking down the length of Shandrell we stare with hate at each other till one of us looks away.

It is not me.

As I lower the sword I know the reason. I find it in my mind, not my thought but hers, it is glowing with the heat of old hatred.

He used the whip to tame Shandrell. She was his slave.

With me? I used it to drive her lust and my own to greater heights.

Shandrell is mine, but I am hers. I feel her laughter within me at that though. No...we are one. One body, twin souls

At my..or is it her command? The enslaved ones pick up the banners. New cloth unfurl from the standards. They lift the banners high into the moonlight.

My eyes look to the very edges of the swamp. Then beyond to the farm, the little houses with the tired sleeping farmers, their fat wives,and their dozen workers, children, and slaves. Fires, damped for the night, sleep as well. There embers will not be awoken with the coming dawn to prepare food. 

There will be no dawn!

As I lift my hand great clouds of fog begin to blow upwards from the surface of the swamp. Great smoking columns of it rise into the night to grab at the racing clouds and tear them down. The moon, tryign to warn the world of what is coming, lets her last light touch the rusted armor of my growing army even as great war horns are being sounded.

Far away in the night the lord of the manor awakens to shiver. He know not what has awaken him but it grows with a steady sense of terror till he manages to calm his nerves with brandy wine. Even as sleep is taking hold of him again the first waves of the hideous undead are crossing the water towards him and his lands.

In their midst rides Simon the Poacher? No longer by that name will he be known to the world... other names will he carry now.

The Red Butcher.

The Sun Slayer.

The Unholy!



Chronicles of the Black Swords



Looking down I feel the power in my hands.

The power to conquer worlds, slay thousands. Set the very heavens ablaze. To shout defiance at the very gods themselves if I so desire.

"No man should have this power." I say in a whisper.

She nods.

"That was the lie. That the power would only be used to help the world. But with all that power at their fingertips, who has no dark side to themselves? When desire may be satisfied merely by reaching out your hand to take it. Willingly given or not what man would not sate every desire to it's fullest. No man, elf, dwarf, or any other creature I could name should be trusted with it." She ends in a whisper.

I look up from my hands to the dwarf woman. I realize at that second I stripped her to the waist to get at her wound. Her breasts hang large and full from her chest. The freckles on her face splatter across them as well.

Desire pours into me. I look away from her in shame. I feel her hand come to the back of my head. Her fingers strong in my hair turn me to face her.

Those beautiful blue eyes.

" I..." she pauses for a second. "I never desired a male of my people. Not for more than a few hours pleasure at least. Then I saw you. Tall like your head was trying to brush the clouds. Strong, yet gentle. Not something I've seen before. Even the Dreadlord respected you when the fighting began."

Her lips come up to meet mine. I can fell the fierce power in her arms as she pulls me close.

My hands slid around to her back. Under the soft skin I feel the muscles of her back move. Her hands grab at my shirt. The seams give way under her strength,

I feel her begin to move under me as she reaches between us and undoes the ties of my pants. I feel her hands, rough with calluses, grasp my cock. Her fingers are painfully tight as she squeezes me. I roll us over onto my back her sitting astride me. Reaching down I grab the buckle of her belt and pull it away. She slaps my hands when I reach the ties at the waist. She grabs my hands and put them on laces at the outside eof her thighs. In my haste I feel the leather ties snap. When both sides are undone she unties the top and pulls her pants off. Her legs are warm and smooth as they rest along side mine.

She reaches down and pulls aside a thin breach cloth. I feel more than see her body opening for me as I push inside. 

She gives a deep grunt as I run up into her my full length. My fingers grip the thick muscles of her thighs as I buck upwards into her warmth.

The scent I noticed on her fingers when she first kissed me now begins to fill the air around me. It even over powers the smell of blood in the cave. The deep musky scent flooding my senses fills me with a near maddening desire for her.

She 's rocking on me now, her powerful back driving her tight body down till it slams into my balls with almost painfully hard connection of our bodies.

I reach up and cup her heavy breast in my hands then I pull her down to me by her thick nipples.

She bites at my lips as I try to kiss her. The soft hair of her beard brushes the side of my neck as she kisses down my chin and throat. I listen to her breath grunts as we hunch together in the dark.

I can SEE her!

We are in the pitch dark of a cave and I can see her! This distracts me for a second then I feel her strong teeth sink into the side of my neck and a strong suction from her mouth begins.

I roll up, over. Her mouth pops free of my skin as I arch up off her. I begin to pump myself into her faster and faster. I feel her thick legs curl up around my thighs and begin pulling me into her deeper with her powerful legs locked behind my ass.

Her fingers lock on my shoulders and I hear a deep-throated moan rise up out of her just as I feel my body begins to tremble.

Our cries ring out and echo through the cavern as we cum together. I continue to drive into her for as long as I can till at last lose of breath forces a halt. She pulls me down on top of her and easily supports my weight. Her hands caressing my back. I feel her lips gentle against my throat and neck. The soft feel of her beard brushes my face as she kisses first my eyes then my lips. I slid out of her and lay my head to rest on her large warm breasts. They rise and fall under my head as she takes long deep breaths. Her hands brush my sweaty hair back from my face.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I can hear someone digging through the collapse." She tells me softly.

I notice it then as well.

I slowly get to my feet. Looking down I brush stone chips from my bloody knees. The small wounds heal in seconds. I watch this and shake my head. I look up at her.

Hakem shrugs, which makes her breast do wonderful things.

I hear stones shift behind me. 

I grab up the black blade and pull it, like it's sliding out of cloth, from the stone floor.

Naked drenched in orc blood, with her standing naked behind me holding her smithing hammer in one hand and her axe in another, we watch as the lights shine through the shifting stones. Then they fall away.

The Black armored form that steps into the room carries menace with it. The dark black blade in his hand moans a horrible greeting to mine. Seeing me standing there teeth bared ready to strike he pauses. I can feel his eyes go to the sword in my hand.

"Drake?" he asks with a voice that chills my spine.

"He's dead." I say grimly. I lift the black blade into the light of their lanterns. "The orc hoard?"

"Running or dying." He says with the hint of a laugh. "Well met my new brother, shall you follow me into the sun?"

He points back up the cavern with his blade.

I nod.

He turns his back on me and walks away, back up the way he came.

I turn to Hakem. I watch her grabbing up her clothes and trying to get dressed. The broken laces hamper her efforts. She looks up when I grin.

"Your Dreadlordship owes me for my clothes."

"Please... don't call me that." I ask softly. Looking away I reach down and pick up my pants. I start to dress then I feel her hand on my face.

" I wont." She kisses me softly. Stepping back she looks down at her torn shirt. She gives a shrug and ties it in a knot under her breast. Looking around she sees her chest armor and the broken leather straps hanging from it. The look she gives me then is less than pleasant. She hooks one strap back and tosses the chest plate over her back like a shield. I dress in the tatters of my clothing and follow the soldier with the lantern out the cavern. I see Hakem pause several times in the walk out the mine. Thanking her brothers for her life. Praying for their swift journey back to the forge fires from which all dwarves came.

The sunlight is almost painfully bright after the seemingly endless days under clouds or stone. I look around at the blood soaked battlefield around me. My eyes take in the four of them in similar armor. The hellish black blade at my side calls out a greeting.

Or is it a warning?

"What is your name Brother?" asks the closest one. He sounds like the one I talked to down in the cavern.

I look to the horizon where I know the kings fell city towers high above a blood red plain. I can feel his eyes on me even at this distance.

"Your name brother?" asks the tallest of the four. He raises his visor. I see him eye Hakem with a dismissing expression on his face.

I look this Dreadlord in the eye. I can feel his power from here. He is the lord of the four. His presence is far stronger than the others.

Stronger than mine?

I stand a little taller. A deep breath of the cool air drives the last of the indecision from my mind.

"I am Cain."

My fingers tighten around the hilt of my sword giving it a subtle warning. I feel its will rise up, then cringe back as it encounters mine.

"Well, Brother Cain, welcome to our family. The King is waiting to take your vow. Shall we go?" he tilts his head to where five black horses stand steaming in the sunlight.

I glance over my shoulder at Hakem. I see her eyes widen as her knowledge of me shows her what they can not see.

"Yes we mustn't keep, the King, waiting."

I hold out my hand to her.

I can sense their displeasure in her as she mounts up behind me. I do not care in the least. 

For this much I know.

Even Dreadlords can die.

*

Taken from the few remaining pages of the lost time of Cain the King Slayer. This brief story, recorded in the runes of the Dwarven people, are all that remain of his life story save for a few undocumented legends. Their authenticity is...questionable.

Chronicler Albreth Ravenclaw.