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INKLET #38
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AMY LAURENS
www.InkprintPress.com
OATH KEEPER
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The metallic scent of blood reached him through the sharpness of the snow. For a moment, his heart leapt and he thought the battle was still raging, the cries of dying men filling his ears and stopping his senses; but no. The mountains up ahead were the foothills of home, and there were no people around, no sounds, no battle cries.
Easing his shoulders under heavy mail—he hadn’t dared leave it behind, old Tom would curse him halfway to the grave if he returned without it—he trudged on.
The path crested and he spotted the source of the blood-scent easily: a great dragon, rear half skinned, muscle and sinew left exposed to the elements. Blood had seeped into the snow around it, tinting it pink.
He ran a hand over his face. He’d been at battle for nine and a half months. The war was supposed be over. Coming home was supposed to be the end of all the carnage.
But no, someone had to drop a stinking great dead dragon in his path. He gritted his teeth, hefted his pack, and trudged towards the beast.
Halfway there the bushes off the side of the path rustled. He barely had time to check that his sword was still in its scabbard before five scruffy-looking bandits appeared, three bearing equally scruffy swords covered in nicks and dings. The other two held rough-hewn bats, and one tried for menacing as he tapped his bat against his free palm.
The soldier sighed and eased his sword free. He could take the five of them with his eyes closed—but probably not if he tried to keep them all alive. Gods, he was so tired of death.
The leader of the bandits swaggered forward. “Come t’ steal our dragon, have ye?”
“Put your sword down, mate. All I want to do is go home.” The soldier shifted his grip on his own sword in case the bandit lunged.
In response, the bandit sneered. “That’s what they all say.” He turned to his lackeys. “All right, boys. You know what to do.”
He gave them the nod and as one they advanced towards the soldier.
“Please,” he said, holding his sword up loosely in one hand. “I won’t fight you. I won’t fight any longer. Somewhere the fighting must stop. Please, let it be here, now.”
The bandits laughed.
“Easy pickings, this one,” one of the men said.
“Surprised he came back from the war alive,” mused another.
The soldier bowed his head. “So be it,” he said. “I vowed not to take a life outside of war, and I will not break that now.”
He held the sword out in front of him, one hand balancing the grip, the other lightly cupping the flat of the blade.
Gods preserve us all.
Magic crackled around him. You do well, oath-keeper. You are worthy.
A creaky rumble sounded, and before anyone could react, the great dragon’s tail swept right through the midst of the bandits, knocking them all off their feet.
Three were immediately rendered unconscious, and without hesitation the solider leapt forward to follow up on his advantage, knocking out a fourth with the flat of his blade.
If the only way to avoid death today was to leave them sleeping on the ground, well, his oaths had prohibited murder, not violence.
The soldier pivoted as the leader of the bandits cried out and lunged at his shoulder, but the soldier ducked and let the stroke go past.
He dodged left, dropped to one knee and drove upwards with the pommel of his sword, aiming for the bandit leader’s chin. A nice, steady uppercut ought to do it.
The dragon’s claws caught him around the leg, destabilised him.
His arms windmilled.
The sword twisted point up. The bandit completed his lunge, the sword driving deep into his throat.
Arterial blood spurted, red and bright, life gushing from the man before his eyes.
War cries sounded in the soldier’s ears, the smell of blood blocked out thought, and the pounding of a thousand warrior feet shook the ground. No. No, I promised!
The soldier barely felt it as the dragon shifted its grip and dragged him closer. The smell of rotting meat on the great carnivore’s breath mingled with blood until it could have belonged to week-old bodies decaying on the fields, and the pain that lanced through him as the dragon bit down was the piercing of swords. He stared glassy-eyed at the sky as death descended.
A moment passed in rippling pain, and the soldier realised he was on his feet, facing the great dragon while blood dribbled from his shoulder. He clamped down on the wound, noted that the dragon’s skin now covered nearly three-quarters of its body, and gazed up at the great iridescent eye.
The dragon turned its head, staring pointedly to where the bandit leader lay dead in a pool of his own blood.
Guilt stung the soldier’s chest; he gulped down air like a man drowning.
Gently, the dragon nudged him with a nose whose nostrils wafted smoke, and the soldier fell down beside the bandit.
“What?” he shouted. “What do you want from me? If you’d just stayed out of it I could have knocked him out! You, you made me kill him. This is your fault!”
But the dragon simply stared at him, waiting.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, the soldier gathered up the bandit in his arms. Yes, the bandit had initiated the attack, and yes, it couldn’t be doubted that the corpse in front of him had belonged to a bad man. But his vows. To lose them over such a senseless death.
He’d had enough of senselessness. He pressed his forehead to the bandit’s. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean for you to die.”
The bandit stirred in his lap, head tossing, eyes twitched beneath closed lids. The wound in his neck ceased bleeding; the skin began infinitesimally to seal.
The soldier’s gaze flicked to his own shoulder, where the bite mark had nearly closed beneath the tear in his chain-mailed shirt, then to the dragon, who was now fully clothed in skin again but for its tail.
You would have sacrificed yourself to preserve your oath. Now you may keep it forever. The dragon stretched like a cat waking from a nap, extended its wings with a single mighty flap, and leapt into the sky.
“Thank you,” the soldier murmured, eyes wide. “Thank you.”