They sit on the thin bench in the cold air of the barracks dungeon, staring at the dim stone wall.
One eye swollen half shut.
Sweat-slick, clammy hands pried out of red-soaked gloves, clenching and unclenching in the stale subterranean air around something that is no longer there to grasp.
They didn't plan this. How could they have planned this. They didn't know. They woke up this morning late to accompany a visiting dignitary, they stumbled out of the barracks worried about not having time to oil their sword properly, belting it on in a rush.
They didn't know it would be the High Captain. They didn't know the river ten miles east was about to be declared a border according to sovereign right. They didn't know that their Lord had known, they didn't know about the letters, the maps, the new imperial sermons, they never went to the temple anymore. They didn't know that he would smile, and laugh, and ask if he could still keep the land under the riverside village nine miles east "When the dogs are through with it". The village where they learned to swim when they were a child, where they learned their best friend's family's home language, from his ever-patient parents, until his family was evicted from their farm by the father of the laughing man in front of them. They could not have known. They did not know. They could have known.
They did not know two necks could cleave so gently from four shoulders, and they did not know, for sure, until that moment that what the people said about noble blood was a lie, and that it was as red and dark as the blood they took from others.
But they knew, sure as the sunrise, as a spotless shining blade slipped out of that soft scabbard like a sunbeam through river water, glistening with a spray of iridescent oil along its razor edge, that they had not cleaned that blade.
They knew, sure as noontime, that the men that swarmed them had families, parents, villages of their own, and they wept, and their sword wept with them, scabbard aching for a return to peace, to comfort, to safety that was not there and would not return for too long, replaced by the song of steel through bone and the divine cutting motion of unflinching kindness through flesh that, as all flesh, deserved better.
They knew, sure as sunset, that they would never be the same. That perhaps, they never had been, and it was only a matter of cutting away. They knew, when it was only them and their shining blade in a pile of wet, steaming bodies, stained fur and silks, and neatly cleft armor, that the next part was the most important.
They knelt. Not like a knight, but like a child, sitting back on folded legs, hip deep in men that should have known better, and letting the blood soak in
Unbuckled their sword belt, releasing that dark, soft scabbard, somehow unstained. Held it upright, between their shaking, barely spread thighs, squeezing the supple leather and taking solace in its firmness.
Feeling warm redness soak past greaves and plates, into the thick padded gambeson, pads and underclothes beneath, heart hammering in their ears, blood on fire and singing to run, fight, dance through every cruel man until none more break the line of the horizon and you can be safe it can be safe it can be over.
Their hand clenches around the scabbard. It does not budge. They breathe, once, twice, deep and shaking.
Their hand raises a wet and shining blade that they barely recognize except in the way that one recognizes the feeling of their own bones within them. The quillions are curved, now, with gentle twisting embellishments at the tips to stop oncoming blades. That must have been what caught that axe earlier, they think idly, as they turn the blade so that one half of the flat edge faces them. They stare into the mirrored finish at the eyes that behold them, and they cannot bear to hold their own gaze, so the sword holds half.
In the crimson miasma they have created, their scabbard seems almost to be steaming, their blurry eyes making it seem as if the dark slit at its mouth was widening in soft anticipation, still slick with strange oil, begging for a decision no less painful than hilting the sword in their own heart.
They weep, and line up the tip of their blade, every movement an agony. It touches, and the relief is so infinitesimal that it begs to be ignored. But begging did not stop them before, and they cannot let it stop them now.
The blade begins to lower, lower, lower, sliding true, painful softness on all sides, holding the slick blade tight, drinking in the redness coating it, cradling it in darkness and safety.
A scream begins in their throat and through the divinity of this feeling they force it out, a horrible, desperate choked roar that tears itself free as armored shoulders strain with the effort of allowing themselves to rest, each tendon and fiber straining against the one purpose they have ever known, and with a sound softer than a sparrow's wing through the air, the blade is sheathed home, and there is only silence.
They stand up, eyes staring elsewhere, buckle their belt back on, and walk straight to the dungeon before the rest of the screams start.
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