KOROL
There are no true records of duels of the era; only myths and tales weaved by bards of their patrons, each more extravagant than the last. Still, any study of the Eastern Continent would be remiss to overlook the Cardinal Guard—Her chosen. Archaeological findings have largely discovered nothing special about their steel, save for their fine workmanship, which is of course expected of Garder and its vast coffers. Still, they fought like men possessed with no fear of death. Rumours of the Child of God in their midst, salving their blades in holy light, struck fear into their enemies who often broke rank in face of their aggression.
But we are here to study duels, not wars. Amongst the fierce warriors of Garder, one stood out for crushing his foes like bugs—not with anger or disgust, but with apathy—yet fiercely loyal to his subordinates. The bards named him Korol, though whether it was his name or his title is still unknown. Unlike the rest of the Cardinal Guard, his weapon was a claymore, wielded with both hands for its immense weight and reach. It was a cruel weapon that offered no defence save for the guard on its hilt; the veritable sword in the stone, pulled out by only he strong enough to wield it.
The sword still exists today, preserved in remarkable condition. However, its iron dates far beyond Garder’s reign. The citizens spoke of it in hushed whispers, calling it cursed and blasphemous—for it was said to have been reforged from metal melted from Her gifts from on high. A blade that sapped life from all around it to arm its bearer with monstrous, intoxicating strength. The Guard turned a blind eye until the city fell—but they did not dare pry it from Korol’s hands, and neither would Korol yield it. The city yearned for blood, already furious at both the clergy and the Guard for their impotence. So he set out to find a scapegoat.
His is not a tale sung by bards, but a patchwork of deathbed confessions from the few that saw him die. Only in their final breaths did they find the courage to speak of the One Sin.
- from “The Rise and Fall of Garder” by Vior Lind
KOROL
I took stance, the heft of my claymore feather-light in my rugged hands, gleaming in the evening light. I could not bear to even look at my opponent—so great was my shame at facing someone shorter and thinner than me. The other cadets surrounded us, made to watch, all smaller than I was, their faces wrinkled in disgust. Does he have no pride?
“Begin!” the master-at-arms shouted, breaking the silence. I did not move, however. To take the initiative with a body as monstrous as mine was cheating—this, I realised, from the way the other cadets looked and even spat at me after our spars. So I stood and let the boy charge, his stance disciplined and measured. He swung and I parried. Once, twice, again and again—I did not attack. I wielded my claymore with ease, deflecting each blow, taking steps back as the boy pressed on, huffing and panting.
I was not native to Garder and it showed. They were thinner, leaner, more refined—I was a brute. To spar against them was to pit a bear against a deer. Their training meant nothing in the face of my strength and reach. Nobody else could even lift my trainer claymore, let alone wield it with such fury. So I defeated several cadets one after the other through raw aggression, ending each spar so quickly it must have humiliated them. I didn’t know. I was just doing what I was told to, and the master-at-arms had watched me keenly as though I were a bubbling potion ready to explode. Only Garderin should fight Garderin, but I had no choice.
I parried another blow. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise. By defending I could give them more time to practise. A spar that ended in seconds was a waste of time, so I drew out the fight, eyeing my opponent’s stance, reacting to every minor shift in weight.
We moved in circles, the boy’s onslaught becoming more desperate as I stepped back after each parry. Then, just as I wondered how I was to end the fight without attacking—the boy stumbled and his sword slipped from his grasp. The tip stabbed the ground just as he grabbed the hilt. He could not remove it, however. He was exhausted, panting, sweating, and even with both hands on the hilt he could not pull it from the hard earth.
This was a mistake. Regret crawled up my spine like a cold millipede. I looked up—only to be slapped so hard my head whipped to the side. The master-at-arms had hit me. He stood before me—eye-level, but so furious he seemed twice his height—a vein twitching in his bald temple. “You fool,” he seethed. “Do you mean to mock him? I know what you’re thinking. Stop it. You are a cadet. Not a father playing knights-and-orcs with his son. Fighting an opponent that holds back is the worst humiliation a warrior can face.”
The barracks were colder that night. I was already an outcast, but where their faces held disdain before now lay graved nothing at all. They no longer saw me as a knight-in-training like the rest. They looked straight through me as though I were gone. That night as I lay down to sleep I held my sword closer than usual.
*
I am Korol and I hail from the Western Continent, past the Pink Sea. I know little of my homeland nor the treacherous journey here save for distant thunder and towering waves crashing in the night as my mother breastfed me in a swelteringly stuffy cabin deep in a ship’s hull, packed so tightly with countless others fleeing across the Sea that there was hardly enough room to sit, let alone lie down. She would rock me gently so I would not feel the lurch of the sea. She would whisper to me, softly enough that nobody else could hear, though I was too young to understand. She would look at me with the hope and pride only a mother may hold for her son. Even if I could muster the courage to ask her what she said to me back then, I would not, for she believes I have forgotten the journey here, and that all I know is the bright, prosperous city of Garder, with its clock towers and cathedrals, its peace and joy, its shining knights and children rolling and laughing in the grass. This is the peace my parents wanted me to know growing up, and I cannot bear the guilt of shattering that illusion. So I live, as a son of Garder, as a proud knight-in-training. This is my home, and my story begins here.
*
I sat at the dining table made of humble oak and draped over by a white tablecloth striped in yellow. My parents were in the kitchen, chatting in the old tongue, though they had never once told me its name or where it came from. Sit down, Ma said when I had offered to help earlier. Our little knight must be tired from all that training, to which I had mumbled that I was not yet a knight. I traced the patterns on the cloth—and realised that my feet had finally grown enough to touch the floor rather than dangle.
Knights-in-training spent many years away from their families, boarded in the barracks to build grit and spirit. I was only a child the last time I ate here and had since grown into a teenager with a physique that could rival any man in Garder. I trained as hard as the others did, but it was not mere effort that gave me my bulk, but genes. They hated how I outgrew them at a pace befitting a beast. I hated it too. It was unbecoming of a son of Garder. I wished I could sit in a boiling bath, scalding my skin, letting it slough off to reveal a purebred Garderin beneath. The nights I dreamed of such a bath were the worst as I would wake up before the others in my own grotesque body and cry beneath the covers. I would peek as they changed into battle order, tracing the lean lines of their fair, hairless bodies. And I would shudder as I felled each one in the sparring grounds with a quick lunge and sweep.
My parents brought a large, steaming pie out the kitchen and placed it before me. “Dinner. Just for you. Eat up!” my father said in the common tongue, not very fluently, his eyes wet with pride.
“Aren’t you going to sit down? I can’t finish this myself.” I looked up at them.
Ma and Cha looked at each other, smiling awkwardly, before sitting down across the table from me. The pie sat in the gulf between us. It took a while for us to finish it, though I ate most of it—they were happy just to watch me. I tried to chat with them, but I could only understand fragments of the old tongue, forcing us to talk only in the common tongue. How is training? Are the cadets treating you well? I nodded to both questions; I could not speak the old tongue well enough to speak truly and elaborate if I wanted to, and they could not speak the common tongue fluently enough to understand me. We’re doing fine. Don’t worry about us. We’ll always be here. You’ll be a knight soon—keep it up. Small talk and platitudes. The pie cooled and our conversation petered out as we continued eating in silence.
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Before I left, Ma gave me a scarf she had knitted herself. She gave me one each time I visited. I nodded in thanks—Garder’s winters were fierce, but I already had several scarves from my previous visits. Even as I wrapped it around my neck, I could tell there was something lukewarm about this house. It did not feel like home. Not even when shared with the two who loved me more than anyone else.
*
The gap between each visit widened until I could no longer remember the taste of Ma’s cooking. I had no time to—the training became even more gruelling, designed to wring every drop of soul from our veins, washing many cadets out and leaving only hearts of stone. The camaraderie thinned even amongst the Garderins (there had never been any for me). We were so tired. We sparred, we ate, we trained, we slept. The scheduled expeditions to the forest beyond the city were the worst. The myth of the knight never talks about how we dig graves to sleep in, shit in holes, and eat barely preserved scraps. And when it rained it would all flood to the surface with a putrid stench, our torches too wet to light, leaving us nowhere to sleep but marshy ground in pitch dark using our cloaks as soggy rugs.
I was not the first to have cried during these expeditions—I could tell from their faces, even as rain streamed down their cheeks. It drenched us all, Garderin or otherwise. In our collective suffering I was like the others, wet and groggy and hungry. My physique did nothing versus nature. I helped them sometimes, my frame more rugged and sturdy than the rest, and they were too exhausted to ignore me or take offence. I trudged like everyone else, and while they did not see me as a friend (or even as Garderin), they saw me rather than straight through me. They acknowledged me, and that was more than I deserved.
Swordplay kept me sane. I honed the art well. The master-at-arms, strict as he was, showed keen interest in my talent and built me into a fine warrior. Garder needs men like you, he had murmured once. I remembered those words till my last breath, while those my mother spoke as we crossed the Pink Sea decades ago never resurfaced. Garder was home. I had to earn my place.
*
I was knighted to little fanfare. Perhaps they knew we were not in the mood to celebrate—most of us wanted only to rest for the week-long holiday they granted us after the ceremony. I was bequeathed a proper claymore to replace my trainer. It was longer and wider—but what struck me most was its weight, as though twenty swords had been wrapped into one. Then there was its colour—the deepest shade of pureblind, darker than the darkest night. I could hold it better than the master-at-arms (who had struggled to hand it to me), but not as nimbly as my trainer.
“This looks different from the others,” I said to him, tearing my eyes from the blade.
“I chose it just for you.” The master-at-arms smiled. “What do you think? It is an old sword, not from here, with a storied past. I figure nobody else in the continent could pick up that blade, let alone wield it in battle.”
I held it in the air, testing its weight. The blade pivoted around my wrist, stopping just a hair from the ground. It was heavy, but the heft felt just right in my hands. “It’s perfect.”
“Good. It will serve you well. Bear it with pride.”
“I will. Garder demands it.”
“No,” he said, approaching me and clasping my hands in his, around the hilt of my new sword. “Wield it for yourself. You are a knight, Korol. A knight’s place is by his blade, hand in hand.” He looked at the claymore, then back up at me. “This is a sword of legend. A sword with a cursed name.”
“Cursed?”
“Just a rumour. Don’t fret. Still…” His eyes pooled with more sympathy than my parents’ had ever done. He knows something I don’t. “Strength can be a curse, Korol. I cannot hold you back—such is my duty. But do you intend to keep training forever? You’re stronger than any Garderin can hope to be.”
“What can I offer if not my strength?”
“You are more than just—” he said, then faltered. He knew my story; that I was not Garderin. The crying newborn calls Garder home with his first breath. Not me. I must earn that right.
“Are you happy where you are now?” he asked.
My armour clinked as I lifted the claymore, his hands unclasping from the hilt. I sheathed it behind my back—it was far too long to fit in a scabbard. He handed me my full helm: the last piece of my armour. I took it, respectfully, with both hands, before putting it on and dropping the visor to hide my face completely. I was a knight proper now, entombed in steel and iron, not an inch of skin or hair showing.
“How do I look, master-at-arms?” I asked.
He stepped back to let the light shine on me. “Like a true knight. A Garderin.”
I smiled a smile that reached my eyes, barely visible through the visor—it did not go unnoticed. The master-at-arms saw all. Decades lifted from his shoulders, giving way to another toothy grin.
“Take care, and live free.”
*
Nobody ever told me of the curse to my face, but I had eyes and ears—I knew what they said behind closed doors. That the blade bled dry those around it—its prey, its allies, and finally, its wielder. It sapped life, stained it black, and wore it as a cloak. But in my final breaths I knew the sword was innocent. Its only sin was its sheer weight and power. Only a beast could wield it well, and a beast can never hide amongst sheep. It was the beast itself that devoured all around it, not the sword—though it did arm its wielder with absurd strength. A beast only knows to rip and tear, to greed and hunger. A beast could never live in Garder, no matter how many layers of steel it may hide behind.
I rose through the ranks quickly. The Garderins grew to both fear and respect me. Korol, they said, heads bowed slightly, afraid to meet my gaze, two syllables carefully pronounced; a name that had grown into a title. My men trusted me—but never confided in me. And what was so wrong with that? This was my place: above and beyond, removed from society. I had a perch to sit on. I knew I could never live amongst them, for I was not Garderin.
But they had granted me this seat, this title, this crown to bear. I was no longer the knight-in-training, neither here nor there—not a true Garderin like the other cadets nor a native of the old country speaking my parents’ tongue. No, I had become a beast—for who else could wield Mobius? The blade of a thousand blades, each having met its end only to be forged anew. The blade that had seen a thousand kings and kingdoms rise and crumble before war and plague. The blade that had served a thousand masters, each beastlier than the last, all doomed to die early, bloody deaths. Mobius saw and lived through it all, eternal, everlasting, retaining its edge.
I am Korol, Commander of the Cardinal Guard. Garder needed a blade and a beast to wield it and we answered its call. Perhaps these were the strings of fate that had pulled me here from across the Pink Sea. So when the head priestess burst into the guardhouse, her eyes gaunt and drained, hyperventilating—it was then that I felt fear for the first time. I never cared much for gods; not even the Child of God that had enamoured the city for a short while. No—it was the fear of failure that choked me. For the deity had escaped and fooled us all. The people turned to me and cursed not just the blade but me—calling me incompetent, calling me the seed of the plague. My men lost their respect for me and saw me as an enemy. They looked into my armour, their eyes crawling over my alien, brutish features, praying I would disappear and leave Garder for the Garderins. That would lift the plague, they said. And the head priestess—the city wanted her out too, though I did not care why.
It was unbearable. It had not even been a month since I burned my parents at the pyre—the plague had taken my father first and my mother a few days later. The last threads tying me to my homeland had been cut, turned to ash. I would rather they burn me too than exile me. So I set out to find the deity, if only to feed the city’s bloodlust. This was just another test from Garder. All I needed to do was answer the call.
Still, as I put on my armour and prepared to scour the forest, I felt the loom of death. I picked up Mobius and for the first time noticed its scars. How many had I killed with this blade? Their faces rushed by, encircling me, some begging in their final moments, others screaming in rage, others still dead silent. They demanded answers. For Garder, I said. That’s all? I stuck my tongue out and licked its flat edge, tasting metal and blood and cold death. What am I doing?
I pulled back—Mobius stared at me, reflecting nothing. I had fed it prey, but still it hungered. It had taken the city, too. And now it would devour its wielder. If this was its curse, let it take its course. Let it take me. Any fool could be born here, raised here—but only a true Garderin could die for Garder, clad in the proud plate of the Cardinal Guard. Only a true God could grant a beast like me such a death. That, I would call miracle.