The Edge Of The Blade: A Short Carmindor Story

The sun beat down on my already sweat-covered body. It had only just come up, casting early morning shadows across the sparse forest. Shades of greens, yellows, greys and browns pooled in my vision as I blinked.

Waking up is one of my least favorite things to do.

Nearby my horse, Jester, snorted in his sleep. Lucky bastard.

The ground was hard beneath me as I sat up, double checking that my sword was still beside me right where I put it the evening before. I breathed a sigh of relief at having avoided another bandit attack and sheathed it quickly.

"Jester," I called softly to him, leaning over and rubbing his nose gently. It took a few minutes but eventually I saw his eyes open. He snorted and raised his head, clearly annoyed at being disturbed.

I smiled a little as I began tugging on my boots, "C'mon boy, up and at 'em. There's always work for us, you know."

He shook out his mane before starting eating a bit of grass. Horses are easy, they have meals around them at all times.

While he did that, I grabbed my saddle and got us both ready to go into town.

I was hungry and hopefully someone needed to die.

***

The kingdom of Carmindor is...an interesting place, to say the least. Of course, it had the same appearance as any other kingdom; farms on the outskirts containing both mighty and meek animals, sheared, slaughtered and milked to serve the whims and needs of man. Crops more or less healthy stretched as far as the eye could see, consuming the sun hungrily as it trudged tiredly across the sky.

That's what I saw around me as Jester thump, thump, thumped against the dirt road. I inhaled the scent of damp earth and sighed bland air, my mind feeding me random images and sounds. Stories I attached faces to, legends and myths that kept me company on long rides like this.

Stories I only ever heard from my parents. I frowned a little as my mind wandered to one of the darkest bits of my life. They were still alive and well with my six other siblings, in Carmindor. We-well, they-didn't have much else besides each other.

Merchant work wasn't that easy to come by lately and my father, even though he was a hard worker, kept managing to lose any job he grasped.

I suppose, looking back on my life, it was the ale. I don't recall a single moment around him without a mug of alcohol in his hand.

They didn't approve of my profession of course, very few do except for others who do the same or are desperate enough to give up their coin in return for spilled blood.

I have to believe it's desperation, otherwise it's pure cruelty, isn't it?

The same cruelty that propelled my parents into disowning me completely, my mother more so than my father. He looked on with his usual glazed expression while my mother loudly announced her exact thoughts to me. This was not new, but it was what she said after the fact that hardened my heart towards her.

I don't care to repeat it, not even to myself. I just bottle the feeling and follow their wishes, same as I always have.

Since then, I haven't seen any of them. I avoided Carmindor, usually going around it on my travels.

Maybe Carmindor needed someone with my skills. Maybe since it was a very vast kingdom I could make some decent coin.

Maybe I could catch a glance at one of my relatives and finally know peace from the fact that they are well and alive.

I should have made a life of spinning tales instead.

My attention was torn from my thoughts to a young girl running down the road towards me. Her blond hair whipped freely behind her, brown skirt gathered in her hands as she ran with all her might.