Glens Tale
Glen's Tale - Forging of a Paladin by Llewelyn Mistral
- CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG*
The sound of hammer meeting hot iron echoed out of the open door and down the street. Most of the cities inhabitants ignored it, as they were wont to do, but one man stopped as the clanging reached his ears. He was tall, with dark brown hair, but that alone did not separate him from the people passing him by. Rather, he was wearing a set of red and gold platemail, decorated with a dragon's crest. A longsword was sheathed on his back, and covering that was a large shield bearing the emblem of the god of justice.
Turning around, this holy warrior walked back to the blacksmith's shop and entered, watching the dwarf work the bar of iron on the anvil. "Ye need anything?" the dwarf shouted between swings of the hammer, "A new blade per'aps?"
The paladin shouted also, to make himself heard over the noise. "Nay, though if you need help with anything I would like to help for a bit."
The hammering stopped momentarily as the dwarf looked back to see what kind of person this was. "Bah, ye holy types cannae wark metal even if'n ye had a wizzard describing every single step." As he turned back to his hammering, he added, "But if ye wanna try, the bellows could use pumpin'."
Dropping his shield and sword in a out-of-the-way corner, the man walked over and kneeled by it, pumping the air into the forge and bringing up the temperature inside. "The name's Glen by the way, and I think you'll find I do know my way around one. My father was a blacksmith, after all."
The dwarf stopped pounding away at the forming blade to give a loud harumph, then returned to the work. Glen, still pumping the bellow, felt a smile come onto his face as the work brought back memories of an earlier time.
His father had been the town's blacksmith, and Glen was his only son. This had put a lot of pressure on him to follow in his father's footsteps and take over the business when he was old enough. Of course, like all children, he'd sometimes run off and play when he should have been helping to perform some task or other.
"Al'right, now take that third iron on the left and bring it over here!" The dwarf shouted as he quenched the blade he had been working on, breaking Glen out of his recollections momentarily.
Grabbing a pair of nearby tongs, he took the iron rod carefully out of the fire, taking it to the dwarf, and holding it in place as the hammer began singing its song again. With his mind free to wander, Glen's memories drifted back, and almost against his will he remembered again what had changed his life forever.
It had been the day after his 14th birthday. Glen had run off to enjoy a day in the forest to celebrate rather than work in the forge under his father's tutelage. Things had been going well, in fact, until he saw the smoke rising from the direction of home.
He'd ran back, stumbling over sticks and logs, to the edge of town, and then past. The streets were empty at first, until he reached the town square, panting. Most of the town's population were gathered there, a strange creature before them. It stood like a man, but it had bird-like features. The head was somewhere between the two, vaguely man-shaped but for the large serrated beak, and the feathers covering it. Its body was mostly blue, apart from some white on the upper chest, and two large red-feathered wings rose from its back. This creature he would find out later was called a vrock, and in its hand was a fairly vicious-looking scythe. Behind it was the source of the smoke; what had been Town Hall was now a huge bonfire.
Glen squeezed through the throng, just in time to catch the demon's last words. "... and you will all worship the great Kiyanbel!"
With that he gestured to the flames behind him, shouting "Come forth!" Suddenly 20 figures leaped out of the flames. These creatures, called dretches, looked almost like halflings, but blubbery like drowned corpses, with pale white skin. One opened its mouth in a cry, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth.
An older man stepped forward, hammer in hand, and Glen was surprised to recognize it was his dad. "Why should we submit to you? What right do you have to do this? There are more of us than those... things and-"
"This right." And with one swipe, the vrock's scythe sliced through Glen's father's legs at the knees.
With a soundless cry, Glen ran to his father, catching him as he crumpled. As the people stared at the bleeding stumps, numb with shock, the vrock again opened his beak, gesturing to his minions to move forward. "Anyone else care to object?"
"Hold it right there, Gar'da!"
The vrock spun around, looking for the source of the voice. "Who dares call my name?"
"We do." As the invisibility spell faded, three armored figures stood in the middle of the road leading into the square. The one on the left wore dusky colored plate armor, and carried a crossbow. Draped over his chest was a black tabard, bearing lightning bolts surrounding the letter G in gold. The one on the right, a woman this, wore leather armor of a bluish color. Some sort of claw weapon was held in her right hand, and her left idly twirled a dagger. Stamped into her pauldrons was a styled tiger read in mid-roar.
The one who had spoken though was the man in the middle. Wearing white and grey plate mail highlighted with blue in places, he bore a golden longsword. On his off arm he held a kite shield, emblazoned with a flaming phoenix in red and gold.
The seeming leader pointed his sword at the red-and-blue-feathered demon and spoke, a glow rising along its length as he did. "No more. In the name of justice, we shall send you back to Kiyanbel in pieces."
Glen watched with mouth open, holding his bleeding father as the three attacked the demon and his minions in unison. The one in black, whose name he found out later was Gant, kept up a steady firing of what looked like lightning bolts from his crossbow at the dretches surrounding the vrock, killing one with each blast. The one in blue threw daggers with precision, keeping Gar'da moving, while scythe and sword clashed.
Finally, both warriors bleeding from multiple wounds, Gar'da and the warrior in white broke apart. Gant and the women, whose name he never had found out, saw the opportunity and, muttering some words in a language Glen didn't recognize, sent a huge bolt of lightning from the crossbow and a stream of blue magical shards from the claw blasting into Gar'da. As he reeled back, smoke rising from a huge hole gaping in his chest, the warrior in white let out a solemn phrase and struck the red-feathered head from the vrock's shoulders.
"That's good, lad. Now it needs quenching." His mind still remembering the past, Glen lifted the blade and inserted it into the water. As it hissed and cooled, he thought back about leaving home after being inspired by the trio's actions, all the training he had gone through, his acceptance under his god, and all the steps on the long road that had brought him to this place.
Finally, shaking himself again free of the memories, he saw the dwarf take up the blade by the tang, and struck it soundly against a nearby block of wood, first by the edge, then by the flat, making it ring loudly.
"Hmm... a sound blade, though it needs honing." The dwarf looked over to Glen. "If'n ye want to trade yon sheathed sword for this 'un, 'tis a trade I'd be willing to do, as ye did put yer own sweat into it too."
As Glen looked at the newly-made sword, pondering the decision, he realized he felt less than half-finished himself. He nodded. "I'll do it." And as he watched the dwarf start fitting a hilt to it, he thought to himself 'We shall both be sharpened, you and I. You for my hand, and I for my god's.'
