The elders had much lore to tell. Stories of woods haunted by changelings who steal children in the night for their rituals. Bottomless lakes what could swallow the strongest swimmer to oblivion. Spectres reaching back from beyond the veil to impart curses. Yarns mostly, meant to caution.

Some of what was told bore as more ominous. Leviathans, great worms of monsters, insidiously burrowing massive caverns beneath the earth. These were said to give no concern to we.

That is unless so fed.

Once tasted of our blood, the leviathan would become insatiable, and if not thus tributed would wreak untold devastation.

Most seldom of all was spoken word of that most feared, and then only by our eldest. A man who in his battling days was known for leading honorable charges, and who later chiefed the village with a tempered and trustworthy mind.

When he spoke — which in those, his fading years, was little — we listened.

One night he emerged from his hut. As he approached the fire, we who kept watch began waking the rest.

He waited patiently until all were in attendance. Huddled against the bon, blanketed by a deeply starred sky.

“You all know what I know. I have ensured this in my teachings.” He gazed into the fire as he spoke. His words came with the slow, if tired, wisdom of age.

“I have had a dream.” His face seemed somehow unsettled, yet resolved. “A thing come more and more rare in my years.”

Indeed they had, as we had so gathered to hear them all. Their revelations had served our survival.

“One I have prayed and offered to never receive.”

Unease took a palpable grip, and knowing glances were shared. We had all at least once heard the tale.

An abomination, if even it could be called. Sentient and growing long before even the philosophy of time. A cosmic nebula of malice, which takes a horrible shape for the singular purpose of inspiring the will to perish.

The size of a titan. Serpentine of body, short of tail. Sprouting from sides, back, and belly, countless articulated spines, each ending in talons like shards of obsidian.

Some of those myriad legs were wrapped and lengthened, gory extensions to make wretched wings. Patchworks said to be made of the flayed skins of its victims, stitched with sinew to add to their span.

Such is said to be a sight as would send any to madness. A thrashing of body, teeth, and claws. So violently triumphant, donning its trophies.

An impenetrable hide of oily darkness wrapped it, and its thick neck ended in an eyeless stump ringed with maws of jagged needles.

Its stench was said to be unbearable, and its screeches mistaken for no other. It could take to flight, making crushing gales, and at will dissolve to natural form — a dark, vaporous ether.

It had attached to our world for what we have wrought upon one another. Devouring one life at a time, just as we have devoured ourselves.

Its origins were of course shrouded in guesswork. Yet a thing risen beyond legend to become omen.

None considered it without dread.

The fire continued to crackle and spit.

“I have seen the preter —” Our eldest, having never torn from the flames, closed his eyes.

“— and it will claim one of you. Who, I know not.”

“The only way to never die —” The crone hacked and spat on the dirt. The air reeked of decay. Even with windowed moon and fire lit, her crude hut but dimly flickered.

She spoke in a nearly indecipherable accent, long from the plains or hills. “— is to never have been borne.”

She began coughing uncontrollably. Her withering body wracked over a rough wooden chair, wispy layers of garb moving like the counting wings of a preter. I shuddered.

Remembering myself, I gave a blessing to the present candles for their glim. To my unknowing. The shadow of a curved blade flickered beside a foaming cauldron.

Finally her rattles settled, as did her hands upon armrests.

In an instant she was upright and moving toward me.

She showed no frailty, and approached without even seeming to walk. One of her hands appeared before my face, contorted to reflect an unknown rune. Fingers rotted by the scent.

How her silver eyes found mine, I cannot say.

“Know you the riddle?”

Her voice was a hissing spectre. Thin form now heavy and unbendable. A shadow forged. Her face, having come so near to mine, was deeply written with age. Like ancient stone.

By the matrons, I now know naivety. I rote what so long you have taught.

“I am my father’s daughter…”

She grabbed my face with her witch-grip. Began crushing. It was all I could do to sputter.

“So this I do for she.”

Fled I hence. Lashed and whipped by the dark forest. See my wounds if you must, to know. But I am returned.

Mother. Please reach back. I know you are weak.

Her grip is cold. She cries out and clutches her belly.

Despair proves a crushing erosion, summed by accumulating the lesser of compared losses and costs.

All of his energy was channeled toward base rage. So if only to cling to some fading instinct.

One particularly cold dusk he was presented with a stout opponent. This one did not plea, even though drawn with fresh wounds.

He remained. Neither moved.

A blade fell near his foe. So familiar a routine, one almost comforting. To face unarmed one branding steel focused the mind to purpose. Such battles had been some of his most formidable teachers.

Yet now.

He closed his eyes. Peaced the impending mind.

The tension of a bow, like leather wrenching wood.

Under his own vision of darkness he outstretched palms, drawing in the air two broken circles, directed at his heart.

Not even an overhead passing of wind. Breathless throughout. He cursed the fates. Cursed this pit.

Footsteps padded in the muck. Sideward, then retracing the same path. No approach.

These hesitated but then drew forth, to within the influence of a blade. He heard the expected twang.

A curve upon his lips. Uncountably rare. Eager.

But the desired pain did not pierce through him. It stopped, if near his envisioned mark.

His opening eyes captured a bust in spewing throes, neck grossly opened by an arrow, the shafthead running through into his own shoulder.

He caught his falling opponent with unexpected reflex. Wood splintered, ripping a gouge. Both toppled to the muck. His limb began twitching uncontrollably.

The other gurgled to silence.

He shook through arduous pain. Clutching rendered flesh, raising slowly a condemning gaze.

The archer already held aloft a tight fist. That hooded stare locked to his. Fury as palpable as a nightmare bearing naught but mangled teeth from shadowed corners.

There were no corners. Circled around him the pit. The archer leveled judgment, aimed directly at him.

Several opponents — feral by appearance and manner, before even spotting rough collars at neck — leapt down the ledge and charged with broken ferocity.

Those gazes were vacant. Beasts on the faces of men. Proving as savage to one another as they were to him. Yet they wreaked mercilessly on his swelling and cracking flesh.

Shepherded toward the brutal delivery of death, they stopped just before inflicting his. Ascending the chain dropped only when the archer once again rose a fist.

The morning passed, as did the day. And several more.

Bleeding. Without.

From the distance came the unusual chirping of birds.

He no longer lived in the pit. It lived in him.

Consuming from within. A worm against which he had no power. Meals of blood harvested by the unknown.

A vicious talent was disrobed. Revealed by his own choice toward hewn survival, even if forced by circumstance.

He relieved foes of limb, and sent whirling wet crowns to clap on the landing. Ended cries with the severing of throat. Halved limbs to make weapons against the offender.

Removed wielding hands only to claim the motion as his own, gripping it in a final bladed serif.

He received crushing blows as would send most praying to the earth. Rose back to shatter against inflicting forms. Repurposed weapons drawn from what may have been considered fatal wounds.

Death became a dance. Known by fluid movements.

Guttural howling resounded through the downs. And an ever upward glare. Daring taunts upon the sky. A fading glim toward his watcher. All while heavying his world with thick lines which came to stench.

Never met he another, with word or glance. Not before the demanding of death. Neither by the piercing shaft of instruction, nor by opponent decree.

For his knowledge, he knew himself unlikely to be felled. A grim realization becoming singular.

Months, if not years, were so claimed. Worn and tested.

Moved more than once to a fresh pit, always to the head of the serpentine trail being mined across the landscape. Roughed onward by haulers, a cadre seeming more to him like given slaves than active perpetrators.

All of this trained by the keen watch of the archer. Ever the same spectre visage. His loom, weaving toward a withering tapestry. Grinning over his peril. Shadowed underhood.

Time counted not in the passing of days but in pourings of blood. Washes upon the muck. Watered by time.

Wails upon memory.

Feeding a trembling earth.

A wave became a pulling mist over the deck as it came from the scabbard, stinging with dispose. The two encroaching brigands were felled. It reflected clear many sounds of chaos, while in those same strokes giving them order. Finality. So were claimed the incoming three.

Steel orchestrated steel across an invaded deck. Many upon the lesser. The entropic symphony of cause, playing over ageless waters.

It was ancient-forged. In its time, the blade had dulled but never sheared. Bent yet not severed. And restored it always was. Kept through primal craft by those keen enough to suffer its meaning. Histories of blood-kept secrets.

Such were its long trials, yet endured.

Battlefields. Arenas. Revenges of status and passion. Generations of feared and encrypted solitude. Bequeathed titles since forgotten, each with a freshly wrapped grip since weathered. A lost count of times thus renamed.

If steel’s sentience were known, that day it would have accepted fear. Wielded by a seasoned yet destitute hand aboard a burning ship upon a hungry sea. Many were his wounds. Dark and deep the water below.

Those depths.

It led more to the veil, a metal true to purpose. Gracefully parting life from vessel. But he was at last bested.

“I told you.” A shadow of himself twisted a blade at his throat. “I will have the map.”

Around flew the cries of his dying crew. Yet in none of these was heard the sound of regret. Valor to the last. Honor to orders, presented in blood known to be soon washed away.

The captain swung up his sword and removed his neck from harm. Gathering footing he met his opponent’s scarred visage. “Brother, we needn’t—”

It was a sparking hymn, a resonant unspeakable ode, what cast over churning waters. Great arcs of gleaming intent and visceral purpose, intersecting paths each dedicated to the other’s demise.

Every slash and thrust met with equal defense and riposte. As though a warrior faced his mirrored self. No footing could be gained.

A splintering thunder shook, though without flash. The deck lurched and both slid toward a boiling fissure.

Waters rushed. Amidst scrambling recovery, the brothers met eyes.

He threw it.

The plunge to those depths began.

Fast it sank. Its long-edged form suiting the task with lethal precision.

Light hastened away, becoming a strange twinkle reflecting its edge.

Finally, darkness. Cold and true.

How long to forge steel? How long to break it?

Sinking. Sinking.

A crash echoed through the liquid darkness above.

It rose, breaching and crossing waves in the grasp of its captor. Eyed as a treasure scorned for the reclaiming.

“Come with me, child.” Her motherly smile beckoned, while the weapon strapped to her back steeled her aura. “Today we are to the vineyards.” We took hands and danced along our path, laughing, woven baskets flailing as we reveled in warmth.

We reaped as much as we could return. It took most of the day, and with as much we gathered we filled our bellies and flung splattering gaffs, regaling in such levity. The sun moved far enough and she bid us for home.

On our return pass through the orchard we met them. Passers through, hungry for a roof in their words. Their intentions were quickly revealed and she drew against, fruit tumbling from basket to earth. She felled two, and between the last and my trembling form was her sword.

Her final cries fed me, a woeful teaching not meant to be, but so often was, passed. And by the slight of my figure I writhed between his legs and turned blade into guts.

I fled for home.

The elder ran a keen eye close along the blade’s length, brushing it with a knowing thumb. “Do you know this?”

A moment can seem so long. “Grandfather, I—“

“Are you CERTAIN!?” Even the sentries shifted footing. The old man returned the sword to its sheath and began a slow encircling of the one before him. Regal appointings and embroidery seemed somehow drab flowing behind him.

“Yes, grandfather. I am certain.” Such years surely perceived a hardening of stance. A long blink. To quell the light, and its cruel reality.

“Many have been the years.” Grandfather continued, eyeing this one while voicing to the gathering. “Our fathers, and theirs, and theirs.” His voice echoed then faded.

The old man paused atop the gilded dais, stroking a dreaded beard and fingering its adorning jewels.

“We will to war.” And the king handed the sword to his grandchild.

Buried in mud on a field littered with the dead, most clad in similar gear. The dark sky poured.

Wet rhythm tore across the scene. A warrior — hearty of constitution but surely not yet even of age to know the pleasures of drink or company — in terrified flight, stumbling over so many fallen comrades.

The boisterous downpour concealed tones of panic, but could not dissuade the stalker’s calls. And surely the lightning revealed position, as confident as the thundering heartbeat of fear.

Many had been such times, the warrior knew. Ferocious battles for the freedom of men, and the demons what assailed armies. Father’s tales did not go unheard.

What would they sing of this? The rain was too heavy, and the warrior ungraciously fell. The fingers of a severed hand clawed motionless through the mire only a few inches away.

Encroaching taunts of death, resounding between falling tears. But footsteps before the meal.

A scrambling revealed it. Slick to the initial finding but its finely woven handle true upon the gripping. A piercing whisper known as the edge of death, yet the warrior raised the wielding arm.

That resonating hum rang of a blade ages on the hilt. The warrior rose and met, and in singing combat defied the coming night. The last foe was left gurgling, unheard beneath the storm.

It was won.

The man lowered the blade and removed his finger. He winced harshly but did not cry out. Bowing, he gracefully set down the weapon, took the neatly-folded cloth and wrapped his hand before exiting the room.

The sword sat unmoving on the table, a finely polished item largely admired for its ceremonial appearance and accepted purpose. Yet for lustrous wrappings, its forging was most true. A misunderstood relic delegated to such honorable tasks in a civilized — if uneducated — age.

A dark smear alone halted reflection along the pristine edge. This was wiped from the steel, the edge oiled and honed, then returned to its sheath.

It had been days since either archer or hauler made appearance, or that he had been made to engage. Days without parcel or ampule. Of silvered eyes watching him from ghouling faces.

In spite of thorough depletion, the years of daily contest had him primed for violence. He shook with anxiety. In combat’s stead he took to smashing attacks into his confines, and his own body.

In the frigid midst of a third sleepless twilight, while scraping a gnarl of bone over vital flesh, he heard the slinking chatter of metal on stone. He opened his eyes but he did not move, only observed. No sound. No movement. With honed stealth he rose and approached.

He looked up the chain’s length and around the pit’s maw, which seemed somehow to have captured the cosmos with toothless jaws. The sides of the cell provided unfamiliar certainty underfoot as he prepared to ascend. He did so in anguish, grip weary, wounds tearing and weeping.

Then the sky opened. A vault of rich darkness which must have been like looking up from an ocean’s depths. He witnessed as the universe grew until the pit was a blemish beneath its twinkling expanse.

An endless landscape, pale like a corpse, stretched out until it met this, creating a level horizon which fluttered only slightly as though reflecting some weak cosmic pulse. The air moved across him, embracing him like nothing he could remember, and he drank in the stars.

The terrain was saturated by an ethereal glow, reducing all elements to a stark contrast between ghostly washes and the voids they could not reach. He understood why he saw no torches. Even the witching hour provided a lurid vision of its own.

The ground beneath was as the wall, solid and gritty. Wisps of unsoiled grain milled under his feet, making a dry crunch which strangely comforted him.

Near his pit was a short column, flared dramatically at its base and domed by regular use of the pulley mounted at its apex. Though moored to the pillar, the chain was knotted to prevent its full length sliding loudly. A track described where the anchor had been moved over the years.

The land was dotted with dozens of circles like the one he just escaped, each with an anchor casting a shadow like a moth. From his limited perspective he began to see that together the pits formed a serpentine trail rising toward the horizon, following some unseen geology along a shallow slope.

His pit was near to the end of the trail. Towers had been erected at intervals, leaving nothing unobserved. He remembered himself and ducked behind the anchor, craning to continue scanning.

Only a handful of pits had an audience of one or two animated smudges moving against the moonwashed canvas. Surely archers and haulers at task.

The holes nearer to him, at the end of the trail, were smaller and above these were erected monstrous contraptions. Beams intersected at leveraging angles to prop up a vertical shaft, which reached down into the hole, presumably along the wall. As he watched, those machines seemed to creep along the pit’s edge.

Glancing all around he saw no inviting landmarks. He felt the urge to flee but did not know to where, or if he would escape only to succumb to thirst and exposure. It was impossible to judge distance in such parched light. He resolved to make for a hill on the horizon, not knowing how far it would be or if he could conceal his flight.

He spotted movement. Barely visible, like a living shade, crawling along the ground away from him toward the next pit nearest the trail’s end. The shade approached the anchor, tied the chain and dropped it.

A cluster of birds, inkblots stealing through his periphery, arced across the night. Rising to a majestic peak and gliding weightless before turning back to the earth. Descending on an increasing trajectory. Faster, keen on a meal. Coming to rest in the figure.

He heard the cry of death, then faced back down the serpent trail. Two more shades appeared and were so felled with morbid elegance. Their banshee cries fled past him to forever wander.

Visage fading, lips parted in silence, he gave name to the futility of hope. He did not see the archer, wearing a broad smile, trained upon his heart. He only felt the unforgiving hands which returned him, tumbling, to the pit.