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“Fashion me a knife,” I say to my brother one night as the howling wind settles, slipping inside through a gap in the balcony door, “There are hunts ahead that await me, and I have yet need of steel that time won’t touch.”
My brother, my brother, my lonesome brother raises his head from the bare wood of his desk, and searches briefly for painted eyes that he will not find. His lamp is sallow, his face is pale.
“Have you not enough knives?” he asks of me.
“Not enough for all the beasts that yet await gutting, not enough to debride the world of what of it we’ve allowed to rot,” I say, and to this, he bows his head. He, too, smells it on the northerlies.
He fashions me a knife that gleams like the new moon and cuts like the frigid winter sun. I hide it beneath my arming doublet where the floating ribs cover the scarlet furrows of the right lung, and let its steel chill me with every inhale; it will lend me its sharpness when the night darkens and the stars go out.
“Fashion me a dagger,” I say to my brother one night as the storm buffets the windows, leaving not a trace of water where I tread upon his windowsill, “There are things out there that hunger for my flesh, and I have yet need of steel that won’t be cowed by force.”
My brother, my brother, my forlorn brother lights the lantern on his drafting table, and pulls the marten-skins tighter about his shoulders where the chill seeps through Oioringë’s singed stones. His hands are stained, his jaw sits tight.
“Have you not enough daggers?” he asks of me.
“Not enough for all the hearts that yet await lancing, not enough to slit every insolent throat mute,” I say, and to this, he shuts his eyes tight. He, too, hears the whispers behind doors closed too lightly.
He fashions me a dagger with a threefold spine of steel and a bodkin-point tip that never misses the jugular. I wear it at my right flank where my left hand will always find it easily, and let its hilt gleam balefully against every ill-willed eye; it will guard my hollow side from malice and subterfuge while I sleep lightly through the gloaming hour.
“Fashion me a sword,” I say to my brother one night as I cut my path through its slaughterfield silence, perching lightly where the night skirts the edges of his bed in baleful wood and cold bloodstained sable-skin, “There are heads outside that ought to roll, and I have yet need of steel that will not shirk from the deeds that must be done out of daylight’s reach.”
My brother, my brother, my forsaken brother casts his sleepless stare out, and pulls back his empty arms from the edges of the bed with a muffled breath. His eyes are bloodshot, his bedroom reeks of abattoir gloom.
“Have you not enough swords?” he asks of me.
“Not enough for all the guilty in need of an executioner, not enough for all oaths to be fulfilled ere the world’s breaking or damnation and void. Angaráto’s bastard had taken Thorn, though he will not wield it -- he has not the strength, and he will not have it when war shall come to his door -- and my hands miss it like a wound misses a blade.” I say, and to this, he says nothing.
He fashions me a sword as hungry as the cold and as cold as blasphemy, an executioner’s blade forged out of a splinter of the old world’s carrion. It will take no scabbard save that of steel its blood-brother, no whetstone to sharpen its garotte edge; I name it Butcherer, and I baptise it in warm flesh while it sings to me its song of glory through violence, absolution in merciless scorn. Whosoever's blood it tastes, let him be damned -- such is the sword I take to war. And if I cut myself on the thorns of its hilt, I care not but give gladly such oblations, for I am already forfeit from my body to my soul.