Distributing Swords is no Basis for a System of Government
Story: [Distributing Swords is no Basis for a System of Government] (original work)
Prompt: #FFF [355] [A Curious Connection] @flashfictionfridayofficial
Word count: 997
Distributing Swords is no Basis for a System of Government
They make it to the centre of the battlefield. Gerald, his cloak torn and dirty from the fight, hands shaking where he grips his heavy blade - and damn his pride for insisting on using a sword of his own forging and not the one the Elven King had offered him, that, at least would be perfectly balanced. Anyeta, never looking less like a Princess than she does now with her golden hair roughly hacked off and bloodied up to her elbows from war. Xanthe is slumped against e-Gaari's heaving flanks, and even the unicorn's great head is down from the ferocity of the fight.
Above them towers the Dark One. The Black Lord. The Usurper. Mammon. He stands in all his dark and fearsome glory and the children quail because they are not so foolish to do otherwise.
But they stand their ground.
Anyeta comes forward, ready to speak for them as she always does. Gerald holds his sword out as though he has a hope of defending them. Xanthe mutters healing spells under her breath. She doubts she has the strength left to make them stick, but if she can keep them on their feet…
"You have no rights to this realm," Anyeta says, and though her voice quavers, it is loud enough to be heard.
Beyond them the battle continues to rage, swathes of men and elves and nyiads and dryads falling before the dragons and ogres and trolls at Mammon's command.
He laughs, a sound to crack mountains, bring down skies, topple dynasties. "I every right, girl-child. I have taken your kingdom at the point of the sword, as your anscestors did before me."
"We have the protection of the High Ones," her voice is piercing like a child voicing an unfairness in play. "You must show you can bear our Great Sword."
"The one only the worthy may hold," Gerald adds roughly, his country accent a contrast to the Princess' clear vowels.
"I must, must I?" Mammon mocks.
"The High Ones will not suffer your rule long without their sanction." Xanthe this time, and e-Gaari stamps a hoof and snorts agreement.
A pause and then: "Very well."
From his lips to the High One's ears. There is no cease fire, no reconvening within the citadel, instead a bolt of purple lightning strikes the ground before them and there, laid across its plinth of green marble is the Sword.
Gerald gasps, he has heard of the blade, what child of Analuthia has not, but he never thought a mere blacksmith's apprentice would lay eyes on such a thing. Xanthe casts her gaze skyward, adding to her murmurings a prayer of thanks.
It is Anyeta who steps forward, places the haouk of rock, examining the sword from all angles. A silver blade, the oxblood leather wrapping the hilt, the gold runes she had memorised before five summers had died, and the eerie, sound of it, like the echo of a plucked harp that she feels in her bones and her hair.
"It is genuine," she is forced to admit, and turns her gaze back to Mammon, glaring up and into his red eyes. "Take it, if you can."
"Oh no, girl-child. I insist. You and your…heroes must have first try. I would not want my rule to be called anything but legitimate."
Anyeta has tried before. All children of the crown have. But she had not - then - been tested in battle. She reaches out fearlessly and takes hold of the blade.
There is a sound like meat in hot oil and she shrieks, high and hurt, and even at this distance, Gerald can see that her hand is raw and red and blistered.
Mammon laughs. "So, the Princess of Analuthia is not worthy. What of you, apprentice? Dare you try?"
Gerald swallows, but, tears streaming down her face and ruined hand clamped to her breast as though that will protect it, Anyeta reaches out for his sword. He hands it to her and steps across the black sands.
The High Ones' sword casts a shadow that chills him to step into even more than Mammon's terrifying eyes. He reaches out as Anyeta had done, but doesn't even get as far as the hilt. There is another of those terrible sizzling sounds and it feels like being kicked by e-Gaari and he falls, hard, tumbling backwards towards the others, all the breath knocked from his body.
"Unicorn rider?" mocks Mammon.
Xanthe looks at him and Gerald nods. They are heroes, chosen by the High Ones, gifted with abilities, charged with protection of the realm: if not a runaway Princess and not a blacksmith's apprentice of no mentionable parentage, the destined ruler must be her, the girl to whom unicorns come at her call.
Xanthe steps over him and does not look at the sword. She does not take her eyes from Mammon.
This time the sizzle is accompanied by the wet thump of her severed hand hitting the sands, then the louder thump of Xanthe wailing over the ruined stump as she hits her knees.
Mammon's laughter would crack countries, running fault-lines through stone and sand and mud until the seas boiled and poured into the shattered remains.
"It matters not," Anyeta's voice is high and raw with pain and fear. "It merely proves our point. You must be worthy to take the blade, and you must take the blade to take us without opposition."
Mammon's smile is slow, would be sweet if he were anyone else. He steps to the plinth, looks at Anyeta, at Gerald, at Xanthe, even at e-Gaari. Then he reaches out and brushes the hilt with long fingers. He curls them around the leather grip and pulls.
-lifts it as easily as any other weapon, he twirls it once, twice, thrice. Then, the Dark One, The Black Lord, The Usurper no more, looks back at Anyeta. "Does that satisfy you?"
