Chương 24: Big Dreams

Ch. 24 - Big Dreams The Ebon Blade said nothing to the young man that first day. It didn't even attempt to sway him except for the one time he seemed to ready to show a friend what he'd found when they ate together in the ruins of what had once been an inn during dinner when the other boy asked if he'd done anything interesting that day. Ivarr paused only a moment before he answered, "Nah. Same old stones, different pile. You?"

Even that pause in the conversation had only taken the barest surge of secrecy to accomplish.

Its wielder's friend never even looked up.

"I thought that when they gave us blades, we'd be doing at least a little fighting," Sammel complained, "They might as well have issued us shovels instead."

"I wish they did," its wielder laughed.

"If there were enough shovels to go around, we'd be done cleaning this place up by now. Then we could go out and find some monsters to kill." Though Gar-lok's assault on Kalraka was a failure, it had been a bloody one, and as the blade listened and siphoned Life Force from its wielder's friend, along with any other boys that joined them at the fire, it learned much. Mostly, it learned that they were afraid and that hundreds of beastmen had fled into the mountains to the north of the city.

Beast men, apparently, were not typically found this far to the east. The near mountains were usually goblin territory, with orcs lurking further out. Now, in the aftermath all of that had been upset, and they worried that some new threat would materialize. The blade doubted it, even though its wielder hoped for it.

Apparently, when the army was done securing the city, burying the dead, and doing some basic reconstruction, they planned to march north and cleanse any burrows they found, no matter what monsters dwelled in them. That was what the group of them talked about the longest before going to bed. They talked about how they would be heroes and seek justice for the wrongs that had been dealt to their people and their families.

The blade probably should have felt bad about that since it was the architect of this slaughter, but it didn't. It only wished that it had been at the head of a host that was more numerous and effective. If one of the stray sparks from the bonfire it had created wanted to pick it up and go on to light new blazes? Well, then, that was ideal. That was the part where the blade's interests aligned with its wielder's completely.

It wanted to siphon that sweet energy to fuel future growth, and its wielder just wanted revenge. That was an understandable and even laudable motivation that the blade could get behind. Its last human wielder had wanted revenge, too, but there was no one left alive to take it on. Ivarr would have better luck. The blade wanted revenge too, but its enemies were too far away in both distance and time, so for now, Ivarr's revenge would have to suffice for both of them.

As understandable as it was, though, it really only discovered all of the details once it delved into the boy's dreams while he slept. There, it learned that Ivarr had been one of the few people in this city to rise to defend more than himself. He'd started with nothing but a pitchfork, but in time, he'd found a sword and managed to kill three of the goat men. Unfortunately, that hadn't been enough to save his mother or his younger brother.

For that, even though he was eighteen and old enough to know better, he wept bitterly when he'd come home to find their corpses. In the morning, before anyone else was awake, Ivarr unwrapped its hilt and examined the blade itself.

"A hexed blade," he whispered in a tone of muted awe as he studied the faintly glowing ruby in the hilt and ran his fingers along the runes carved into the blade.

"I wonder what it does?" The question was largely rhetorical. Before all this, the boy had been an apprentice to a cooper and spent his days shaving staves and helping his master put iron rings into the fire. He couldn't read, but it was evident he'd heard stories of magical blades before, and even as he carefully wrapped the hilt with a rag again, his thoughts were loud and clear. Something like this would let him be the hero he'd always dreamed of. The blade spent the day encouraging that.

Whenever its wielder was talking to someone about revenge or heroism, it would send a thrill of excitement through him, and whenever he worked diligently to dig through the rubble, it would permeate him with feelings of boredom and listlessness. While it did that, though, it wondered at its reaction toward Ivarr almost as much. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Was it so taken with the lad because it was tired of being wielded by a monstrous hand, or was there more to it? Ivarr wasn't so different from Ren, and it had loathed being wielded by the Shepard boy. So, what was the difference between the two? Had the weapons mind changed so much as its soul came together, piece by piece? No, ultimately, it decided that it was the details that separated the two boys. Ren had been content to remain a shepherd forever until he'd found the Ebon Blade.

He would never have found the will to fight without its magic. Ivarr, on the other hand, would fight alone if he had to. He'd found his own strength before he'd ever used the weapons, and as it turned out, that made all the difference. It wanted to make a worthwhile master stronger, but it did not want to make a weakling strong any more than it wanted to be wielded in battle by a goblin a second time.

No matter how easy it was to control their little minds, the vileness of the experience had robbed those moments of the joy they should have had. The blade's little nudges didn't take effect overnight, but then, it didn't intend for them to.

It was happy to spend each day leeching slowly off of the men that Ivarr ate near or worked beside as it steadily refilled its pool of Life Force, and it was far closer to the larger kingdoms to the east than it had ever been before, and currently it was in no danger of being buried and forgotten about. The weapon slowly increased its Life Force from just over one hundred when it was found beneath the rubble to nearly five hundred after a week of confinement.

It did so by sipping at dozens of people's souls with its Aura of Hunger without leaving behind any tell-tale bodies in its wake. It was also during that week that it saw, and more importantly tasted its first dwarf. It hadn't even noticed that the short man wasn't human until it had tried and failed to drain Life Force from him the first time. That was when the blade saw a new message for the first time. Aura of Hunger Resisted.

That had annoyed it, and even after it realized that it was a dwarf it tried again and again, until after the third try it succeeded. It noticed that the Life Force felt different than the stuff it had drained from the other men at the bar that night, which was interesting to it. If I was to kill it would I get a human soul, or a greater monster soul I wonder? The blade asked itself quietly enough that its wielder would not hear it.

Though it longed for the battlefield, as long as chaos churned around it and its wielder kept it hidden, it was content to see what kind of choices this wielder would make. The dwarf proved to be only one interesting distraction among many as it lingered here in civilization, and in the end, it was not disappointed. Only ten days later, after Ivarr had found the blade, he was making plans to go find adventure rather than wait for it to come to him. He convinced several of his friends to go with him.

They were going to make a grand adventure of it. Up until now, all of them had talked a big game, but the blade knew that most of them didn't have what it took to step outside the walls with only their swords for protection. Once the idea of actually leaving the safety of the walls behind and venturing out into the dark was upon them, each of them chickened out in their own way. Hallen said, "I would, but I've got me mum to think about."

Brik told him, "I mean, even if we do come back with a load of beastman horns for the bounty, it's not much more than just doing this job after you count the cost of supplies, now is it?" Both of those were reasonable answers meant to cloak cowardice, but Ivarr let both of them off the hook. It was only Sammel's answer the boy really took issue with. He'd talked a big game right up until the last minute, then rather than meet Ivarr after work, the boy just vanished.

Ivarr had to track him down, and when he finally did, hours after they were supposed to depart, the young man who had talked so tough for so long practically begged him not to make him come.

"I'm not scared of fighting them, you understand, but how are we to sleep or eat?" Sammel continued.

"Those little green savages… They could attack us at any time. We might wake up dead or worse!" For a moment, the blade thought his wielder might strike the coward down. He would have deserved it, and the blade could have pushed him to do it without doubt, but he was still more interested in seeing what sort of man his wielder was and saw no need to turn him into a puppet yet. So, it was surprised when he turned around and headed out by himself.

"I don't need you," he muttered to himself.

"I don't need anyone. Not as long as I have this," he said, patting the sword. Despite his brave words, Ivarr halted at the west gate for several minutes while he tried to convince himself that it might be better to set off tomorrow. It's already late in the day, he told himself. It would be better to go when I have more daylight. Besides, it might rain later. The blade could hear all of those excuses rolling around his head, but it didn't put its finger on the scales.

If the lad chickened out, then it would find a way to get him killed and find someone braver to wield him, but if he went off into the unknown with no one, well… The Ebon Blade was very pleased when Ivarr pulled his cloak a little tighter to him and strode out of the gate with nothing but a few days of food, a bedroll, and a magical blade of unknown provenance. Somehow, that moment felt familiar to it, and it wondered if it had felt this way at the start of Baraga's adventures, or if it had even been there at all.