The Blood Blade

by Whiskey Flowers

  “I was kicked in the face by a cow” Ezra replied as he kept his chin tilted upwards so the razor wouldn’t dig into his skin.

  “That looks more like a blade” the Unarmored said as she lightly traced the scar with her other razor tipped hand. “But I can tell you are telling the truth, being close to you is intoxicating. You are frightened and aroused by me like most men, but I am getting a little defiance from you as well. You will be a good boy and make my boots won't you? I need the leather dyed red”.

  “Y-Yes ma’am” Ezra replied as the woman let him go.

  “Do a good job” the Unarmored replied. “Maybe you could get some type of payment from me”.

  Ezra watched as the woman looked at Jerold then headed out the door. Jerold sighed loudly and locked his door then drew his window curtains so the place looked closed. Jerold looked at Ezra oddly for a few seconds like he had something to say but didn’t know how to phrase it.

  “You are a damn fool” Jerold replied. “Or I am a damn fool. I am just lucky she is a young one”.

  “What are you talking about?” Ezra said as he felt under his chin and could feel a little blood.

  “Those Unarmored can read emotions plainly” Jerold replied. “I am glad you didn’t lie to that woman or you would be dead”.

  “You think the Fale are above killing an old man?” Ezra asked.

  “They would try” Jerold replied. “I should have just did the right thing when I first saw you, instead I tried to fight my destiny”.

  “What do you mean fight your destiny?” Ezra said confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ezra what do you know about the Unarmored” Jerold asked.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Ezra asked.

  “Ezra you have talent to be one of the Unarmored” Jerold replied. “Seeing you walk into my door as untrained as you are brought back memories and feelings I do not want to deal with. If I would have sent you on your way, the Sullied could have made you one of theirs”.

  “I am not an Unarmored” Ezra replied quickly.

  “I didn’t say you were an Unarmored” Jerold said shaking his head. “I said you have the talent to become one, I can sense it in you”.

  “You are not making any sense old man” Ezra barked.

  “Have you ever been able to read emotions?” Jerold asked. “I am not talking about seeing someone smile and assuming they are happy. I am talking about something deeper, you just know how someone is feeling no matter if they try to cover it up or not. What did you feel from that woman who just left?”

  “I don’t have to be an Unarmored to tell she was dangerous” Ezra replied. “She was confident and loved the power she had. I also think she was horny”.

  “Then you would be partially correct” Jerold replied. “She was curious about you but did not know why. Unarmored have a base set of powers, but some just have more of a particular power or just a mutation of it. Power attracts power, I could feel your power even before you walked in the door”.

  “What are you saying old man?” Ezra asked. “Are you one of those Unarmored?”

  “I used to be” Jerold replied. “I left it all behind long before the time of the Devourer. I got tired of all the politics, I was young and headstrong. I wanted to stamp out evil wherever it was, in the kingdom I am from many bad things happened. Since it was done by the people in charge the Enlightened ignored it. I got tired of seeing it and killed three Dukes and the crown prince before one of the Enlightened figured out was going on. I ran from the kingdom and have hid out here for the past 104 years”.

  “Who the hell are the Enlightened?” Ezra asked. “And there is no way you are one of these Unarmored people or over a 100 years old”.

  “The Enlightened are the people who you know as the Unarmored” Jerold began. “Long before my time the Unarmored were split into four factions. The Enlightened were who you could call the good guys, but in reality they just helped enforce the rules of the Kingdom they were in, even if the rules were evil. They looked like anyone else except they wore light colored robes. The next faction was the Sullied, they wore primarily red and were only out for power. They aligned themselves as thugs and mercenaries and were always on the side that had the most power. For this lesson you can think of them as the bad guys, most of the times they were allied with kingdoms that had slavery and human suffering but would not hesitate to join a kind hearted ruler if he was the strongest in the land. Next were the Dex, they wore dark green robes and were concerned with ruling. They wanted their own kingdom and when they got it they started taking slaves and doing horrible things, they believed their destiny was to rule over all since they were the strongest. They often worked with both the Sullied and the Enlightened, finally there was the Curious. The Curious wore striped robes and were thinkers, they wanted to find out more about our powers and why some people didn’t have them. They often had children just to pass along their powers and sought to eventually either make a perfect Unarmored, or find a way to activate powers or give powers to people who have none. The Devourer was said to be a Curious but that could be just lies for all I know. The Dex did not mind working with any of the other groups but once they figured out what the Curious were up to in trying to turn people with no talent into Unarmored they got angry. The Dex waged war against the Curious and wiped them out, this is the reason I don’t believe some secret Curious survived for three hundred or so years to have the Devourer. Anyway the Enlightened waged war against the Dex, they were joined by several kingdoms including the one I came from that used to be called Umber. The Dex were wiped from existence but the Enlightened paid a heavy cost. The Sullied sensed blood and waged war with the Enlightened to have just one faction of Unarmored. In the end the Enlightened won out, and they were the only people with power. They changed their name after that and began calling themselves the Unarmored. That is the name that stuck, well until the Devourer came along, I suspect it will change in a few years. Having power can prolong your life, it is the reason I look 80 or so years but I am well over 150”.

  “150 years!” Ezra said as he was so shocked he backed into the wall. “Impossible!”

  “It is possible” Jerold replied.

  “150 years” Ezra repeated to himself. “I am having a hard time believing you about being Sullied”.

  “I am not either” Jerold replied. “And the Sullied are the people in red, I was just an Unarmored. There wasn’t a such thing anymore as Sullied and Enlightened until the Devourer came back from fighting in the goblin wars. I never met the man or woman and I don’t know much about them, what I do know is that goblins were attacking people who moved into the wildlands, the Devourer and a group of young Unarmored were tired about the great council doing nothing. When the Devourer came back she was changed, anyone who sat by and watched people die angered her and she wanted to separate herself from the great council and started wearing red. The council frowned upon this and confronted the Devourer, this was a big mistake. The Devourer, while a young person compared to the council, was a great fighter, as was her best friend. A man who is now known as the leader of the Unarmored, the Warlord Telrin Fallow. The Devourer was killed many in the council, her sword became bathed in the blood but I will talk about that later. Ezra do you know how the Unarmored are powered, what makes them different than anyone else?”

  “I was told they could sense movements or something like that” Ezra replied.

  “It is a little more complicated than that” Jerold replied. “There are what we call base powers, all Unarmored can sense emotions, some over great distances. If an Unarmored was on the run he or she could potentially spread out their awareness and eventually pick up on the direction any pursuers may come from. Sensing emotions may not sound like much but it is. You can tell when someone is lying, when they are angry or when they are going to fight you. The range of the power to read emotions depends on the power of the Unarmored. Any Unarmored with above average power can tell an Unarmored from a
normal person when they went to read emotions. Some Unarmored though have a mutation of that power, instead of reading emotions some can read thoughts. I even heard there was once an Unarmored who could put thoughts into people’s head like telling them to jump into the river or run into a building. The other power is what we call the sense, it is what enables the Unarmored to fight so well. It is like an invisible hand, well more like a tendril. You can use this tendril and latch on to someone, once you do you are able to tell their movements. If someone was going to strike you, you would know from which hand, how fast they could move and where the blow would land. This includes arrows being shot if the Unarmored was strong enough, they could latch on with their tendril before the bow was drawn. The length and the power of the tendril is relative to the Unarmored but there have been some mutations I know about. There was a Curious a long time ago that could see this tendril, she said some shone bright like the sun and were extremely long while some were as dim as a candle and very short. This explained why not everyone could block an arrow even if they saw the archer. Some people had more than one tendril and could fight two people, most Unarmored just used their own skill and rapidly changed their tendrils between opponents. Metal worn for some reason blocks that tendril and makes the Unarmored just another warrior. It is believed Telrin Fallow has a tendril powerful enough to pass through the metal barrier and latch on to opponents. I have never met him but I hear he is a big man, even if he wasn’t an Unarmored he is someone the Knights of Justice would have been salivating over. He wears heavy armor and has long since given his blood blade up and carries around a great wooden stick with a solid iron ball on top with one spike. No one who has seen it could call it a mace, the weapon was too long and was used in bashing. A man Fallow’s size could tear through armor with that weapon, even a heavy dent would break bones in armor”.

  “Is the blood blade the red sword?” Ezra asked.

  “It is a red sword and is a secret kept only by a few Unarmored” Ezra began. “If we were split into factions you could call them the spiritual successor to the Enlightened. Only a few can even make the blade, you have to be of sufficient power. That blade is stronger than normal steel and incredibly light and sharp. It would eat apart a cheap blade or armor quickly, only high quality steel could stand up to such a weapon”.

  “Then why would that boss man you were talking about give that up?” Ezra asked.

  “Because the sword was seen as a weapon of the Devourer and he wanted his own weapon, something he could be remembered for” Jerold replied. “He has allied himself with the Fale Empire and probably are enjoying the perks of that but I know the real reason he wanted the war. He wants to finish what the Devourer started and wipe out all of the Unarmored that are not aligned with the Sullied”.

  “I keep hearing all of these things about this Devourer person” Ezra began. “I didn’t even know it was a she until you told me. What was so bad about her? From what you told me she protected a bunch of people then defended herself”.

  “I am not sure the Devourer is a her, it is only gossip” Jerold began. “But she earned the name Devourer through her actions, once she killed an Unarmored she couldn’t stop and began killing many Unarmored. The Devourer did not care if they attacked her or not or had anything to do with not fighting the goblins. Soon the Devourer gained a big following and the other Unarmored were almost wiped out. The Devourer received her name after she began conquering small kingdoms with her army and soon moved on to others. She was not like the original Sullied, she was more like the Dex. The new Great Council held a meeting and decided to go after the Devourer, they succeeded in ambushing and killing the Devourer. The attack happened in the Devourer’s palace, it is believed Fallow had men to set the entire place on fire during the attack. He killed the ambush squad along with his friend but he was now the new ruler. Azard was the only place Fallow or any of the Unarmored did not have a foothold, the Unarmored who lived here kept a low profile. Not quite as low as mine but low enough. Now Fallow has thrown his hat in with the Fale, he will begin training new Sullied and killing off any of the other Unarmored he can find. Only the people who swear allegiance to him will be spared, being able to read emotions means no one can lie to him. If you are thinking about sleeping with that woman who came in here, don’t. That intimate of physical contact will let her know what you are and you will get training to become a Sullied. I will warn you whenever she comes again, but for now I think I should train you”.

  “How can you train me?” Ezra asked. “I am not saying I believe you but even if it were true, how could you train me? You can barely move”.

  “I can move when I need to” Jerold replied. “Sorry I have been so hard on you, I know the thoughts I have been directing at you have been weighing on you. All Unarmored see it as their duty to train the next generation. You are a bit late to be trained but you are far from the oldest to ever have been trained. The only bad part about it is that it will take years until you are anywhere near good enough to rely on your powers in an actual battle. Well let’s get to work on those boots, every day for about three hours we will try to train and see how good we are”.

  CHAPTER 5

  To become a Knight of Justice, the first part is to be a man. Women are to be protected not to be fighters, women are never to become Knights. Men and women should look up to Knights as symbols of Justice, only the biggest men are considered. Any man not meeting the required height must travel to one of the Temples of Justice and in the presence of the Knight Commander lift a fat full grown male sheep off the ground and swat low with it, then return to standing.

  -Knights of Justice Handbook

  “How are you doing this?” Jerold replied as he put down his staff. “Maybe I am just too old for this shit”.

  “That’s three times in a row old man” Ezra replied confidently. “You need to give it up”.

  “You are reading my every move but I find it hard to read yours” Jerold replied. “Not hard to read, impossible. You have found a way to mask everything, I can't tell your moves or your emotions. If you were to ever fight another Unarmored, that would be something I would like to see. Them fighting you would be like difficult, but remember what I taught you”.

  “You make me repeat it every day” Ezra grumped. “Being Unarmored does not mean I can't lose to a regular person. If they are faster or have better reach, knowing where they are going to strike means nothing if I can't get out of the way. But I am not worried about fighting them, the Sullied are the biggest threat. I am weak in the emotion part of my power but strong in senses, I want to show you something I have been working on. It is useless against a normal human, but I think if I ever ran into another Unarmored who wanted a fight I could end it quickly”.

  “You already can end it quickly” Jerold replied. “Many Unarmored depend on knowing their enemy’s strikes, you take that away”.

  “I was thinking about giving them false strikes” Ezra began. “I think I can manipulate my power to show I am going to strike somewhere I am not. It can throw someone off balance and force them into a mistake, tell me does this work?”

  “What the fuck boy” Jerold jumped then looked surprise. “I thought you were going to bash me in the head”.

  “It was almost like when I mask my movements” Ezra replied. “I just think about attacking and try to push my power that way. I think in a fight it could leave someone open to a quick attack. I don’t think it would be too helpful in fighting someone that is not an Unarmored”.

  “Do you feel that?” Jerold said as he straightened his posture.

  “Two Unarmored” Ezra replied. “One is stronger than the other, I think the woman is one, the other must be the man I have seen walking around. The one with the Blood Sword, what do you think they want?”

  “I don’t even know if they are coming here” Jerold replied. “I am still too far away I think for them to sense me”.

  “Then you should leave, I will run the shop” Ezra replied. “I wo
n't do anything stupid and will give them what they want”.

  “I sense others walking with them” Jerold said as he made his way out the back door. “Maybe soldiers but they are not Unarmored. You should close up and leave as well”.

  “Nonsense” Ezra replied. “Just go, I’ll send Alex to get you if anything happens”.

  “My son’s address is in the payment book, I will be there” Jerold said as he got on his horse.

  Ezra felt Jerold leave and could feel him galloping away, the other Unarmored were just about to turn down the street the shop was on. The problem Ezra had is that he could mask his power and emotions but he could not make himself appear normal. The power was like a muscle, the more you used it the stronger you became. Ezra had continuously used his and although he was the first person Jerold ever trained, Jerold was amazed at his progression and said Ezra had the potential to be the strongest Unarmored in Laton. Ezra now shone to any Unarmored that came upon him, many would not be able to see his power level or his brightness but they could tell he also had the power. Jerold’s strength lay in emotions, he could sense Unarmored from distances as far as three days walk, normal people as well. Jerold could also tell potential power level, Jerold had told Ezra that already he was shining brighter than any Unarmored he had ever come across, but not to mistake potential power for experience. Ezra was still untrained in fighting although he fought with Jerold constantly, Jerold was still an old man and did not have the reflexes Ezra did. Ezra waited until the two Unarmored were at his door, he busied himself by hammering a sole on to a boot when the Unarmored walked into the shop. The woman he had seen only once, when she ordered some boots about two months back. The other Unarmored was the man he had seen at the outpost he fled, he walked in and looked around the shop before settling his eyes on Ezra.

  “You just had a customer in here, where did they go?” the man spoke as he closed distance with Ezra.