Sword of Ares

by Alex Morgenstern

  “Never,” Kassius said.

  “It’s been captured in the East,” she said, her eyes glittering with curiosity, running her fingers over it. “I’m sure. This is from Parzhia. It came a long way. Like us. And look at this.” Behind the captured sword, the soldier had been carrying his own gladius. She reached for the belt and untied it.

  “My gods!” Kassius seemed bewildered. His eyes were wide open, and his face was red, his fingers still tangled between his hair.

  “What’s wrong?” Alana asked.

  “I’m just thinking. I just killed him… I...”

  “Yes. You did,” Alana muttered

  “Do you know what we’ve done! Now I’m officially a traitor. We’ve killed three people. If they find this one… Ala, for each of the dead, there'll be more days of torture for me.”

  “As your father said. Kill or be killed,” she muttered.

  “My gods… This is not right.” Kassius scratched his head once again. He looked around and gazed through the trees, as if looking for any movement in the village.

  “What are you saying, Kasha?” Alana rebuked him. “You saved Tor. Look! Your book is there, on the ground. Look at what poor Tor went through for that. Now pick it up and tell us it was worth it.”

  The book lay on a pile of leaves next to Tor. He picked it up, got up massaging his neck, and handed it to Kassius. Kassius dusted it off. “Thanks, kid,” he said, flipping through the pages. He rose both eyebrows, as if surprised by something, then put the book in his bag.

  Kassius sighed.

  “Now…” he clapped. “Let’s just get rid of the body, before anything happens,” he said. “Quick,” he commanded, grabbing the soldier by the feet and dragging him into the thick foliage. Tor helped Kassius and Alana. She had already tied the soldier’s belt around her waist.

  ***

  “So…?” Alana raised an eyebrow. “What if we tie a rock to it. Rocks are heavy.”

  “But it depends, you know?” Kassius dragged the body next to the creek and let go of it with a sigh. He stood straight, stretching his back.

  “Depends on what?” Alana raised an eyebrow, as if Kassius’ words were absurd.

  Kassius cleared his throat.

  “I read somewhere that according to the type of death they suffer, people are more or less likely to float...”

  “That’s nonsense.” She shook her head. “Tor! Get me that rock.”

  “I don’t think that’s enough,” Kassius said.

  “You think too much, Kasha. Don’t think, just do.”

  “Well, that’s easier said than done.”

  The rock was as big as a horses’ head, and denser than concrete. Alana tied it to his feet with the rope she had stolen, and the three of them pushed it into the creek. The body sank like an anvil, and the group hid the armour under a small rodent’s den. Then, Kassius finally sat down and opened the book on the first page. Alana and Tor stood beside him as he flipped through the fragile pages marked with small black letters she had never seen before.

  “What are those things?” Alana asked. “Those are not runes, nor Itruschian letters.”

  “This is the Hellenic alphabet,” Kassius said. “Adapted from the ancient Cananic.”

  “Can you even read it?”

  “A bit,” he answered, but looked confused as he skimmed through it.

  “It’s boring. It doesn’t even have pictures,” Alana scoffed.

  “No, there are some. Look at this.” Kassius got to a page that had the fading picture of a bird and a fiery city underneath.

  “Oh… That’s the firebird of legend, is it not?”

  “Yes,” Kassius said. “And the story is quite well explained, I think. The author copied it from a good source.”

  “Is there a…?”

  “Alana… Thank you for your interest, but I need to concentrate. So if you don’t mind, give me some time. I don’t think the instructions for finding the sword will be as clear.”

  “Fine,” Alana said, looking at Tor. “Hey, boy. Do you want to train for a bit?”

  “What?” Kassius raised his head and asked with a raised eyebrow. So much for needing to concentrate, Alana thought.

  Alana unsheathed the gladius from her belt.

  “You’ve been looking at this sword since you got here,” she said to the young boy, as she offered him the handle. “Here. It’s yours.”

  “Be careful,” Kassius complained. “Those are not toys.”

  Alana chuckled. “Don’t worry, we know how to do it.”

  Kassius kept reading, but he was curious, or worried of the development of the sparring session, because he kept looking.

  “I think you ought to be practicing with sticks,” he said.

  Alana stood on guard with the knife forward and brandished her dagger toward the front, faked a parry with a blocking motion, and lunged forward.

  “Not bad,” Kassius said, unable to concentrate, and Tor had dropped his new gladius to clap his hands.

  “Thank you.” Alana said stroking her hair. “Uncle Jovus used to teach me. Once Father found out he went crazy and yelled at my uncle,” she giggled, but after that, she let out a sad smile. “He didn’t let me touch a sword ever again after that.”

  “Well that wasn’t bad for a few lessons,” Kassius said, bobbing his head and squeezing his lips.

  Tor quietly imitated her movement. Alana rushed toward him. “Good,” she said. “But… I think you should bend your knees a bit more… Like that! Perfect!”

  Alana pretended to attack him, and Tor clumsily blocked the blow.

  “Good job,” she said.

  Alana was proud of that moment. Holding a real weapon in her hand and knowing it was hers made her feel powerful, but she knew that it was not enough. Even the basic training she had was nothing against a soldier. She needed to improve and become the best she could be.

  “Alana,” Kassius yelled behind her. His tone had changed, and he had a wide smile on his face. “This book is astonishing. It has all the steps to become an initiate and a priest of Aranus’ order. These… these rites have been passed from generation to generation.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, helping Tor with his posture.

  “Yes…” Kassius looked back at the manuscript, flipping through more pages. “Astonishing! I really need to start practicing these rites!”

  “And what does it do?”

  “It will awaken the ability to see visions.”

  “Oh, that’s amazing.”

  “Ala, this is astonishing… Just… Astonishing. I’m so honored. Grandfather has chosen me. This is a sacred text.”

  “Well, considering there’s no one else left.”

  “By Saturn’s beard! It even has the genealogy of my ancestors from my mother’s side.”

  “Well now that’s interesting,” she said. When Kassius mentioned ancestry, Alana wished her father was with them. He would be a great guide and teacher. If he had the time and the will, he could have turned her into a warrior like the ones of the legends. She imagined the wide steppe, wearing his old plated armour like the scales of a dragon, a round shield, and a sword of iron. “What does it say about them?” she asked.

  “It goes all the way back to the East, about six hundred years ago. That’s when we rode up into the northern steppes.”

  “Amazing,” Alana said, opening her eyes wide. She wondered what kind of weapons they used. Father used to say ancient people built their weapons from bronze by mixing copper and tin.

  “Indeed,” Kassius said.

  Alana turned toward Tor.

  “Alright, boy. You know what?” She sheathed the dagger and removed the belt. “He’s right. We’re restraining our movement too much.” She strode toward the small den and extracted both the dead soldier’s breastplate and his helmet.

  “Here.” She put the armour over her shoulders and the helmet on. It moved from side to side in her head; her
skull was not thick enough to fill it. “One day we’ll take my father’s armour from the workshop. Now, I will practice defense and you will practice your striking. Sounds good?”

  Tor nodded happily. Alana looked around for suitable branches. It was a game, like those she used to play as a child, but its use would be proven useful for grown up things. Tor stood in position and attacked with a clumsy technique.

  “By Saturn’s...” Kassius kept interrupting their practice. “It’s describing the sword! Alana! All the information is here. Wait...” He started reading out loud, slowly, and in that strange language she did not understand.

  “What are you saying?” she asked, shaking her head and fearing he would accidentally summon a soul-eating demon.

  “I’m describing the sword… It says… It was black in colour, its handle, it’s crosshead was black like the night, and extended for… Well, this doesn’t make sense. It says it extended for ten cubits. This doesn’t make sense. It’s like five yards.”

  “Oh, well. I don’t think we can be carrying that around.”

  “And it says it flew through the sky. I’m not sure what these people were inhaling in their vapour baths. Well, maybe it’s an error in translation like grandpa said.”

  “If there’s such an error in your book, how can we be sure we can trust it?”

  “Well you just talked about believing and doing, didn’t you?”

  “I just don’t really trust your book. Especially now.”

  “Well, let’s assume he means inches. That would make it regular-sized, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would. So, what else does it say?” Alana asked, lowering her branch-wielding hand for an instant.

  “It says… It says it had two jewels over its black crucible, a jewel taken from the crown of each god. Each of them represented their sun. One for the Green Light of Venus, another one for Ares himself; a piece of his Red Sun. It says that... when he approached Venus to get the jewel… That her hair was unruly, she had been chained by the giants, and when she escaped, she let her hair loose and it fell over the ground and created mountains and rivers. The Allfather had to calm her down. And then she cried, and the tear that dropped from her cheek turned into a green jewel. It fell from the heavens with a mighty thunderbolt and tore mountains and lakes.”

  “Wait, wasn’t it taken from her crown? That’s what you just said.”

  “Eh… Yes, I did.”

  “So?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “It’s mixing everything up,” Alana complained.

  “Yes, but… Well, maybe we don’t understand it completely.”

  “Do you even understand, Kasha? Are you sure you can read that language?”

  “Of course I can,” he said. “Alright. Just give me some time, I’ll keep reading this, and...”

  “Fine,” Alana said, turning her back on Kassius and facing Tor again. “On guard!” she said to the boy, and he immediately adopted the fighting stance. “Come on, kid, show me what you’ve got.”

  Tor lunged forward and attempted a lateral cut. Alana blocked it quickly, her long hair covered her eyes for an instant.

  “Try to stab me,” she said, thinking of how she didn’t know how to block that kind of attack. Tor attempted an attack, and Alana found that a swift circular motion could be helpful. “Again,” she insisted, and blocked Tor’s attack once more.

  “Now try to do a combo,” she said.

  Tor did the exact two attacks he had just learned, a lateral cut and a frontal thrust. Alana blocked easily.

  “Try something different,” she said. “Improvise, adapt, overcome your challenges.”

  Tor nodded and lunged forward again, and this time, he aimed for Alana’s neck. Alana barely blocked. Tor crouched and hit her under the thigh.

  She moaned like a puppy and collapsed to the ground.

  “Auch,” Alana clenched her teeth and massaged her own leg. “You hit me in the knee!”

  Tor dropped his wooden weapon, and he worriedly rushed toward her.

  “I’m fine!” Alana said, squeezing her eyes and rolling to her side.

  “Astonishing! Simply astonishing!” said Kassius, apparently oblivious to Alana’s pain. “So, the magic rocks that they put in the sword could produce an enormous amount of energy. The green tears of Venus could deliver a lightning bolt so powerful it could reduce enemies to dust. And that’s not all. Ares himself removed his heart and put it on the sword. Consequently, he died to make the sword. But he came back to life and used it to inter the giants of the earth. The power of the Red Stone could call on the stars and bring them down from their places in heaven and create great havoc on this realm. Thus, it says, he created lakes and gorges when he poured his fury on the giants.”

  “Amazing, so what happened to the sword?” Alana said, slowly raising to her feet with Tor’s help. The pain in her knee was still numbing, and she recoiled in agony as she stretched her leg to walk. Tor walked by her side to support her and helped her sit on the overgrown roots of a willow.

  “He needed to use the sword’s full power and a sacrificial spell to defeat and bind the giants for two thousand years,” Kassius said solemnly.

  “So? Did you get to the part where it says where the sword is?” Alana said, squeezing her brow and rubbing her knee.

  Kassius kept reading until his expression changed from awe to horror.

  “What? It cannot be,” he said, as his eyes opened wide. “This means...”

  “What is it, Kassius? Boy, you look disappointed. What is it?”

  Chapter XXI - The Fire

  The answer Kassius found in the text was the opposite he had expected, it seemed. Alana had begged him to tell her, and he had done so only after days. He read that the sword had been crushed into a thousand pieces, sacrificed to bind the giants of the earth. After the last revelation, between the moments they had to hide from patrolling soldiers, Kassius had lost all interest in the text, and had stared endlessly at the frozen creek. Alana told Kassius to keep fighting, but he kept asking for an answer. What could they do? She did not have one, and just pushed him to hunt and help gather food.

  Tor had proven more useful managing to fish and helped create a small smoking hut with dead branches and a broken stove. Days had gone by and the temperatures were now unbearable even during the day. Kassius’ appetite had faded, and he could have let himself starve if it were not for Alana pressuring him to hunt.

  Alana and Tor fought with their wooden clubs every now and then. Tor was very good at carving objects in wood and had given them the basic shape of a sword.

  Alana usually kept negative thoughts at bay, but the question inevitably came… What would they do next? What should they do once the winter became harsh? There was no cover for them, and the first snowfall of the previous year had been around the same time. Alana had heard of caves deep in the woods, but it would be too risky considering the Brown Ones that roamed the forest.

  So one cold morning, after a horrid freezing rain where hail dropped down so hard it seemed it could pierce through their bones, Alana faced Kassius. He was staring dryly at the creek, long overcoat over his shoulder, his skin swarthy and dark shadows under his eyelids. He was breathing heavily, his nose seemed to be stuffed.

  “Kasha, it’s not over,” she said with her arms on her hips. The soldier’s belt never left her waist, and the Parzhian dagger stood ever by her side.

  He chuckled miserably.

  “How can you even say that?” he said through his clenched teeth.

  “I mean,” she cleared her throat and dropped next to him. She moved even closer, as her skin was cold, and she needed warmth. She knew he also did. “I’ve been trying to tell you. We can fight back in other ways. We don’t even need the sword.”

  “Alana, the sword meant the gods were with us,” he emphasized the last word, frowning and clenching his gloved fists. “We needed it. No force can make our peoples, even t
he tribes that are far away, assemble and fight for their future if they don’t see the gods in it.”

  “Now you, Kassius. How can you say that? There is always a way, even when it’s not the one you expect. First of all, why would we need the sword? If it’s not there, it’s not there. I don’t want to think Aranus was wrong. But if he was, so what? We are strong. We have been preserved through much hardship. We got the sacred texts. I know we can do anything. And if we fail, what do we care? Let others be inspired by our struggle. Let us just hope someone stronger and smarter comes and brings justice to our people.”

  Kassius bit his chapped lip.

  “What way can there be?” he turned toward her. His big green eyes were tired and sorrowful. “Why did Grandfather say the sword had to be recovered if the sword was destroyed? Alana… Nothing can survive after being crushed into a hundred pieces.”

  “Kasha, take the stories with a grain of salt. Do you think they’re all literally true? Maybe they’re like… You know, like a code or something.”

  “But...” Kassius supported his chin over his arms and knees, he sighed deeply.

  “Listen,” Alana touched his shoulders and looked him in the eye. His pupils dilated, making him look younger, like a child. “Father used to say that we are the ones who make the legends real.”

  Kassius raised an eyebrow.

  “So we make them real,” Kassius stared at the creek with his eyes wide open. He squeezed his mouth.

  “Yes,” she boldly said.

  “Ala...”

  She smiled at him.

  “You’re right. But… What if?”

  “What is it, Kasha?”

  “What if we make the sword ourselves?”

  Alana’s eyes opened wide; she stood up and extended her hands to him.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  The sunset arrived earlier that day, and they moved their camp northward, still following the small creek. Alana felt burning passion in her heart, far stronger than the hunger and the cold. And she knew Kassius felt it too.

  Kassius gathered the logs and started the biggest fire until that date, amid a cozy clearing. Tor had fallen prey to the fatigue of little food and drink, and he had fallen asleep while leaning against a tree, covered in blankets and fur.