Grath's Story - Week 2

Grath sat by the campfire while the others slept, his back against the Alchemist's wagon. He didn't mind first watch; the tribal orcs had never slept before midnight anyway, so he was used to it, even after his months away.

He added another log to the fire, and stared into the flames as they began to lick their way up the new wood. He had thought that things might be different here in Macinar. People in the cities on Mendiera had treated him as little more than a trained animal, and a little less than human. While those he had met on the boat, those he was now watching over, seemed to view him as a person, he didn't know if they respected him for himself or merely his strength and his willingness to stand in the way of danger.

Grath shook his head, and blinked. That was one of the troubles with night watch; when you were up alone, you tended to think a lot about things, and even Grath would have agreed that thinking wasn't something he did particularly well, especially in large chunks. He tried to focus on the flames, on the woods, on anything, but his mind kept wandering back to that dwarf that had spit on him in that boat-tavern. Things weren't different here. There were still those who hated him just because his skin was greenish and his lips didn't always close around his teeth.

The flames continued to dance in front of Grath's eyes. Their movements suddenly brought to mind the elf Grath had seen in the town square in Inlakes, the day after the Royal Procession, and the three men who had watched. They had simply waited as the elf presented himself, and then they had drawn their blades and marked him, and then the elf had changed, had become not an elf from a family of elves but simply an elf with a blade, standing for himself.

Sword Masters, the people had called them, men who stood for justice, for honor and courage. The people had looked on the Masters with reverence, and even with love; Grath could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. Even that man Deliess, the one they called the Wild Blade, a man who Grath thought would have been looked down on otherwise, was afforded admiration.

Grath turned from the fire for a moment, rummaging with his bundle of belonings, and brought out the weapons he had collected; the primitive, heavily pitted axe he had taken from his father, the rough mace he had taken from the barbarian on the road, and the fine, curved sword he had won in the shipyard. When he laid them down side-by-side, the differences in them were obvious; the club and the axe were crude next to the finely-crafted blade, as those who had wielded them had been. He stood, picking up the blade, and spun the steel around himself. His movements were infinitely clumsy compared to the men in the square, but as the blade spun, the firelight glinting off of the curved edge, Grath could feel the weight of it pulling his arms around in arcs and circles, instead of the straight lines of the axe and mace.

Another thought creeped into Grath's head, increasing in clarity as the speed of the sword in his hands increased. Of course nothing had changed here; he had not changed, either. Even after leaving the tribe, he still carried his father's axe, the axe of a loutish orc, and the mace of a savage, a man who had bellowed like a beast when he fought.

Grath brought the sword around in a final arc and jabbed the point down into the log on which he had been sitting, nearly splitting the wood in two. It was decided. If the people still treated him like an animal, it was because he was an animal. He picked up the axe in one hand and the mace in the other. If the people treated him like they had his father, it was because he was like his father. With a grunt, he tossed the two brutish weapons onto the fire. If he wanted to be respected, he had to become worthy of respect. But he could do that. He knew something about justice, and he would learn about honor. He would forsake his father's name and learn what it meant to wield a blade in more than anger or revenge or greed, and then people would see who he really was.

He pulled the sword from the log and sat back down, resting the blade across his legs. With his right hand, he imitated the gesture he had seen the elf perform, pointing to the left of his chest, and then stared back down at the fire again.