Karin, the Goddess’s Sword, strode up the cliffside path past horned statues. A brimstone reek filled the air as she lowered her battered helm’s visor. Her partner, the Goddess’s Shield, followed behind her, his armor in better shape—though his shield bore the scars of their running battle.
They’d been advancing for days. The Goddess had opened the path to Hell, and her Swords and Shields had been in the vanguard. Now, they were the only two left. The only two still pushing forward. The others would hold the way out as best they could, but Karin’s task lay ahead.
The open maw of the Demon King’s final stronghold loomed in front of them. She held a gauntleted hand out, and Zorin grabbed it, letting her pull him up the final oversized step. She grunted as his weight hung over the abyss momentarily before a surge of power rippled through her, and he landed on his feet next to her. “Thanks.”
“The Goddess protects.”
“The Goddess avenges,” Zorin said his mantra automatically.
Karin nodded. This was it. The end of her crusade. The end of the war. Once they finished this last fight, her people would be freed, her kingdom could rebuild, and her sister’s children would grow up in a safe world—one where the Goddess’s light could guide them, and they’d be protected from evils like the Demon King. All she had to do was win.
Her eyes glowed a silver-white light under her visor, and her fingers tightened on her greatsword’s grip hard enough to leave divots in its leather. She raised the blade, rushing forward into the Demon King’s fortress with Zorin at her back. A monstrosity of fire and smoke raised a blazing saber, and she swung her blade into a parry that rang out in Hell’s smoke-filled air. Her fingers went numb from the impact.
They loosened on the rocking chair’s armrests as her eyes sprang open.
The monastery’s brass bell rang out three times over the Order of the Holy Sword’s training grounds, almost drowning out the sparring knights-in-trainings’ grunts and their trainers’ shouts. The parade ground smelled of dust, sweat, and a hint of blood—the scents almost refreshing to ‘Great Grandmother’ Karin’s nose. She’d been dreaming again of hellfire and brimstone, blood and battle, and the Goddess’s favor.
She hadn’t felt it in almost six years. And she was withering. Wasting away.
Gone were the days when she’d put on her gambeson. It still stank of brimstone—and of undeath and orc bile from a hundred battles. Nowadays, she wore the habit of a nun, and her greatsword lay wrapped in oiled wool under her bunk. Her tired fingers couldn’t dent the smooth softwood of the rocking chair, much less her blade’s hard-leather grip.
The bell rang again, and her eyes opened. The monthly roll call was about to begin—the ceremony where the Highlord would read the names of those who’d finally left the Goddess’s service. He’d also induct this batch of young paladins to replace the fallen.
Most importantly to Karin, he’d send the Order on its quests.
Karin spared a wistful moment, remembering those days. Then she pushed herself out of her rocker and slowly walked toward the great hall.
All around her, the flood of purpose-filled humanity carried her along, flowing around her like a boulder in a relentless stream. The great hall had room for five hundred of the finest Swords and Shields the Goddess could muster, and on roll call days, every seat would be full. She found her customary seat near the front, where the most honored knights sat. It had been hers for sixty years, since the crusade against the Demon King.
“Holy brothers and sisters, the time has come to honor those whose sacrifice has left the world safer,” the Highlord began, his smoke-cracked voice booming across the hall. He hadn’t fought in her crusade, but he’d pushed back the demons’ resurgence a few years later during the Third. “Audria, Shield of the Goddess. Annette, Sword of the Goddess. Callum, Sword of the Goddess…”
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Hadn’t Jessamine died three years ago? Or was it twelve? They blurred together, the names and the years, and the Highlord’s voice went on and on, names Karin swore she’d heard before lulling Karin into a half-sleep. She’d sat through a thousand of these.
The names weren’t important. Their sacrifice was. And that they were honored.
Someday, it would be her turn.
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“…and Yreanne, the Goddess accepts you into her service,” the Highlord intoned, ending the induction. Three dozen new paladins, each replacing a fallen knight to keep the Goddess’s holy warriors at a sacred, perfect five hundred. No one clapped. No one cheered. The solemn silence weighed down on the new inductees, smothering them in seriousness.
Karin sat at the edge of her seat, her heart pounding like a hammer against her breast. Surely, this roll call would be different. Surely, the Highlord would call her name this time. There had to be a Goddess-given quest she could complete—something she was still worthy of.
The Highlord cleared his throat, the customary words filling the silent chamber. “And now, Tasks.”
She waited, heart pleading, as the new initiates joined with veterans in groups of four, bound for the kingdom’s borderlands to fight the monsters that even now, a half-century after she’d thrown them back, nipped and clawed at the fringes of the Goddess’s realm. She waited, heart racing, as the highest-ranked pairs filed out on quests to the world’s darkest corners. And she waited, heart sinking, as nearly two hundred of the Order’s finest young men and women filed out of the great hall, bowing before the Goddess’s statue on their way to the Eighth Crusade against Hell.
Her name hadn’t been called.
Her name hadn’t been called!
And the great hall was empty. A dozen knights’ statues stood silent vigil over the abandoned pews. Tapestries swayed slowly on the walls, then slowed as the sounds of iron-clad footsteps faded. Even the Highlord had gone to lead the Crusade. Only she, Karin, the Goddess’s Sword, had been left behind.
A single initiate, passed over on this induction but surely not the next, started down the hall with a candle snuffer, then stopped when he saw Karin. “I apologize, ‘Great Grandmother’ Karin.” His voice echoed off the wall until Karin thought five initiates were apologizing, not one.
“You are forgiven,” Karin said, trying not to let her frustration show. She was one of the Goddess’s Swords, but the initiates only knew her as Great Grandmother.
“I apologize,” the acolyte said again, fleeing the empty cathedral.
She was alone.
Karin pushed herself out of her seat of honor with a soft groan that echoed in the silent, empty hall. The Highlord’s voice didn’t echo; too many people filled the space when he spoke. But alone with the Goddess, her every footfall sounded like a dozen as she hobbled to the Goddess’s sandaled marble feet and knelt.
The statue was older than the cathedral that surrounded it, older than the monastery. Silas the Learned said it might be older than the kingdom itself. The Goddess’s stone robes plummeted toward the floor, their folds enveloping her smooth, marbled skin in a style Karin had never seen a living person wear. Her nose was sharp, her eyes piercing, and she carried an expression both stern and kind at once. The stone sword’s tip hovered inches over Karin like a hanging doom waiting in judgment.
“Have I been found wanting?” Karin asked. Her voice cracked and echoed as she stared at the Goddess’s feet, unable to meet her eyes. “Have I failed you somehow?”
The Goddess said nothing.
But Karin couldn’t stop herself. “I beg you, just once more, let me be your Sword again. Let me protect your people. I can still carry the sword. I can still ride. Am I not fit for your service like the others? Am I not your Sword?” Tears ran down her face, and she prostrated herself before the monument to the being she’d devoted her life to.
The Goddess didn’t answer.
And, after almost an hour, Karin picked herself up and, limping on stiff joints, left the great hall behind.
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The call came as she stepped onto the parade ground.
Karin almost couldn’t believe it.
She’d experienced it dozens of times, and every time felt like the first. The crashing feeling as the Goddess’s warmth filled her. The shimmering silver-white blur at her vision’s edges. The power—the raw, holy power.
And, of course, the voice. A strong soprano, firm and unyielding, yet motherly. It felt like grace. Like comfort. Like love.
“Karin, my Sword, you are called to action once more. Accept my strength. Wield my power. Protect my people.
“Goblins are raiding a small, poor village to the south. The people of Riverbend lack the strength to protect themselves and so have turned to me. Without help, the raid will become a massacre, and you are my Sword. Will you protect my charges? Will you push back the darkness?
Karin nodded wordlessly, elation filling her.
Her muscles screamed as she raced across the parade field and shoved the door to her barracks open. The acolyte ran behind her, the Goddess’s presence left behind. “My sword and armor, hurry,” Karin breathed, dropping slowly to one knee to dig for the blade. The boy was already expertly undoing straps to loosen the glistening breastplate and fit it to her frame.
She felt alive. For the first time in six years, she felt alive.
The time had come to be the Sword once more.