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Swordtember 15: Forest

The fairest folk of Layyia wood
A predicament they did face
Against attacks by kingsman none could
Stand resolute in one place

The king said they, his subjects, owed
Him a reverently bended knee
The woodfolk, with their answer, showed
They gave him no fealty

But against the armored shining knights
Their wooden spears did break
To close within an arrow’d flight
Would be a grave mistake

Steel they needed in shining blades
To fight their armored foes
But with no smithies in their glades
They knew not where to go

It happened then that an ancient blade
Was unearthed in the wood
The folk restored its tempered shade
The best that any could

But with that steel they slew a man
And took his sword and shield
So it was then that they began
To make the kingsmen yield

With each Layyian man that fell
A sword he gifted them
And soon the ring of battle gave tell
From each and every glen

The king was forced to slink away
Defeat his men had known
A hundred years later, to the day
A woodman was upon his throne

You may think your fight may fail
As enemy forces swell
But a single sword can yet prevail
If it is wielded well

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The King of Layyia once commissioned a sword from the famed artisans of Naïx. He sent payment in gold, raw materials, and a request for a weapon that “none could equal or surpass” besides himself.

Accompanied by the smith and a retinue of Layyian sailors, a dhow from Naïx departed to bear the completed sword north. But along the way, a terrible storm arose and the dhow was sunk, with the loss of all but one man who was found clinging to wreckage the next morning. Hauled before the king, the man, a Layyian, was accused of sabotaging the sword’s journey and threatened with death over its destruction.

“Let me ask you, your majesty, is the sword truly destroyed when it lies on the bottom of the sea?” the man asked.

“What good does a sword do me on the seafloor?” the king replied.

“Ensuring that none can equal or surpass it,” the sailor said. “The smith is lost, and no matter how fine a new blade may be, it cannot be compared to yours. Thus it is impossible to surpass.”

The king thought on this. “But what if I choose to sell it, or bestow it as a gift to my heirs?”

“Then your majesty may do so! You have but to say the word and the sword will belong to someone else. Who is there to dispute you?”

After another moment’s thought, the king nodded. “Yes, I could not have thought of a neater arrangement myself.” The sailor escaped execution, and to this day the Aquatic Blade remains a treasured heirloom of the Layyian kingdom, wherever it lies.

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Launna Lightblade was a mule who lived in the hills near Aiov. Her mother was a sickly humand and her father a sickly elf, and so Launna was delicate, easily exhausted, and oft frail. But she was also very fair, and attracted many suitors who either did not know or did not care that she was a mule and could never bear them children.

Though delicate, Launna learned to use what energy she had in effective ways, spending hours each day carefully honing her skills with a blade. In that way, she would make her few blows count.

A suitor arrived from Simnel one day bearing an ornate sword. He had seen a painting of the hill beauty of Aiov and desired for his gift to win her as his wife. It was a long, thin epee, in a startlingly modern style, with a basket hilt made of fine filligreed wires.

Upon presenting it to her, the suitor-one Reih Lüm-said “A delicate blade for a delicate flower, and one that I have picked especial.”

Launna took the sword, made a few practice swings, and threw it roughly to the ground, bending it. Angered at this, Reih advanced on Launna, who danced out of the way and kicked the back of his knee. Dropped on his back, he found himself struck in the throat shortly and sharply, causing him to gasp in pain. Launna picked up the sword, which was still usable, and held it to his throat.

“If a man attacks an unarmed person in a rage at the first setback, is it not he who is delicate?” she asked. “Begone from my sight, and leave this blade as recompense for the trouble you’ve caused.”

Launna never married, and despite her weak constitution, she rose to become constable with that selfsame blade, repaired and reinforced, by her side.

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The smith Nonac was a firm believer in the Eternal Way of the Elves, that this life and possibly the reincarnated next offered a path to godhood for one who continually built their knowledge and their skills.

It happened that he lived in a settlement with many mules, half-elves, who followed the Sepulcher of the Creator and disdained the Eternal Way as “haughty elves worshipping themselves.” As such, they came before him once, when Nonac was tempering a fine blade on commission.

“Tell us, O Nonac Elf-Smith, what use would sword-making be to a god? For if you worship yourself in the way of your people, surely your godhood will be beyond weapons.”

To this, Nonac replied: “A weapon is but a tool, and I am practiced in making many a tool.”

But the mules would not be swayed so easily. “What use has a god for tools, then?”

“You describe yourselves as ‘tools of the Creator,’ so perhaps you can elighten me as well,” Nonac said.

This remark was poorly recieved, and several of the mules drew blades of their own. Nonac easily turned them aside with his newly-smithed sword.

“I know not what weapons a god needs, nor what tools,” said he as he dashed the weapons from the mules’ hands. “But whatever they be, they must be made with care and used with practice. And thus I make with care and use with practice. These are virtues in gods as well as mortals.”

The sword Nonac worked upon was deeply notched by the encounter, and it can still be found in the royal armory of Pexate to this day, a testament to its craft and its value as an embodiment of the Eternal Way.

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The Sea Peoples descended upon the Shattered Isles with a force ten times that the dwarves could muster, and the Last King and the Last Queen knew that ruin lay in store for their realm and its armies.

In the old days, the Days of the Isles, the High King had borne two blades: Defender and Avenger. The High Queen had borne two more: Protector and Ravager. One was worn in time of peace and only drawn in self-defence; one was worn in time of war and unsheathed in anger.

The Sea Peoples had, through a herald, made their meaning plain: to take the Isles and all the dwarves possessed. They offered safe conduct and a peaceful departure, but backed their words with a threat of indiscriminate slaughter.

In a council of war, the Last King laid out his swords, and the Last Queen laid hers out as well. After fruitless discussions with nobles, lasting hours, the Last Queen spoke:

“I have made up my mind, but I do not know the High King’s will. I propose thus: with backs turned, we will each take up our sword of peace or our sword of war. If we be in accord, that way go our people; if we be in strife, we shall have our thanes vote.”

The High King agreed, and both were blindfolded with royal silk. Each took up an arm and held it aloft, glittering in the lamplight.

Avenger shone in the High King’s hand, while Ravager glittered in the High Queen’s. They rode into battle, and their deaths, the next day. The swords of war, like their bodies, were never recovered

And the swords of peace, Defender and Protector? They were carried south, but soon lost in obscurity. Many dwarves claim to have them, and it was once observed that all the “true” Swords of Peace, melted down, could armor a thousand knights.

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There is a legend, heresy according to the Sepulcher, that Muolih the Spreading Darkness and the Creator made a wager before Muolih was banished. The two both had their finest mortal smiths construct blades of banishment that would seal the other, and whomsoever bore the lesser blade would be forced to grasp the other, sealing their loss with a thousand years’ exile.

The Creator turned to a trio of artisans known as the Three Mules: Mohc Dwarfblood, Anaïx Feyfather, and Salot Quarterling. Working in concert, and at the cost of Mohc’s life, they delivered a masterpiece in metal and crystal. Exilus the Bindblade, its handle a crystal conduit to a great prison of the same, made to the Creator’s specifications.

Muolih entrusted his blade to a smith from his chosen and favored creations, the goblins. This was a time before gobs had been stripped of their names and charged with earning them back, and the smith was known as Efilam Shatterhand. Working with two others from peoples subjected to Muolih’s baleful influence, Gnasher of the ogres and Latem the orc, they turned in a great two-handed falx. Its warpwood handle was wrapped in runes of imprisonment, leading to the black heart of a hexed tree that would endure for an age.

Both blades were intensely crafted, intensely beautiful, but in giving his life to the forge, Mohc had made his the stronger. Muolih sensed this immediately, and sought to win by trickery what he could not by art.

“Truly, I am humbled and beaten,” said he. “Allow me to make you a gift of my blade before I grasp yours, for I have cast away all its baleful magicks.”

When the Creator doubted that this was so, Muolish appeared to grow wounded. “I admit freely that yours is the better; with such truth on my lips you would yet call me a liar?”

With this, the Creator smiled, and noted that such honesty deserved a just reward, It offered Its own blade, which It said had been disenchanted just like Muolih’s.

And so it was that the wily Spreading Darkness was caught in a web of his own making. For he had not dispelled the enchantment, and by linking them, the Creator had avoided speaking a lie. Sensing his defeat, he took both blades in hand in a blind rage, meaning to strike the Creator down where It stood. But in so doing, Muolih was banished to a double prison, and was two thousand years to fester before being visited upon the world again.

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“What a sordid tale!” Nacee the milliner cried. “Of course, leave it to a wrestler and a mule to glorify heresy like the Hamurabash while disparaging the truth of the Creator.”

A man, leaned up against one of the great stone columns that supported the armory ceiling, called out. “What if they was only an orc mule?” he said. “What would the Anchor Blade do then?”

Zaldi, laughing, looked him over. “I don’t know, Kect-of-the-Mud-Pits,” she said, directing a singsong tease at her fellow wrestler. “Do you keep the Hamurabash like your mother did?”

“In my own way, I does,” the man, Kect, said.

“I imagine the Anchor Blade would hit you, then, but not very hard,” Zaldi said. “Bruising strength, maybe.”

“I’ve always wondered,” Hirt, the blade-bard, said to Kect. “The Hamurabash says that every male must carry an axe at all times, yes? Would a sword work for that purpose? After all, I imagine that the idea is to be ready to defend oneself.”

“Heh,” Kect responded. “Me mum had a story she used to tell, old orc tale, about that. Vivritan the Summoned and his Sword. I’ll tell it to ya, yeah?”

“Yes, please!” Hirt said.

“So, I don’t know what all y’know about the Hamurabash, but the great Hamur said t’keep an axe at all times. Folks what feel strong about it argue as to why, but he was clear as could be that you oughta do it. So one day, see this orc name of Vivritan comes to the great Hamur, who put down the Hamurabash (as you mighta guessed).”

“He was summoned there on account of he would not wear the axe, yeah? Vivritan the Summoned, that’s where that comes from. He says to Hamur, he says, this sword is fine steel, right? Great sword, been in my family generations, made in the Seven Sisters, same as your pirate knife, Zaldi. So Vivritan says to Hamur, he says, can I carry the sword instead of the axe?”

“Old Hamur, he asks to see the sword. It’s real pretty, real sharp, kept up nice, no oiled. Beautiful weapon, Hamur says. And Hamur, he takes out his own axe, and he says look at my axe, what do you see? And Vivritan, he’s shook. Hamur, the orc what wrote down the Hamurabash, the one what says to carry the axe, his axe is in real bad shape. It’s dirty and it’s dull.”

“So Vivritan says to him, to Hamur, how can you fight with an axe like that? Because, you know, Hamur was a great warrior too, not just a great author. And Hamur, he says oh, my arms are all around me. That is my spear, that is my sword, that is my shield. Each has its own, you know, purpose. He even had axes, other axes.”

“Vivritan is proper shook by this time and he asks what Hamur means. Hamur, he says, sure, you can fight with the axe if you want. Sometimes it’s a good tool for that. But sometimes there are better tools. But what the axe is always the right tool for, is reminding you of your commitment to the Hamurabash. It’s a reminder that you’re committed to thinking stuff out, to reason, so none of that superstition. Other than the Hamurabash itself, which is too big for everyone to carry, an axe is the best reminder that you’re cutting away the ignorance of the world like dead wood when you fight, yeah?”

“So Vivritan is all moved, and he begs Hamur’s forgiveness and gives him his sword. Hamur takes it, and gives Vivritan his axe. I have many reminders on my wall, but you need this one more than me is what he said.”

“So,” Zaldi said, after a long pause . “What happened to them? Don’t just trail off, man!”

“Well, Hamur called his new sword the Summoned Sword, and he had it with him in some of his greatest battles until he died. They hung it in his memory hall, the very first memory hall. And old Vivritan? He takes Hamur’s axe into battle and fights with it even though it’s nasty and dull. He wins a hundred battles with it before he falls, and some folks say it’s still around.”

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“What a dull ending that was!” A large form in the back of the room stirred; some recognized it as Zaldi Xianuende, one of the foremost female wrestlers in the famed Mud Pits as well as a retired mercenary. An elf-dwarf mule, she was tall as her father, but with her mother’s stout build, casting a truly formidable shadow. “I like the goblin’s better!”

Nacee, the milliner from Exor, pressed her lips together. “It is not necessary to be interesting in order to be holy and pleasing to the Creator,” she said.

“I’ll say not,” Zaldi laughed. “Who wants to hear a better story? It has a pirate sword in it! I heard it during my mercenary days working out of Toan.” She paused, then whispered again, for added effect: “Pirate sword.”

“I’d like to hear about a pirate sword,” the small child who had told of the lava sword whispered.

“Good enough!” Zaldi boomed, overcoming any objections through sheer volume. “The Seven Sisters of Naïx are all pirate havens, but everyone knows that the great free port of Gizan is wealthy and powerful because it’s the most friendly to troublesome corsairs. One day, a pirate captain sailed into port laden with gold and silver; he had captured an orcish trade ship destined for Layyia, where the orcs traded the spoils of their conquest for the weapons and supplies their holy war needed but that they could not make themselves.”

“The captain, Robas, took the finest treasures to a jeweler in Gizan and ordered a fine sword to be made with them. But the jeweler, knowing the look of orcish gold, refused. He was gently persuaded via a black eye, but went about his work with a warning: the orcs do not believe in an afterlife, he said; they attain immortality through remembrance. And gold never forgets.”

“Robas responded with a quip from an old Crimson Emperor who had instituted a urine tax: money doesn’t stink. He collected his blade and soon after set sail afresh with his crew.”

“Ten days out from Gizan, they intercepted another orcish merchant ship, but this one was escorted by a trireme, loaded with armed orcs girded for battle. Flying the black flag, Robas demanded their surrender. They refused. With arrows and shot. Robas ran up the red flag, then. For those of you who don’t know your pirates address for shame!–the black banner means that surrender will be accepted, and the red banner means that the pirates will kill every man aboard save a single survivor to spread the tale.”

“With the gleam of dead mens’ riches in his eyes, the pirate captain Robas led the first assault onto the orc trireme once his men had grappled it to a standstill. With his glittering new sword, he charged the first orc he saw. But the sword would not strike; it missed, even at close quarters. It was as if an anchor weighed it down, and it would not suffer itself to be lifted in anger against the artisans that had worked its original pieces.”

“The jeweler and the pirate flag were both right that day. The god had not forgotten, and every man aboard the loser’s ship, save one, was killed. But it was the pirates, demoralized at the fate of their captain, who suffered that fate. Some say that the survivor was Robas himself, put ashore with his shame and his sword. Others say that it was a lone crewman who converted to the Hamurabash in gratitude and was given his old master’s sword in recompense.”

“But what came to be known as the Anchor Blade traveled the coast of Naïx and Layyia for years afterwards, and it would never suffer itself to strike a blow against any orc, nor any who had converted to the Hamurabash. For the gold…the gold remembers.”

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As told by Nacee, a human milliner originally from Exor

Stuff and nonsense! Here is what really happened to the volcano king that broke his word.

The Creator saw what was happening and was filled with righteous anger, for although the Creator lies dead and dreaming, some of Its dreams are still for us. On the one hand, the Creator was faced with an oath breaker, a man who could not be trusted. Clearly, the volcano king could no longer be trusted to be a just ruler. But on the other side, and just as bad, was the man who had claimed the Creator’s aid in a thing he had dome himself, a trick and therefore beneath reproach.

In the wisdom of his deathly dreaming, and as a prelude to the age of magic and paradise which will accompany It when It returns to life, the Creator caused a great thunderstorm to break over the volcano palace. Bolts of lightning rained down, and its great stones were rent asunder. Both the old king and the would-be usurper were cowed by the might of the Creator, which they recognized as divine vengeance.

Into their midst came a tall man, pale of skin and fair of hair, who lectured both on the error of their ways. Lifting his hand to the heavens, and invoking the blessing of his hidden and dreaming Creator, he found his hand filled with a sword of pure storm, of lightning and thunder and wind. With a single clean and cleaving blow, both the old king and the would-be usurper were cast into the volcano, and the righteous man of the Creator took their place, a king who would reign with peace and justice and a storm sword to back them both up.

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As told by Gob, a nameless goblin from a Simnel Scullery

Hume, the man that had made the mold and watched as the Creator filled it, walked to his king. This king, Firebeard Rockthrone, had earned his name from the building of his kingdom and capital atop such a dangerous and unpredictable mountain of fire.

“Ho there, Rockthrone,” Hume said. “I call on this one to be true to its word. I name myself Mold Sparkblade in honor of this that I have wrought, and I demand that you honor your word and surrender your keep and your name.”

Rockthrone was crafty, though, and he refused Sparkblade. “Give this one the opportunity to let the Creator forge me a blade in turn,” he said. “If the Creator forge me not a blade of equal skill, my name and my throne I surrender to you, Sparkblade. But if the Creator does, a nameless and throne less Hume will you leave this hall.”

Sparkblade was not without cunning himself, as his forging of the hot blade (with Creator’s help) had shown. So he countered: “O Rockthrone, I accept your offer with but this addition: if Creator bestow you with blade and me as well, clearly he look upon us with equal favor. Let the contest be sword against sword, then.”

Agreeing, Rockthrone went to the non-fire mountains and prepared his own mold, which he allowed water to run into and freeze. But, clever human that he was, he also prepared an exact duplicate that was made of glass and would not melt. This he brought to the fire mountain, thinking that it would at a stroke shatter the flimsy hardened lava of his challenger.

“Behold the great favor which the Creator shows me,” speaketh Rockthrone, “a sword of snow and ice which does not melt, though my hands be warm and my throne be warmer. Strike a stroke against this, usurper Hume, and see upon whom the Creator truly smiles.”

Mold Sparkblade struck the blow. His sparkling blade, made of the solid dark waters of the night which some call obsidian, shattered the glass sword. He took up the king, and tossed him into the fire mountain, with no kingdom and no name at his death and therefore doomed. The blade he named Snowslayer, and it was an heirloom of that one’s kingdom for many years.

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