A Cup of Normal

  Still never make it, he thought. Too much blood loss, too much shock.

  “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?” Billy asked as he splinted Corey’s arm. “I always wanted to be a doctor. Didn’t have the money for college.” He shook his head. “But don’t you worry. I’ve seen a lot of wounds. You’re going to be okay. You haven’t lost too much blood, and that chest wound is gonna clean up just fine.”

  Too much blood loss, he thought, and Billy smiled.

  “I’m telling you, doc, you haven’t lost that much blood.”

  You can hear me?

  “Sure. You can hear me too, right?”

  I’m hallucinating.

  “No.”

  I’m already dead then.

  Billy chuckled and it was the sound of the wind in the elephant grass. “Not if I can help it.”

  But you’re d — Corey stopped mid-thought.

  Billy’s gaze became intense, his hands stilled. “I’m what, doc?”

  Jonas’ words flashed through Corey’s mind: ‘Lucky Templin is dead. Pulled his body in myself, what was left of it.’

  Billy seemed to hear that memory too. His face twisted with sorrow. He sat back on his heels. “Oh,” he said, “oh.”

  Corey panicked. Come back with me. You could be a doctor. You could save so many more at the five-oh-four. The wounded need you. I need you.

  “You’ll be fine,” Billy said, distantly, “they’ll be fine.”

  Not without your help, Corey thought.

  Billy smiled, and his gaze once again met Corey’s. “You’re the doctor. They need you.”

  And you.

  “I’m dead.”

  I can see you. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Jonas is wrong.

  Billy shook his head, his smile crooked, sad.

  The men you touch live, Billy. You can’t stop now.

  “Everybody dies sometime.”

  Corey wanted to ask him what he meant, but Billy stood and walked away, no more substantial than the wind.

  The sound of shifting grass grew louder, a stealthy pace, footsteps.

  “Holy shit,” a voice cried out. “Over here.”

  Jungle boots came closer.

  “Looks like a medic found him. Check the jeep and bush. Let’s get this guy back to the platoon.”

  Corey tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work.

  The soldier looked down at him. “You’re going to be okay,” he said. “Good thing our patrol came along. This is your lucky day.”

  Lonnie was surprised to see him on the truck with the other wounded. When he asked what happened, Corey only shook his head.

  How could he explain it? Who would believe him?

  The Luckys stopped coming. Corey knew he was the reason for it. He had convinced Billy of his own death. He had found him and killed him.

  It took two months before Corey could operate again. When they brought the first wounded soldier across his table, Corey looked at his dogtags.

  “You’ll be fine, Grant,” he said.

  The boy’s eyes, which had been wild with pain, seemed to focus, his expression become calm.

  Corey knew that look. A brief, fresh breeze stirred the room. The constant ache in his chest suddenly eased.

  While he cut and sutured, he thought he glimpsed someone walking between the operating tables, pausing to touch each wounded with a gentle hand, to hold loose bandages or tie gauze tighter.

  Twelve out of the thirteen wounded survived that day.

  Corey did not speak of the phantom who walked among them, not even to Lonnie. The odds were finally on their side, and Corey knew how fleeting life, and luck, could be.

  I was exploring the sword and sorcery genre with this story. I had read stories from the hero’s point of view and from the villain’s point of view. But I’d never read a story from the weapon’s point of view.

  OLDBLADE

  Vows. Sweat. Blood. Fire.

  Ethra came to life screaming. In those first moments, she searched for the bindings that held her to King Talon, but the ancient vows of blood and honor between them, vows that could only be broken by death, were faded echoes.

  It had been seven hundred years since she had been alone, unbound, and even then she had not been free. She had no doubt she would not be free now.

  A voice lashed out, called her name.

  “Oldblade.”

  She focused on the word. Talon’s brother, Nathe, stood above her, his face crooked and slick, mismatched eyes reflecting the hard light of the forge. A leather apron covered his chest, protecting his fine linen shirt from the fire. From her prone position, Ethra could see his sleeves were rolled to the elbow, exposing ruined stumps where his hands should be.

  “You are mine now, Oldblade.”

  Magic fouled the air. A dark hammer rose at the edge of her vision. Nathe jerked. Though his arms did not move, the hammer fell, lifted and struck again.

  Ethra struggled against the pounding blows. No man could reforge her. No man could bind her until she was certain King Talon was dead, their vows undone. But Nathe was more mage than man, more hunger than reason. She tried to move, but Nathe’s words pressed, heavy, against her.

  “Generations of our blood have wielded you,” Nathe said through heat and fire, “lords and knights, noblemen all. Including my brother, the king.” Nathe jerked. The hammer struck.

  “I will regain what Talon has taken: my hands and my power. Then I will show my brother the same mercy he has shown me.”

  Images filled her mind: Nathe standing above the queen’s lifeless body, drawing forbidden blood magics from her spine and ending the bloodline within her womb. King Talon’s rage as he stepped into the room to find his wife and child dead, and his brother very much alive.

  Talon’s judgement had been both merciful and cruel. Nathe would not be beheaded, but behanded.

  Ethra remembered the sliding pop of Nathe’s delicate wrist bones cleaving apart beneath her edge. She remembered his scream, his vow to see his brother dead. She had served King Talon as a weapon should. Even against his own brother.

  The hammer fell again.

  “You are my servant now,” Nathe said, “bound to me as you were bound to him. You will execute my justice. You will do as I say.” Sweat slicked his face and he jerked again, sending the hammer down.

  “Breathe.”

  Ethra pulled air through the mouth he had formed for her.

  She could taste the oily taint of magic in the forge, magic that should not respond to handless wielding, magic Nathe controlled with the strength of his hatred. The hammer beat down, pounding in rhythm to his words.

  Words that shaped her.

  Words that took her into darkness.

  When next she woke, she stood as a man would, on two feet, with legs and torso and arms. She turned her head and felt her hair brush her cheek with a steely rattle. She lifted her hands. Five fingers, human fingers, though they were long and thin like delicate daggers.

  What had Nathe done? She had not agreed to serve him, had neither taken nor given vows. Without her consent, he could not bind her, and yet she felt tethers around her soul.

  Ethra looked at the room, an old armory, lined with lifeless spears and bits of mail. She envied the weapons their stupidity. Newly forged and pledged to no bloodline, they held no soul to be summoned for man’s insanities.

  Centuries ago, she had been drawn from earthmetal into weapon form. But man’s world had been nothing more than brief images and vague impressions of blood, bone and steel. In this new form, she saw the world clearly. And she ached to see more.

  “Come here, Oldblade.” Nathe stood in the shadow of the doorway, the leather apron gone, revealing loose trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. Except for his ruined arms, he looked every inch a mage.

  Ethra walked across the armory’s pock-marked floor, her feet scraping, then landing with whispered chinks as she bent her knees to correct her stride. Leg and hip flowed with each step; her torso rocked slightly,
following the tip of her shoulders. It was an odd sensation, awkward, unbalanced — and strangely pleasant.

  She stopped in front of the mage, her hands at her side, fingertips resting upon her thighs with a click.

  Nathe was taller than she, though he leaned heavily on one leg. His hair grew thin and red across his skull, strands of it clinging to the sweat covering his cheeks. Dark shadows circled his mismatched eyes and traced the edge of an old scar at his temple.

  “Blink,” he said.

  The force of the word pressed like a knuckle against her eyes. Against her will, her lids lowered then raised, cool oil washing her sight.

  Ethra felt muscles stiffen down her back. Was she no more than a puppet? Would he not ask for her service, for her vows and honor? Would he not pledge his loyalty in return?

  “Step back,” he said.

  Ethra stepped.

  “Turn. Slowly. Again. Stop.” He smiled. “Better even than my hound. Very good.”

  Ethra faced him, her gaze unwavering. He controlled her body, but he did not control her will.

  “I thought you would take the same form as your last wielder,” Nathe said as he paced a close circle around her. “I expected to see my brother before me, looked forward to it, really. Now I understand why he spent all those hours stroking you against his whetstone.” Nathe leaned close. “What else did he do to you, Oldblade?”

  Ethra pushed against the mage’s hold on her soul, trying to shift her stance, to move, but could not. His words, his magic, held her body as surely as a hand upon a hilt. Anger sat heavy in her belly and her hands curled into fists.

  He smiled at her reaction. “Spirit and soul. Again, not what I expected. But easy enough to control.” He stopped at her side, his breath spreading like fog across her cheek.

  “You will bring me my brother’s noble hands, since he has robbed me of mine.”

  He stood in front of her and she felt his words constrict within her. “Talon lies ill — poisoned, they say — making me the last of the royal bloodline.” He smiled. “But he will not die before I have his hands. Do you understand? Speak.”

  Ethra opened her mouth, pushed air over vocal chords, and winced at the strangeness of it. “You,” she breathed, her voice the sweet ring of metal striking metal, “have not asked. For my blessing.”

  Nathe scowled. “I am your maker. You will serve me or I will throw you back to the fire, Oldblade. You will bring me my brother’s hands. Do you understand?”

  Ethra understood a bound weapon could not kill the man it was bound to. She understood the fire would destroy her form, that Nathe would unmake her as surely as he made her. She would never see this world with her own eyes or move through it with her own legs. She would be strapped again, sheathed, bound.

  “Speak!”

  “I will bring you your brother’s hands,” she breathed.

  “Go then.” He strode across the armory and stepped through the doorway, “and remember whom you serve.” As if triggered by his words, the air turned rancid with magic.

  Flecks of shadows pulled up from the pocks in the floor, hovering, then drawing together. The shadows rushed forward in a black stream, filling the armory doorway with darkness.

  Ethra’s feet lifted and fell of their own accord, of Nathe’s accord, drawing her ever nearer the darkness within the doorway.

  I am not a puppet.

  Step.

  I am not a tool to be used and thrown away.

  Step.

  I will not be bound against my will.

  Step.

  Blackness. Heat poured over her, and she wondered for an instant if Nathe had heard her thoughts and thrown her back to the fires of the forge.

  She open her mouth to scream.

  Her foot lifted, dropped. The heat, the blackness drained away.

  Ethra blinked, oil cooling her eyes. Her mouth was still open, the rhythm of her own breath sharp in her throat. She was suddenly very cold. She placed one hand against her stomach and hunched her shoulders. Vertigo spun the world. She fought for balance and locked her knees, refusing to fall. After a moment, she tipped her face toward the sky and licked cool gray flakes from her lips. The flakes melted on her tongue. Not ashes from the forge, but snow falling from a stony sky.

  Ethra took a slow breath and focused on her surroundings.

  She stood in Talon’s garden, leagues away from Nathe’s keep. The magicked doorway behind her swallowed light, a blackness moonlight could not pierce. Around her, skeletal shrubs wore snow like mourner’s mantles.

  Ethra followed the old pathway between the orange-barked madda trees and squat clumps of shankfern. She could sense the garden’s symmetrical formation, and vaguely green smell of frozen soil. A cluster of birds, red and round as berries, rose from the midst of the fern. They darted upward, trailing liquid song.

  Ethra caught her breath. The birds, their song, even the barren plants were beautiful. She had never noticed such things before, never seen such beauty with the eyes of a sword.

  The sound of distant footsteps came to her. She turned. A guard, cloaked in leather and wool, rounded the garden’s edge. His determined pace faltered as he saw her, then picked up again.

  He ran toward her, pulling his sword from its sheath.

  Ethra tried to run, but her feet would not move. Nathe’s will still bound her body, even at this distance. She felt her arms rise, daggered fingers outstretched.

  I will bring you your brother’s hands, not kill for you, Ethra thought, as her legs shifted, her torso turned, providing a smaller target.

  I will not be your puppet. She struggled to pull her hands down, but could only force them to her waist.

  The guard stopped outside sword’s reach, his blade extended.

  “What in sweet Gillton’s blood are you?”

  “Oldblade,” Ethra said. She struggled to stay still, to hold against Nathe’s rage, to deny him his blood hunger. “I must see King Talon.”

  The guard hesitated.

  “He is dying,” Ethra breathed, her voice echoing eerily in the still garden. “I have come for him.”

  Nathe’s will pushed. Her muscles shook as she defied his command. “Please do not fight me,” she said.

  The guard stepped forward.

  Nathe’s blood hunger burst through her. Ethra lunged, her arms swinging upward. The guard’s blade deflected off her arm and fell from his hand. She managed to turn her wrist so that the back of her hand, not her fingers struck his face. His head snapped back and he fell.

  Ethra knelt over him. He still breathed, though his eyes showed white in his skull. Her hands trembled, muscles bunched in her arms, shoulders, back. She strained to keep her fingers away from his throat, away from the soft spaces between his ribs, where his heart lie beating.

  I. Am. Not. Yours.

  Ethra forced herself to stand, muscles protesting painfully. One backward step and then another took her away from him, until finally, she could turn. She crossed the rest of the garden

  without seeing it, anger blinding her.

  How dare you. How dare you force me, without agreement, use me to kill without vows. I have agreed to bring you your brother’s hands, nothing more.

  If Nathe heard her thoughts, he did not answer.

  She knew the door to Talon’s bedchambers was tucked in the east corner of the garden. Once there, she knocked out the man standing guard and struggled once again with Nathe’s insatiable blood hunger. She finally managed to step over the unconscious guard, and shut the door behind her.

  Light from the single wallsconce at the top of the stairway curved warm and orange over her arms, chest and legs as Ethra climbed the private stairs to Talon’s room, but the only heat she felt was her own hatred.

  The stairs lead to a short hallway and Talon’s door. A guard clothed in red and gray stood at the door, his sword drawn, point resting beside his boot. He narrowed his eyes as Ethra stepped from the shadows.

  She rushed him, wagering her reaction
would be faster than Nathe’s control, and grabbed for the guard’s sword. She twisted his wrist, broke it. The guard cried out. The blade clattered to the stones. His dagger appeared in his good hand. The blade skipped across her belly and shoulder. Ethra stepped into him, hooked his foot and pulled. The guard fell. Before he could recover, she punched him once across the temple.

  Her hands hesitated above the pulsepoint in his neck, fingers trembling for blood.

  I am not yours! She yanked her hands back and fought to regain her feet. Moments crept by. Nathe’s hold tightened within her, like a rope cutting into a deep wound. She took quick, shallow breaths and forced her hands, finger by finger into fists.

  Ethra stood and slipped into Talon’s chambers.

  The king lay in a massive bed, his once robust body frail beneath gold and burgundy linens. There were no physicians or guards attending his bedside and Ethra wondered if Nathe had been wrong. Perhaps Talon had already died in the night.

  She stepped closer to the bed.

  Talon’s face was pale in the shuttered moonlight, his dark hair heavy with sweat, his breath coming too quickly. Memories came to her. Talon, drunk and sweating, whipping a serving boy for taking a piece of fruit from his table. She remembered being drawn against the serving boy’s cheek, carving an angry x in his soft flesh. She remembered the feel of Talon’s hand gripping her. She remembered his pleasure. Blood pleasure. The same blood pleasure that fueled Nathe’s hunger.

  Ethra waited for a long moment, sorting the memories, anger and betrayal. Through every generation, through the killings, the battles, she had served faithfully, as a weapon should. She had done that which her wielders had asked her to do, accepting their vows of honor and loyalty.

  But there was no honor in branding a child, or in brothers destroying brothers.

  I am no man’s puppet. This last time she would serve their bloodline. This last time she would serve a man.

  A bird called outside Talon’s window and Ethra stepped forward. Talon woke, his eyes glossy with fever. He fumbled at the empty bedpost where once she had hung in her sheath. Then he searched beneath his pillow for his dagger. Ethra wrapped her thin, bladed fingers around Talon’s wrists, and stepped back.