Even though the blade had seen all of this coming, it still rather enjoyed watching it reach a climax as its wielder and the man's friends left the blacksmith’s the following afternoon. They faced down a mob, in what was very clearly a hastily laid trap. Before them stood a semicircle on men with bared swords and behind them on the street they were backed by another half dozen men with loaded crossbows.
“You hand over the gold, and we’ll let you walk away with your lives,” the leader called out. He was an ugly warrior with mismatched armor and a well-notched sword. “Or you can draw steel, and we can kill you for it. Doesn’t matter to me either way. No reason to die when you can just go back into the mountains and take another bite off your big score.”
The Ebon Blade knew immediately that no one was walking away from anything here. Kell and the rest of his group either handed over their valuables and then died, or they fought for their valuables before they died. It was a simple equation. The cutthroats might let one of them live long enough to lead them back to Gern’s big score, but that was it.
The blade should have been pleased by that idea. But some little detail worried at it. Though it hadn’t cared in the past, ever since it had unlocked small pieces of its soul, things had been shifted, and it was surprised to find that it did not wish to be held by a traitor.
In fact, more than anything now, it regretted that it had tried so hard to turn the sniveling shepherd against his friend. It did not care for either of them, but it would have rather that they chopped each other to bloody pieces like men rather than fight over a woman like boys.
That didn’t mean that the blade wanted a good, principled owner. It wanted a bloodthirsty warrior without peer to use it to cleave a bloody trail across the kingdom. A traitor, though? It would rather be wielded by a goblin. Some things were too ugly to tolerate.
So, as Gern tried to talk their way out of the situation, arguing, “There’s plenty of gold for everyone in those mountains. We could go together and split the profits. No one needs to die. We could all be rich,” the blade analyzed the situation, then decided to take a gamble and whisper to its wielder, as it started siphoning off of every enemy within range to make what was about to happen easier.
This would hurt a lot, for Kell, at least. The man was wearing his blade on a crude rope scabbard he’d made, but his armor was still packed up on their mule with the rest of their supplies. All of theirs were. None of them had been expecting this.
No one can hear me but you, it started. Do not react, or those crossbowmen could get restless.
Wha-what? Who is this? Kell’s mind demanded fearfully as he stood there, trying not to turn his head and look for the source of the unseen voice in his mind.
I am a weapon, nothing more, the blade started. But in a moment, when the fighting starts, you and all of your friends will die unless you do exactly as I say.
How can I trust you? Kell argued I don’t even know who you are.
You must strike first, and you must strike without mercy, the blade argued, ignoring the question. While you wield me, you can shrug off even grievous wounds. Your friends will not be so lucky, so you must charge now, while they aren’t expecting you!
I… the young man tried to formulate his thoughts. Gern is trying to handle this peacefully, Kell insisted. We can still talk our way out of this. We can still—
Even as he tried to explain the facts of life to the blade, the crossbowmen opened fire on all three of them at a gesture from their leader. Mika and Kell were both hit, but only Mika went down.
Rip out the quarrel, the blade yelled in its wielder’s mind, even as it was drawn in anger. You cannot heal a wound that is full of wood and steel!
-6 Life Force
Kell obeyed, though it was more due to anger than to any compulsion from the blade, and he swung it wildly forward with one hand while the other ripped the bolt out of his side. The wound was gone even before he tossed it away.
-4 Life Force
The Ebon Blade could already feel itself losing Life Force, but it didn’t care. It was already over 400, and it was about to feast on the souls of these treacherous fools.
-2 Life Force
Kell's blow left him wide open, and he was stabbed for his trouble, but as soon as the blade withdrew, the wound closed at the cost of nine more life force. The man lost his head for his trouble, and the blade drank deeply.
+16 Life Force
You have claimed one human soul!
“You killed Mika!” Kell screamed, lurching toward the leader, who was obviously surprised to see him still standing.
-2 Life Force
Kell was impossibly outnumbered, and his angry blows should have doomed him, but the Ebon Blade contributed to those motions, granting him a certain elegance and making it past the defenses of these men more frequently than he had any right to.
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+16 Life Force
-8 Life Force
+12 Life Force
You have claimed a human soul!
+20 Life Force
-4 Life Force
You have claimed a human soul!
Kell took blow after fatal blow, but he killed too, even more often than he should have died. He only fell when his spine was briefly severed by a hard slash to his back. That wasn’t enough to keep him down for long, and he rose again and again to keep fighting as he tried and failed to defend the men he called his family. It would have been hard to keep him down, given how much the blade was devouring the lives around him, though.
-14 Life Force
Its hunger had become a palpable miasma that was connecting all of its draining targets in a thin black mist. Which gave its opponents a terrible dilemma that they weren’t even aware of. With this many targets to choose from, they had enough swords to hold it at bay, if only barely, but they gave it too many souls to feast on. If they fought it with less, then it would drain less, but they would surely perish beneath its focused attention.
You have claimed a human soul!
You have claimed a human soul!
You have claimed a human soul!
Slowly, one death at a time, the blade whittled them down. At one point, it saw an alert pop up about its Path of Death, but it ignored that, both unwilling and unable to tear its attention away from the brutality of this combat. It still did not love this wielder, but it loved the way that he kept going despite the attacks that were raining down upon him. He was simply unwilling to let these men finish off his friends, even though they were very much done for already.
You have claimed a human soul!
You have claimed a human soul!
Gern was holding his entrails in, but he still had a pulse. Mika, on the other hand, was nothing but a warm corpse. Yet somehow, despite all that, the young man fought, eliminating one enemy at a time.
Once, they almost succeeded in killing him. One of his opponents had succeeded in circling around behind him and driving a short sword between Kell’s ribs, cleaving his heart in twain. For a moment, Kell died. If the Ebon Blade had the ability to steal his wielder's soul, he probably would have stayed dead, too.
You have claimed a human soul!
However, almost as soon as the blow was struck, the attacker pulled his blade free, and Kell came to life once more, quickly whirling to dispatch his unseen foe. The battle went on for almost ten minutes, and a good chunk of the town came out to watch the desperate duel. A few of them even shouted encouragement.
For the last few minutes, Kell had been trying to cut a path to the ring leader with single-minded fury, and as soon as that happened and the man was bleeding out on the ground, the others quickly retreated, but neither of them wanted to let them go, and Kell cut down two more while they fled before the rest had made good their escape.
You have claimed a human soul! Your soul storage is full, and the soul has been burned for 89 Life Force.
By that point, his body was exhausted, and his chest was heaving. Feasting on the blood of his enemies indirectly, though, made him a tireless juggernaut. At least, that was the case until he sheathed the blade and then ran toward Gern. Then, his legs very nearly gave out on him.
“Pa!” Kell yelled, even though the man wasn’t really his dad. “Are you okay?”
“Forget me, check on Mika!” the old man growled, obviously unwilling to accept that his actual son had been killed by a bolt through the heart in the first moments of battle.
“I… I think he’s…” Kell tried to say, rolling the other man onto his back.
“Nonsense,” Gern yelled before doubling over in pain. “He just needs a healer.”
Could you… the same way you healed me? Could you heal them? Kell asked his weapon silently.
Mika is dead, and nothing can heal him, the blade agreed. As to Gern, well, if he wielded me, my magic would heal him, but I do not think he would give the weapon back. He barely let you keep it the first time.
Kell said nothing in response to that for a long moment. Then, he stood and said, “I’m going to go and get you a healer, Pa!” and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.
A few minutes later, he’d returned to the massacre, promising to lavish the man he was dragging along in gold. It was there he found Gern unconscious but alive, though more than a few strangers were picking through the bodies of the dead men. Kell ignored all of them except the one trying to rob Mika’s corpse. That one he killed with no warning at all, pinning the man to the dusty street with a sword through the back.
You have claimed a human soul! Your soul storage is full, and the soul has been burned for 91 Life Force.
While the healer worked, the blade whispered to its wielder, You know that it was the smith that betrayed you. He set up this ambush and probably sacrificed your lives to keep half of your gold for himself.
You don’t know that Kell shot back.
I don’t, the sword agreed. But I know that no one else knew you were going to be there just before you left town, and it takes time to put together a gang this big.
Kell didn’t answer, and the blade didn’t belabor the point. The man was grieving his loss already, and when Gern died despite the healer’s magic, he blamed himself.
It was shortly after that moment that the sheriff finally made an appearance with half a dozen men wearing mismatched armor. He was clearly afraid of Kell but asked him what had happened just the same. Kell explained that he and his family were about to go back out into the wilds to try to bring back more gold when they were set upon by thieves and cutthroats.
The lawman, to his credit, suspected the same thing the sword did and the smith confessed after only a few threats. “They weren’t supposed to kill ‘em, though. They were just supposed to rob ‘em!” the man complained when he broke down.
That defense didn’t go down very well, and the man was sentenced to hanging on the spot. That was probably all that saved Kell, but the sword sensed that the man didn’t really want to be saved. In fact, it was clear that more than anything, he regretted not killing the smith when he’d had the chance.
The blade would have tried to provoke that conflict, but it was already overflowing with power and souls. So, it would prefer some quiet time to contemplate what choices it should make with those next, rather than causing more bloodshed.
“Just because you aren’t to blame for all this, doesn’t mean I ever want to see your face in my town again, you understand?” the sheriff asked after Kell had paid off the healer for his rendered services, futile though they were.
Kell nodded but then asked, “Can I at least stay to see them buried? After that, I’ll be on my way.”
The request softened the law man’s heart, and he nodded. So, Kell loaded everything of worth that he still had onto their mule and went off to the gravedigger to make arrangements.
“You were right. I should have struck first,” he cursed privately as he walked away.