Roger Taylor - The call of the sword

Loman nodded reflectively. He could hear again the deafening sound of the last battle, when the Morlider had been swept back onto their remaining boats and had fled out to their floating islands. Men roaring and screaming. Animals bellowing. Steel hacking steel and flesh. Arrows hissing overhead. Flames crackling. The excitement and the horror of it was still vivid in his mind, and he could never reconcile the two. He took solace from the fact that, though tempted, he personally had done little evil, and had even prevented some by staying the hands of his battle-fevered comrades against excess over a defeated foe. Even so, he hoped that the lore of the Riddinvolk was true and that it would be many years before the Ocean currents brought the Morliders’ islands so near to the shores of Riddin again.

Leaning forward, he picked up a double headed axe from a rack, and spun it in his hand, flickering sunlight from the blade all around. Here was the paradox enshrined in metal for him as he closed his eyes and listened to its song. That it had killed was all too clear from its mournful tone, but it had been made by craftsmen whose understanding and skill exceeded his by far. Its balance was perfect, its edge unassailable and the inner harmony of the metal spoke not only of great skill, but of a love even greater than his own, though he found that hard to imagine.

Loman, probably the finest smith in Orthlund, felt like a gauche apprentice when he handled any of these weapons. He felt humility and awe, just as his brother did when he studied the castle’s many carvings.

He turned round sharply as he heard the door of the Armoury close gently.

Physically, Loman was in many ways like his elder brother. He had the same brown eyes and craggy square head, and he maintained the short cropped hair, though his was almost black and free from any grey. He was, however, not as tall. In fact he was a little shorter even than Tirilen, but he was stronger than his brother by far, with his massive shoulders and arms, and his great barrel of a chest.

Stepping into the Armoury, Hawklan looked at him holding the axe and standing in the sunlight against the rows of shining weapons, like a reaper in a cornfield. When he thought of the two brothers, the images in his mind were coloured by their respective callings. Isloman reminded him of a tower of rock-tall, open and clearly visible-while Loman reminded him of a huge anvil-squat and solid. A darker and more introverted personality, he was more apt to take hurt to himself without comment than was his brother.

‘I’m sorry, Loman,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb your contemplation.’

Loman grunted. ‘Only daydreaming,’ he replied, turning the axe one more time and then placing it gently into its place in the rack.

Hawklan nodded. He could not hear the song of the metal, but he knew Loman could, and he knew what this place meant to him for all its tormented implications.

To ease the smith away from his darker emotions, he adopted an ironic tone. ‘Well, have you found a suitable sword for me yet?’

Loman caught the intonation and eyed him nar-rowly, then sweeping his arms expansively around the tiers of weapons he replied with equal irony. ‘They’re all suitable, my lord.’

Hawklan chuckled but continued in the same vein.

‘Master smith,’ he said. ‘My needing a sword is your idea. You’re the metal-seer. The ex-soldier. Just find me something that’ll set your mind at ease and that won’t weigh me down! I have to carry the thing, don’t forget.’

Loman’s intended reply was halted by a metallic clatter ringing through the stillness of the great room. Both men started, and then Hawklan craned forward as if he had suddenly heard a distant but familiar sound.

Without speaking, the two men ran quickly along the wide, straight aisles in the direction of the sound. At the end of the Armoury, several minutes walk away, was a great mound reaching up to and touching the high ceiling. It consisted of weapons and armour, but of such different styles and designs that it was apparent they had come from many diverse and distant lands.

As with everything else in the castle, there was no clue as to the history of the mound, or why such precious items had been stored so carelessly. To Loman, though the styles might have differed, all possessed the same inner harmony as the castle’s own weapons-as he so classified those that were racked-albeit in varying degrees. From this he concluded that they belonged to allies rather than enemies, but he could not imagine why they had been left there, heaped so randomly.

As they stood gazing at the mound, looking for the cause of the sound, it occurred again.

‘Look,’ whispered Loman, pointing earnestly and turning Hawklan around to face the mound directly with a powerful grip on his arm. ‘Look!’

Gazing upwards in the direction indicated by Lo-man, Hawklan saw something sliding purposefully down the mound towards him. He watched transfixed as the object clattered to the ground at his feet. It was a sword. A black handled sword in a plain black scabbard. He looked at it for some moments and then slowly bent down and picked it up.

The atmosphere around the two men seemed to be charged, as if a storm were brewing in spite of the spring sunshine flooding all around them. Both knew that speech was inappropriate. Hawklan stood up and wrapped his right hand firmly around the hilt of the sword. As he did so, he heard a sound like a distant trumpet. A faint, infinitely distant clarion call from another age. For an instant he felt a surge of recogni-tion, also from times past, but it slipped away like a dream at dawn.

‘My sword,’ he heard himself say softly.

‘Hawklan?’ said Loman, almost fearfully. Hawklan breathed out-half gasp, half sigh-and shook his head to assuage Loman’s concern. He turned and offered him the sword.

‘What do you think of it?’ he asked.

Loman took the sword reverently, his eyes still wide in amazement at what he had seen and felt. Carefully he drew the sword from its scabbard. It too was black. For a moment he seemed to go rigid, as if every fibre in him had been assailed in some way. Hawklan watched him, concerned, but did not speak.

For several minutes Loman scrutinized the sword intently, tested its weight and balance, held it up into the sunlight where it shone brilliantly, and looked along it, turning it over and over. Very delicately he touched his calloused finger on its edge. Then he too breathed out; a long whistling breath which seemed to carry away some appalling tension.

‘Well?’ asked Hawklan.

Loman looked at him strangely.

‘This is craftsmanship like none I’ve ever imagined. I sit at the feet of those who made these.’ He waved his arm across the waiting rows of points and edges. ‘But they are not fit to sit at the feet of the one who made this.’

His voice was strained and hoarse, and his breathing was shallow and nervous. His hands trembled slightly.

‘When you said "my sword", did you mean it was or it will be’?’

Hawklan shrugged slightly and made a vague ges-ture with his hands, but did not reply. Loman did not press the question. Slowly regaining his composure he became businesslike.

‘The hilt is some kind of stone, and it has a device embedded in it though I don’t know what it means. We’ll have to ask Isloman about that. The workmanship… ’ His craggy face became almost rapturous. ‘The workmanship needs a poet not a smith to describe it. And look at this edge.’

He lifted a loose hair from Hawklan’s shoulder and dropped it on the upturned edge of the blade. It parted without faltering in its slow fall to the floor.

‘And the black metal?’ asked Hawklan. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before.’