This story is selected as Editor’s Choice
Suspense Short Story – The Hand that held the Sword
Photo credit: earl53 from morguefile.com
As the king knew, he would not be helping the man by ruling in his favor. He was a king and the easy road was not his take. He could not help being curious about the man who stood before him demanding justice. At first glance he looked as ordinary as any other peasant dressed in a farming garb, but, a closer look told differently. He looked up at the king with defiance, borne out the belief in his righteousness. A straightness to the spine that was not taught but inherited at birth. And the eyes, a deep ocean blue, that shone with resolve. He was not here to beg for justice, but to demand it.
The afternoon court had ended some time ago, yet he lingered. And the king, held by the power of his gaze couldn’t find it in himself to retire. He could have had the fellow dragged to the dungeons but, it would serve little purpose. It might even inflame the scandal that was sure to break out. He glanced up at the gallery and saw the queen and the princess still seated. He sighed to himself, wishing a lot many things, but, knowing he’d have to pass a sentence eventually. He stood up, returned the piercing gaze of the man and said, “Tomorrow, at first light”.
The palace courtyard was still dappled in the grayish pre-dawn light. A thin, misty fog hung about the grassy plaza and lent an aura of spectral luminescence to the shiny armor of the guards ringed about it. Beyond them had gathered the lesser nobles and the palace hands, looking for all purposes like half formed entities in the fog. The silence was unnerving, it was as if the fog had absorbed all the sound from the surroundings. The king looked up to see two guards leading the man to the courtyard. Still dressed in the same garb as yesterday, the surroundings seemed to give him an air of foreboding. He walked with a purpose in his step, such as no peasant would willingly do so to enter a ring of armed guards. As he got closer, the sun had begun to come up from behind the king. The reflection of those first rays in the eyes of the man seemed to bring his fervor to the forefront of his persona. It was rarely ever that the king felt dwarfed by the presence of another man but, it was the second time in as many days. He strode forward to meet the man in the center of the courtyard.
“You keep to the ways of the old gods, as do I. Choose yours and we shall let the ancient tradition decide”, said the king pointing to a rack of weapons.
“A fair way to decide, your highness. A peasant who’d wield a sword for the first time in his life against a champion fighter chosen by the monarch from amongst his best” he said, without a hint of emotion, and so softly that even the king could barely hear him.
The king leaned forward; he didn’t flinch.
“Pick a sickle if you will, but it is royal flesh you shall have to look forward to reaping today”. And the king walked away to get his sword and helm from the squires, who stood just beyond the guards. As his greaves were being tightened, the king remembered the last time he had wielded his sword.
Seven years ago, in the battle on the banks of the river Nyse, the great hand-and-a-half sword of the line of kings, with a pommel in the shape of lightning strikes in gold, climbing around a pale blue sapphire, had bathed in the blood of dozens of men. Until, the hand that held it fell to a well directed quarrel and the sword had passed on to his hands. The only time he had drawn blood with it was hours later, when he drove it through the heart of the crossbowman who was accused to have shot the quarrel.
Since then, his squires had kept it sharp and oiled, as a king’s sword should be, when he needs it. But, it was not the edge of his sword he doubted, nor the skill of his hand, for he was to face a peasant. It was the crossroads that fate had brought him to that had planted the seed of doubt. He had always been a man who planned everything carefully, deciding to take action himself only when it was necessary. Standing on the brink, with 2 separate paths and no clue to the destination did not sit well with him. He did the only thing he could do right now, and turned to face the man, with his sword unsheathed.
The sight that met the king’s eyes made him almost take a step back. He saw the man standing in the middle of the courtyard with a great battle-axe grasped in both hands. His knees were slightly bent, as if to brace himself. With one hand at the bottom of the haft the other in the middle of it, and the axe raised above one shoulder, poised as if to cut down a tree. As the sun’s rays glinted off the edge of the battle-axe, the king could see his eyes, those blue eyes that seemed to hold a bottomless ocean in them,
The king knew he had come too far to turn away now. He brought his sword’s crossguard level with his face and started stepping towards his opponent. The figures beyond the ring of the guards, even the guards themselves seemed to vanish, like the fog under sunlight. The man still stood his ground, he had not moved a muscle. The king broke out into a run, to put as much momentum behind the first attack, as he could muster. As he closed the distance to the man, he dropped the tip of the blade to the right, along with his shoulder, intending to deliver with all his power, a vicious underhand cut. The man stood there unflinching, unmoving poised like a woodcutter carved out of stone. The king was almost within striking distance now. He could feel his heart pounding with every step, sweat beading on his neck and armpits, under the armor.
With a guttural cry, the king let loose the hand-and-a-half sword. An attack that was aimed to end the duel with the first blow. Until, the shock of the edge of the blade meeting the flat of axe sent a bone jarring clang up the king’s arms. The momentum had carried the king beyond the man, and as he wheeled back, he brought his sword up to parry the attack, which never came. The man just stood there, posture unchanged, except that he was facing the king again. The king moved forward with a little more caution and aimed for the legs. Halfway through he feinted and thrust forward to pierce the man’s kidneys. This time the blade was deflected with the haft. As the king stumbled to gain his footing, the man moved forward with authority to deliver a powerful overhead blow followed by another, and another. It was all the king could do to step away from the attacks, barely deflecting each attack. One of those barbaric swings brought him to one knee. He was bringing his sword around to block the next attack, and looked up to the piercing gaze those deep, blue eyes.
He was looking down into the eyes of the man. They were a deep ocean blue, and they stared up at him without any emotion. The sun was going down beyond the river and the carrion birds had started to descend on the battlefield. The ground on which they stood had turned to black mud and the river breeze was blowing into their faces, carrying the stench of blood and death. As the king directed the point of his sword towards the man’s heart, he was vaguely aware of the frantic crying of a young boy, mingling with the shrieking cries of the carrion birds. He put all of his weight behind the sword as he slid it into the chest of the man, who had shot the quarrel that had felled the previous king. Those blue eyes were still fathomless, just as they had been when the man was threatened with his son’s death if the quarrel was not shot. AS emotionless as when the quarrel had taken the king in the gap between the 2 plates of armor. The new king watched as life seeped out of the blue eyes, that never lost that piercing gaze, till the very last breath.
That gaze held the king in place still. He felt the axe blade cleave his chest plate. The blade buried in his chest, red blood dribbling down his lip and the wetness underneath the mail barely registered in those last moments. His life was forfeit, the depths of the oceans had claimed it.
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