Category: Short Stories

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Sword & Shield

The crowbar whistles by my temple. I jerk my head back and it misses me by an inch. The desperate relief doesn’t even register through the exhaustion fogging my mind. The strike I make in return, cutting up at an angle across the raider’s torso, doesn’t miss. The woman falls. As her body hits the ground, I’m suddenly furious at the waste of it. All the vibrant lives cut short today because of one provincial baron’s petty greed and spite. But he’s not the one killing farmers and blacksmiths’ sons right now, is he? I think bitterly as I spin and raise my guard again, muscles burning with the effort. So, who’s fault is it really?

Is this really justice? Are we even protecting anyone anymore?

I’m just so fucking tired.

The ground around is littered with bodies. Only a few assailants remain. I’ve lost my shield. I can’t see Kallias, but I can just make out his ragged breaths – half shouting – as he fights. We’re both flagging. He’s trying to bait them forward, but his words have lost their usual mocking bite. 

…

“I don’t want to be bond-partnered with some ugly, dirt covered bog urchin!”

I blinked. The other novices stifled nervous laughs at the boy’s outburst, watching as he glared disdainfully at Master Jacobs, chin raised with the kind of defiance only a twelve-year-old can manage.

“Nevertheless, Kallias, I’m assigning you with Alexi,” the man replied calmly. “And I expect that from this point forward you will work together, train together, and trust and rely on each other as you would no one else.”

He turned to the rest of the room and raised his voice.

“All of you here have been given a duty that from now on, you are expected to uphold with honour, care, and conscientiousness. That duty is not owed to me. It is not owed to the lord-prefect or to the king. It is a duty owed to the world and to your fellow knights. None more so than your bond-partners.” All the novices held their breath, rapt by Master Jacobs’ words, myself included, so that the derisive snort from Kallias was perfectly audible as he rolled his eyes. Master Jacobs turned his head to look at him.

“If you choose to neglect that duty,” he continued evenly, “that is within your right. I cannot control your hearts and minds and will not pretend otherwise. But you will live far longer and happier lives by embracing the responsibilities you’ve been given rather than running away from them.”

With that, he turned away. Kallias walked over to stand next to me, though not so close that anyone could mistake his apparent loathing, arms crossed sullenly. I tossed him a small sparring blade.

“You know, if anyone has a right to be pissy, it’s me,” I proffered, too low for anyone else to hear. “I didn’t ask to be bond-partnered with a lazy, lice-ridden wastrel either.”

He hit me with the practice sword.

…

I hold my longsword in a cross guard, using its reach to keep the trio in front of me from closing the distance, spinning to keep them from my unprotected back. Where Kallias would be if they hadn’t swarmed and separated us.

All three lunge at once, pressing their advantage. The tallest inexpertly wields a short sword, slashing at my neck while the second crouches low to catch me in the ribs with a dagger that’s seen better days. He’s young. Barely more than a boy. His eyes are a stormy gray.

…

“Is that really all you’ve got, Alexi?”

Kallias danced to the edge of the ring and slouched back against the ropes, grinning and flipping the dull practice blade in his hand like he had all the time in the world. His eyes were alight with mischief, gray brightened to silver. The dusk light suited him, and it wasn’t just the exertion of sparring that made my breath hitch in my chest. He was so beautiful. 

I stepped forward, sword held high at the ready and grinned back. “Come find out.”

…

I parry the blade and allow the momentum of my swing to draw me into a turn, hips and shoulders pivoting to drive my sword through the young man’s arm at the shoulder, severing it. I don’t have the wherewithal to identify the emotion that sings through me at seeing him fall to the ground screaming. The third, a stocky man, cuts down to slam an axe into my back and finds his blow skimming my armour with an awful metallic screech before my elbow cracks into his nose. The axe drops from his hand as he reels back.

But I’ve overextended. I’m too off balance. Despite the broken nose, half blind, he grabs my sword arm and pulls open my guard just enough, just in time, for his last remaining companion to take his opening.

…

“Come on!”  Kallias pulled me by the arm through the crowd, shouting in my ear to be heard over the din. “I’m tired of being packed in like a sardine!”

We escaped the crush of people and sat on the cliffs alone, watching the fireworks from afar. I leaned against his shoulder, both of us laughing and drunk off the energy of the summer solstice festival. Drunk off the stolen bottle already half empty in Kallias’s hands too. The multicoloured bursts of light outlined the planes of his face and played in the curls of his hair, and I marveled again at how beautiful he was in the low light. I think I said it aloud. Maybe that’s why something suddenly pulled taught between us and he turned to look at me.

But when he leaned in, I pulled away and his lips brushed my cheek instead.

“Kallias…”

He raised an eyebrow, questioning and confused. 

“This isn’t a good idea,” I said.

Had I not been looking away, perhaps I would have seen the hurt that flashed across his face. But when I looked up he just shrugged, easy and light, and smiled like nothing was wrong at all.

“No harm done,” he said wryly, as we turned back to the fireworks. “We’re partners until a violent death do us part. And I can’t trust anyone else to keep me in the extravagant lifestyle to which I’m accustomed.”

…

I see the blow coming but can’t raise my guard in time. I’m too slow. Too tired. And there’s no trick up my sleeve this time. I finally find Kallias in my periphery from the glint of his armour and turn my head.

Duty. Responsibility. From the moment I was dedicated, I took those things to heart in a way he never did, and was content. I molded myself into a shield, protecting the helpless and the hopeless of the world from those that would seek to harm them. And a shield doesn’t get to want anything. A shield puts themselves between those they serve and danger, without counting the cost to itself.

In that final moment, perhaps for the first time, I count the cost.

His eyes find mine. They widen in fear.

We don’t even need to speak to understand each other most days. Not anymore. More than a decade together and our shared language has become one of gestures and silent expressions. Necessary in our line of work, as often there’s no time for words.

I hope that he recognizes what I wish I could say aloud. What I should have said a long time ago.

It was always you. He would have been enough for me, and I’ll die here regretting that I never said it. Regretting that I was a coward. Regretting that we… no, that I… chose thankless, faithless duty over him. The world didn’t need all of me.

I love you. I wish we had more time.

The blade falls.

These two have my whole entire heart, and I simply cannot stop myself from imagining tragic ends for them. How much can I hurt myself in just 30-seconds of action?

Alexi has been my character in my favourite long-running ttrpg game for three years now, and I cannot express adequately how much I love my genderfluid dhampyr knight. While this isn’t a complete one to one representation from that particular campaign (it’s way more high fantasy than what’s here), but the emotions and the intensity are exactly correct. Alexi ain’t dead yet (in spite of their risk taking behaviour – it’s necessary I swear!), but if they do have to die, it better be as dramatic and heart-wrenching as this.

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Mountain of Madness

I went on a two day writer’s retreat with a couple close friends of mine this past weekend and cannot recommend the experience enough! We ended up staying at a small family-run retreat ground with some well furnished yurts, wood burning stoves, and private hot tubs which honestly created the perfect winter atmosphere to shake off some of the post-holiday blues. Plus, there’s something about writing and bouncing ideas off of friends that makes for such a fun, relaxing time.

I decided to revisit an old short story I whipped up for a creative writing class last fall, since I wanted to seriously tackle smoothing out the rough edges. I’m a big fan of horror stories (though I’m very picky about them too), and ended up chasing an idea that was very Lovecraftian. Lovecraft was the first horror writer I ever read when I was younger and tackling a lot of the “classics,” so I have a fondness for his work (hence the title, though At the Mountains of Madness was a slog to get through).

She still needs some tweaks, but I’m very happy with the current state of affairs. I hope you love the twist at the end as much as I loved writing it!

I must tell them, I think feverishly, huddling in a small cavern in the dark. 

Hiding from the lights. 

Hiding from what I know the lights herald. 

I wrap my arms around myself and shudder, my skin flushing hot and cold as I struggle to maintain what little composure I have left. They must believe me! I’m one of them. I’m just as worthy a scholar! They’re just… I’m not… 

My thoughts thrash, caught in a net of panic. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! 

I’ve spent so many seasons on the periphery, ignored and dismissed by the consortium. I tried so hard to find my way into the inner circles only for my path to be barred, not because I lacked intelligence or diligence or experience. No. The way remained closed because I lacked pedigree. Because I’m not from one of the founding bloodlines. I was never going to be allowed into the hallowed halls of learning unless I did something bold! Something none of them had ever even attempted before!

I can see them in my mind’s eye; self-satisfied, lazy scholars and philosophers gorging on oysters and roe while at the edges of the world those things press in…

Memories rise in my mind, unbidden, filling me with waves of terror that threaten to pull me deeper and… No! I hold back a cry. If I let myself fall apart now, then I won’t be able to make the journey back. There will be no one to warn the world of what is coming.

…

The journey from the consortium’s territories had been long and arduous. I hadn’t told anyone of my plans, unable to bear the looks of pity and derision I was sure I’d attract; few in our history had ever returned from the eastern mountain ranges. Those that had had passed down stories of great grass plains and barren wastelands. Mountains of craggy rock that climbed higher and higher until they actually pierced the veil of the world, their peaks disappearing into that shimmering unknown. No one had ever ventured to see what lay beyond. 

No one until me. 

I had slithered through the grassy plains and darted across the wastelands, ignoring the hunger that grew by the day as neither held much in the way of food. Until finally I reached the base of the mountains. 

Jagged rock sharp enough to tear flesh ascended in fits and starts, so I carefully picked my way up the slope, pulling myself over sudden rises and angled cliff faces for gods knows how long. Until, finally reaching the horizon, I gaped in awe at the infinite space beyond. 

It was flush with colours I could never have imagined, filling my vision with a shimmering splendor such as I’d never seen before. It was worth it. My hearts leapt with elation, and the pleasure of victory drowned the doubts that had whispered in the back of my mind for weeks, much as I had tried to silence them. It was all worth it, just to see this.

Without consciously deciding, I reached up towards the barrier between known and unknown, until I realized what I was about to do and hesitated. My outstretched arm curled with uncertainty. But the voices of the consortium rose in my mind as they often did in such moments. Utter nonsense! How is this any different than the fanciful tales we get from every self-proclaimed explorer who crosses our shores? This isn’t a scholarly account, it’s a bedtime story! Their imagined disdain hardened my resolve, so I reached out again into that wide, strange space.

I cannot truly describe the feeling of what lies beyond. 

As I reached out, a thin layer of water rolled back over my arm as if it couldn’t bear to exist in this other place. The thing that had cradled me all my life quickly dried up and was gone. I felt nothingness. There was only the lingering taste of salt that seemed to sink into my skin and linger, before even that was gone. I reached out with another arm, and another, and another, but still embraced only absence. 

There wasn’t even a current in this place! Only stillness. 

But as I reached, I gradually noticed that this was not quite right. There was no current, but there was something faintly like a current. It was nothing I could understand, but there was still a taste of… something. Acrid. Acidic. Alien. My limbs grew oddly heavy as adrenaline waned, and an irrational fear that they would soon begin to wither seeped into my hearts. I pulled myself back, mind racing with possibilities.

Consumed as I was by my own thoughts, I did not feel the vibrations in the current. I did not notice the taste of something else approaching me.

Not until it was far too late. 

Suddenly, a light brighter than any I had ever seen blinded me. Something that was not sharp but held the promise of sharpness gripped my body, and I felt the sickening press of what must have been living flesh stretched over a rigid lattice, spurs extending at violent angles to form a crude cage around my torso. I couldn’t escape.

Water cascaded away as if in fear as the thing dragged me out of the world. A foreign heaviness pressed on me from all sides. I tried to wrench myself free, arms grasping wildly for purchase. They wrapped around whatever held me, and my mind revolted at the wrongness of it. Its skin tasted bitter and toxic. It was covered in thousands of tiny filaments. I almost retched thinking that they were hyphae; I had seen what happened to those taken by fungi. I thrashed harder still at the thought as I was pulled further into the expanse. With my frantic movements, I was then able to roll an eye upward and see the leviathan that held me.

I wish that I hadn’t. It would have been better to have died on my journey and been forgotten.

Its form was so alien, so unnatural and unlike anything I could have imagined, that to look at it strained the mind to breaking. It was angular, with grotesque proportions. Its movements were jointed and abrupt, though with a speed and dexterity that belied its size. I knew at that moment that I could struggle for hours, withering to a husk in this nothingness, and it would never tire. I was going to die in this place.

I still fought, keening wordlessly in fright, pushed past the point of coherency. A seam opened within the creature’s flesh, surrounded by long, dense hyphae that quivered at the movement… a mouth. A mouth filled with blunt teeth. How does it hunt? How does it eat?? Those baffled thoughts vanished at the sound that the creature made.

My panic spiked at the reverberations, so deeply pitched that I couldn’t truly hear them. But what sent me careening over the edge into hysteria… were the echoing calls that responded in the distance. 

It was not alone. 

I wrenched my gaze from its maw to look past its bulk, and with blurred vision saw them. Other creatures like the one that held me, each with their own strange light. 

All waiting just beyond the shallows of the world. All now coming closer.

When I saw what lay beyond even them, any rational thought that I may have had left abandoned me. I must have lashed out at the creature. I must have hit it in some vital part. It cried out again; impossible to believe that that cry held anything but fury, but its grip loosened. I crashed violently into the waters of my own world. 

I didn’t think. I simply fled.

…

I shiver in my cave alone, trying to gather the shreds of myself into some semblance of a person. No, they can’t ignore me this time. I can’t stop myself from breaking out into hysterical laughter and racking sobs. 

Come nightfall, I emerge twitching out of my hiding place and gaze out into the darkness. 

It should feel soothing. What octopus ever feared the dark? It should feel safe. 

But I know that it is not, and I will never feel safe again.

I dart out into the waters, heedless of the dangers that lurk among the coral. They don’t matter now. All that matters is returning and telling everyone what I’ve seen, of the dangers that lurk beyond the waters. As I swim, I can see them still, burned into the backs of my eyes; harbingers of the horror that is sure to come. 

Thousands upon thousands of lights, glittering in the darkness.

What do you think?

That’s all for me this week! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoyed what you’ve read.

As always, be kind to one another.

Love, Charlotte.