The Finding of the Sword

The Finding of the sword. A Gavin Gardburker short by Nathan Pedde

Gavin ran for his life. He wasn’t sure what went wrong or if anything went wrong. He wasn’t sure if his teammates were alive or dead. All he knew at that moment in time, as he ran through the dense forest with bushes and branches scratching at his face and pulling at his clothing was that he was unarmed, alone and an unknown amount of the enemy was following closely behind him.

Fear and panic filled his eyes and he charged blindly forward through the trees. He had no sense of direction and no bearings. The old forest was so thick with trees and undergrowth that he could barely see the sun. He had no sense of the time of day. All he knew was that it was day.

He burst into a small clearing, a small trickle of blood dripping down his face from one particularly angry tree branch. The clearing was about thirty feet wide with the side of a hill closing off the far side. The clearing was filled with tall grass up to his chest.

Jutting out of the hillside was a small cave, half hidden in the undergrowth of the clearing. Gavin, hoping that he had lost the enemy, ran into the small cave. He ducked his head as he entered the cave.

Gavin had a skinny, yet tall frame that was evenly muscled, but not very strong. His brown messy mop-like hair poked at his eyes, making them water, which blurred his vision.

“He went into the cave!” A voice shouted in the Aurrian language from the forest.

“Stupid Gavin.” Gavin muttered to himself as he turned to run blindly into the cave.

The darkness engulfed him as he ran forward using only blind luck from tripping in the darkness or running flat out into a wall. He wished that he hadn’t lost his sword or the small bundle or torches that he had with him only a half turn of the glass before.

Gavin ran through tunnel and caves. He voices of his pursuers echoed loudly in the darkness pushing his onward, forward. The caves twisted and turned in the darkness as he ran forward.

His feet catch on some bones and he falls uncontrollable forward into the dirt floor. He laid on the ground groaning as pain filled his head.

“What now?” Gaving muttered to himself, “Maybe a bear will find me and eat me for lunch.”

Gavin felt around on his hands and knees in the darkness as he looked for the skeleton that tripped him so well. His hands find a unused torch and a flint nearby.

After a couple attempts, the torch is quickly lit.

“Mother of all that is holy.” Gavin cursed.

The light from the torch revealed the particularly bad situation that Gavin was in. Gavin sat in the center of an eight pronged intersection. The intersection was perfectly round with the hallways branching off in a different direction. Each tunnels looked to be perfectly spaced apart from its two neighbours.

But Gavin wasn’t in a cave. The walls were not carved by water or even chipped out of solid rock as most caves were. The tunnels were more like hallways of some underground forgotten fortress. It was made out of a dark granite stone with pieces about four feet high and eight feet wide.

Gavin took a deep breath as his stress level rose. Which way should he go? Which was is out and which way was the enemy charging behind him. He realized that he was lost.

“There is a light this way!” the voice from before echoed through the hallway.

Gavin muttered a curse under his breath and quickly ran forward, choosing a random hallway.

He ran blindly though the hallway and he took random turns to the left and to the right. If he as lost before, he was even more lost now.

But he has lost sight of those that are perusing him.

He slows down trying to catch his breath. His chest felt like it was going to explode. As he walks down hallway after hallway, he noticed strange tool marks.

Thinking they were some old rock cutter guild markings, he ignores them. They were unreadable, worn out from time. He then sees a finely carved rock. The markings were strangely clear, un-eroded, unlike the ones around them. They were nothing like the markings of stone cutter guild markings that he has ever seen. From the way it was written, the strangely shaped symbols resembled more like a forgotten language than anything else.

Gavin wandered along the hallways looking at the strange marking, not paying attention to his surroundings. He doesn’t hear the sounds of his pursuers, who followed along his foot prints in the dust.

He turned a corner and stumbled into a large circular hall. The hall was thirty foot tall ceiling which stretched out as far as he could see. A lone raised platform in the center was the only structural object in the hall, if you didn’t include the row upon row of expertly carved statues.

The thousands upon thousands of statues were lined up in even rows. The statues all faced the center platform. Each statue was one of a warrior. Each held a different weapon in an ‘at attention’ position. The statues were of both men and women.

Each life sized statue had a solid stone base with more the strange symbols on the front. Two rows of symbols decorated the front. The top row was usually a longer word or eight words, while the bottom row was only two.

“I am in a tomb.” Gavin said as he studies the symbols, “Markus would be excited to be in here. The information the organization could learn.”

He wandered excitedly up and down the rows of the statues, forgetting about his pursuers bend on his untimely destruction or worst. He wandered toward the raised platform.

As he reached the platform to discover that it is made out of solid granite. Each block of stone was closely cut and fitted exactly like the hallways.

He walked up the stairs towards the top of the platform. The top of the platform was only ten feet off of the floor below.

On the top rested a single sword in a beautifully made stand. The sword was a finely-made iron blade. It was about three and a half feet long from tang to tip, with a simply made hilt from bone of some long dead animal. On the guard of the hilt was a clearly marked symbol or insignia.

He looked at the beauty of the strange weapon. Longer than the usual swords that he used and made out of the extremely expensive iron metal. Iron was usually more brittle than bronze, even though bronze had a duller edge. The only ones that used iron were the rich and powerful.

He picked up expensive weapon and he gasped by the weight and balance. It was perfect for him. It was lighter than his awkward bronze sword and perfectly balanced. It also has a very sharp edge.

As he was currently weapon-less to the encounter to his enemies, he put the sword in his sword belt.

Gazing out around the platform, he noticed that the statues stretched out as far as his torch would let him see.

He turned around and started to walk down the stairs towards the single entrance. He still had to escape this maze or he would become like that corpse out in the hallways.

About halfway down the stairs, he notices a particular statue standing silently like the rest. He hopped off of the stairs and quickly walked up to the statue. He studied it for a moment as he tried to figure out what was it that made him see this one and not another.

Suddenly it hit him. It looked very similar to himself. Must be just a coincidence he thought. He was about to turn to continue to walk towards the exit, when he noticed two things.

First was that it was carrying the same weapon that he was, when all of the other warriors had an assortment of weapons. And it had a mole carved in the exact same place as he did on his neck.

He circled the statue studying every detail. Something told him that he had made a mistake. Suddenly he saw it. Carved on the granite base were the two lines of symbols. Except that these he could read, while the ones on all of the other statues he could not. He didn’t know how or why, but he could. 

He looked at the symbols for his date of birth, which was correct, and his date of death, which was gibberish. He turned and looked at another statue, he couldn’t understand the dates.

“Interesting isn’t it?” A voice said from behind him.

He had his sword out before he could think. Standing behind him was a Mandrake. He looked human, but he knew that the mandrake could never be. Inside the human shell was a twisted and deformed monster.

Mandrakes were his enemy and the enemy of the Lost Legion Organization. They fed off of the blood of his enemies turning him into their puppets and slaves. It was a fate worse than death.

Gavin had orders to take a poison pill before he let that happen.

“So you found the Lost Sword, I see and it chose you.” The mandrake said.

The mandrake wore a long coat with a floppy hat which hid his face. The mandrake was tall and muscular and Gavin knew from personal experience that he would be hard to kill alone, especially with his limited fighting abilities.

Gavin didn’t say anything. He kept his sword pointed towards the mandrake.

“Do you know when you die?” the mandrake asked.

Gavin still said nothing; instead he edged his way back towards the platform.

“I guess not.” The mandrake said, “Maybe it hasn’t taken effect yet. I can kill you know and become more powerful than any Legionnaire can.”

“What are you talking about?” Gavin asked.

“That sword.” The mandrake hissed.

The mandrake raised his arm and twenty men in an assortment of bronze armour stepped forward from behind him. They were humans in every shape and form, except that they were mindless. They were his slaves and puppets. They were linked to the mandrake as a marionette was to its strings.

The mandrake hissed a couple words in a foreign tongue and the slaves charged forward screaming in different languages. They charged down the rows of statues. The cramped space funnelled them towards Gavin letting only a few able to engage Gavin at a time.

Suddenly, Gavin wasn’t afraid anymore. Fear disappeared from his body, as if it drained downwards towards the floor.

Gavin lifted his weapon in a silent salute and took a step forward.

It was as if everything was stuck in slow motion, except himself. He leapt forward, his sword flashed out catching an enemy in the chest.

He twirled striking out with his sword; it sliced through flesh and bone as his sword found its way past the enemies guard. 

He fought and enemies died. There was no blow that he couldn’t parry or block or dodge. There was no enemy that he couldn’t hit and take down. It was if he was possessed.

He severed a head and watched it fly towards the mandrake to land at his feet.

Silence erupted from the room except for the body crashing to the ground.

The Mandrake stood in his true form, twisted and ugly, his face now a demented animal snarl.

“I hope that those weren’t your only slaves, mandrake.” Gavin said suddenly confident.

The mandrake snarled and turned to run away.

Gavin picked up a fallen spear and threw it towards the fleeing mandrake. The spear flew in a perfect arc, utterly impossible for him to throw before he had picked up the sword. It pierced the mandrake in the back, the tip bursting two feet out of his chest.

The mandrake fell to the ground; it thrashed and hissing in pain.

“Damb.” He said, “I missed the heart.”

Gavin walked up towards the mandrake. The mandrake crawled pathetically away as it tried to get away from the vengeful apprentice.

The mandrake snapped the spear shaft in two, its muscles rippled in exertion. It picked itself up from the floor, dark red inhuman blood poured out of its gaping wounds. The mandrake ran towards the exit and fled into the darkness.