[https://imgur.com/C4Noe7F][https://imgur.com/C4Noe7F]
The air was chill as the last months of autumn went by while the first frost of winter covered the ground. The sky was a sooty red, signaling that night was soon to fall while the toll of the chapel’s bell’s rung their sad hymen; a life was soon to end. “Yalvir, the Theocracy herby condemns you to death for the worship of false and heretical gods,” an elderly Abbot with thin wispy hair and a loose, white robe said loudly from atop a wooden execution platform so all could hear. Abel remembered Yalvir as the kind, curly haired son of the Mr. Sam, the local butcher; the young man’s once handsome features were now heavily distorted due to his face taking on a look akin to that of a snarling dog’s, his hands tied as he stood humiliated in front of the headsman’s block.
Surrounding the platform was most of the village of Selen, each face familiar. Abel was a young boy only in his fourteenth year of life with dark blond hair and gray eyes; he stood among the crowed, unable to see anything due to his rather short stature. Together with him was his boyhood friend Ark, a rather tall and bulky man with brown hair; both of them trying their best to shove their way to the front of the crowd to get a better look. “I worship no false Gods,” Yalvir was shrieking, yellow foam and spittle flying from his mouth. “I have followed the principles of the Elyssian Faith, as any man should.”
The Abbot let out a long sigh, bowing his head in resignation, knowing full well how this would end. Still, he followed the customary proceeding. “It is by following such teachings that we have arrived here my child. Well do we all know that the Elyssian Faith teaches of false gods, elevating demons as equals of our beloved Gods. Thus do I ask you, are those your final words Yalvir? I shall give you a final chance to amend them.”
“Amend my ways,” Yalvir sneered. “It is you… all of you, who should repent. I swear in the names of Beloved Elyssus. Mine faith, the Elyssian Faith, is the only true faith. Mark me, for I am Her prophet, soon will the Beloved Lady again walk this earth. When She does …”
Just as Abel and Ark reached the front of the crowd, a piece of cloth was being stuffed into Yalvir’s mouth, silencing his fanatical ravings into little more than grunts and growls. “You have spoken your piece,” the Abbot said, his face clearly showing his agony of the decision he was now forced to carry out. “As dictated by the Church of Eternal Light and as is my duty, I sentence you to death.” Then facing the crowd, the Abbot called out. “Edric, do you agree with the charges and the sentence of the Church?”
“I do,” a gruff and burly man said, his voice rich and deep. Stepping up towards the platform, Abel could see he was a large man, towering well above the rest of the mob, and wore a loose, black satin robe, his thick, curly brown beard and hair obscuring most of his facial features. At his hip hung a rather large sword in a plain, leather scabbard. “Yalvir has spoken his heresy through his own mouth. The law and punishment is clear and well known to all. Freely do I offer my blade to our Mother Church.”
“She is pleased with the continued faith and integrity of your family. You may proceed,” the Abbot said as he moved away from the platform. Standing now where the elderly Abbot had been, Edric slowly drew his blade while looking down at the zealous man who, by now, had been forced down to his knees, his neck resting on the wood stump of the headsman’s block.
The sword Edric drew was an ominous weapon of pure black. A bit longer than a common solders sword, though almost twice as wide, it had a large cross guard and a handle lengthy enough for a man to hold with both hands. The weapon had a triple fuller running down the length of the blade and a curved tip. Uniquely, it bore a convex grind on the flats of the blade, giving it them a curved shape instead of the usual sharp angles of most swords. Lacking almost any embellishment, the only ornamentation was a single, pitch black gem nestled in the hilt.
Despite its massive size, Abel knew from personal experience that this particular sword weighed almost nothing when held, being made of a material more akin to wood or bone in texture than metal. Edric had told him the blade had been chiseled to shape from a single piece instead of forged, giving it a sandy texture with flawless seems between blade, guard and handle, absent of any rivets or welds.
Blade in hand, Edric muttered a prayer under his breath and then slowly rose the ominous black blade, the gem glimmering in the dying light of the sun. Watch closely Abel,” Edric called out to the boy, not once taking his eyes off the man he was about to kill, the sword just hanging ominously over Yarvlek’s head. “For one day you shall be the one to swing this blade…”
Then, with a quick downward motion, using the force of both arms, that menacing black sword came down with an almost satisfying “thunck” and Yarvlek’s head, still contorted into that awful snarl, fell to the earth, his body going limp at the same time. Abel refused to turn his eyes from the gruesome sight before him, though he heard Ark struggling to keep vomiting. There were likely others in the crowd in the same condition based on the small lurching sounds moving through the crowd.
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Blood began to spill from the neck of the now executed man, slowly spilling off the platform and saturating the dry and dusty earth below. Yet that black executioner’s sword, in all its horror, was as clean as if it had been made yesterday without a speck of blood upon it, refusing to dirty itself with any other color than its deep native black.
Taking a moment to step back onto the platform, the Abbot once more addressed the crowd. “I hereby pronounce this trial ended. The heretic Yarvlek is dead and, as is the right of the executioner, anything of value on his person belongs to Edric. In addition, due to services rendered, the church shall awards him with three bronze half-crowns.
There were none of the cheers, applauds, or festivities that might have marked the executions of the Capital. In this small village of Selen, nestled deep in the Eastern reaches of the Heythaxian Theocracy, the death of anyone was the death of a close friend. Yarvlek had been a good man, everyone knew that, but to worship any but the Eternal Light was all it took to end a life in the Theocracy.
Abel and Edric lived nearly three leagues north of Selen; Edric’s profession as an executioner didn’t always make him universally loved, not that he was very lovable to begin with. Having separated from Ark just after the execution, Edric and Abel had opted to excuse themselves from Yarvlek’s funeral. It was completely dark by the time the two had arrived to the small farm they called home. The house itself was but a single story and made mostly of stone, having been built well over five hundred years ago; the old executioner’s family had apparently lived there since before even the village of Selen had existed. An adjoining field lay just off to the side that grew an assortment of foods along with that familiar, rickety old barn and coop for the few chickens and pigs they could afford along with a single, bad tempered old donkey.
“Get a fire going Abel,” Edric said rather shortly to the boy as soon they entered into the ancient house, the chill air of autumn seeming to saturate the very foundation of the ancient house. The sandy haired boy wordlessly groped his way to the familiar fireplace and began to fiddle with his flint and steel, the small wad of tinder catching quickly. Edric’s habit of always presetting the fireplace with bone dry wood and ready tinder was good for cold nights such as these. As the fire roared to life, Abel felt the chill quickly drain from his limbs as the room filled with an almost immediate warmth.
Despite its age, the house was scrumptiously clean, almost to the point of fussiness, as if the centuries of inhabitants were focused with the single mission of eliminating any of those familiar and annoying wads of dust and dirt that always found their way into the cracks and crevices of old buildings. The walls of the room were made of ancient stone blocks that had been sanded over the years to fit snuggly together; slightly rusty iron hooks dug into various points in the rock, each holding a coat or tool, while the floor of scrubbed oak planks.
In the center of the main room was an old, flawlessly smooth wooden table and set of four chairs possibly as old as the building itself, formed in a style of centuries past. The kitchen was off to the side of the room opposite the fire place and was just as dated, though still in fine working order, with century year old pots and pans hanging from various hooks on the wall and finely sharpened and oiled knives of varying lengths and shapes gently lining the counters, each with a history of their own. A hallway near the far end of the main house led to the bedrooms in the back.
Edric unhooked the gloomy blade from his hip, negligently setting it on the polished table, and unceremoniously tossed his black robe onto the floor, the light cloth slowly fluttering to the ground. Under that robe, he had on a stout canvas smock and soft leather boots. Flopping into one of the ancient chairs without a care, he began to struggle to get off those near perfect-fitting boots.
“Would you like me to start dinner Edric,” Abel asked as he picked up the robe off the floor, hanging it on its customary hook near the door. “No, I don’t have the stomach for it tonight,” Edric said in his rich and deep rumbling voice, half giving up on his stubborn left boot. “Just get me that skin from the kitchen.”
“Just a little, otherwise you’ll have another headache in the morning,” Abel said as he crossed the room, grabbing the heavy wineskin. Unstopping it, he could smell the cheap spiced wine, a smell that nearly turned his stomach. “I don’t need a lecture right now,” the bad-tempered executioner said, snatching the skin from Abel when the boy approached the table. Taking a large mouthful, his usually irritated looking face instantly began to relaxing, his thick beard and eyebrows almost sagging in response. Abel hid a small grin, knowing full well the pain Edric would be in tomorrow morning. It was always like this after an execution. Despite his harsh and rough exterior, Edric was perhaps the kindest man Abel knew.
Leaving the man to his drink, Abel picked up the massive sword off the table with little effort, the blade weighting no more than a common knife, and walked to the fireplace with it. Slowly removing it from its oiled leather sheath, he lightly ran his hand down that almost perfect, sandy blade. Despite its supposed half-millennia of constant use, and even more ancient age, the blade was absent of any wear or damage that might mark lesser blades of similar age and use. To date, Abel had never once seen the blade need any cleaning or sharpening, the weapon seemingly rejecting the idea of allow itself to be damaged or dirtied by anything that might force it to be cared for by inferior hands.
Then, ever so gently, as one might a baby, Abel set the blade into its customary place in the wall mounts above the fireplace. Stepping back a bit, Abel looked at that familiar and somewhat picturesque sight he had seen every night since that day ten years ago when Edric had taken Abel in. Seeing that Edric would be deep in his drink for most of the rest of the night, Abel went to his room, taking one more look at that ominous and horrifying blade, taking comfort in known that it was always there, unmoving and unchanging… The Blade Upon the Wall