The Sword of Huminerus

The sweet rot of burnt flesh and smoke choked the air around her. Gorina held her sword up in victory. She was the last warrior standing from the Diacine Territory. The battle was won, yet the magical Sword of Huminerus now lay in the hands of the foe, the Mongors.

From a young age, Gorina wanted nothing more than to be a part of the Huminerus Regiment. Not just the territorial guards, but the honor and respect beneath the king's hardened armor.

Immortality was for mystics and fools. Gorina grabbed the dagger’s handle. Its blade plunged deep into her thigh. Whether to leave the blade in did not matter. Death was certain, in hours or days.

“If poison kills me today, then I will recapture the Sword of Huminerus and get the honor from it!”

The scorched battlefield echoed her vow, and the ash-laden breeze was the only reply.

Sheathing her sword, Gorina peered at the Mongors’ camp on the misty horizon. She gripped the dagger’s handle, jaw clenched, and yanked it free. Crimson spilled, pooling at the soot clinging to her leather trousers.

After admiring the sharpness of the dagger’s edges, Gorina slid the blade into her belt.

Walking through the charred remains, her trained mind imagined how the land had once been. An emerald canopy of ancient trees cast shadows on the lush yellow grass. The bright sun made it glisten like gold.

The scene broke as Gorina felt a hand grasp her ankle. The fingers were long, covered with fine brown hairs.

“The cure I have, the ailment that you has.” The Mongor droned.

“I think not, you backward beast!”

Gorina pulled the dagger, bent over, and stuck it through the Mongor’s wrist.

“Join me in this agonizing death.” She spat, wrenching the blade from the flesh.

As she rose, hands clamped around both arms, forcing her upright.

“My honor stands with Huminerus. If I should die, then it is his will,” she hissed, struggling against their grip.

Through slit eyes, Gorina studied them. They wore the woolly skin across their shoulders and hips, like Mongor, yet their hands were familiar. Ink stretched across their knuckles. A trailing four-point star—the mark of a Huminerus king’s soldier.

Uncertainty tightened in her chest, “Friend or foe?”

“Friend. I am Leonard. Sergeant in the King’s army.”

“Eralo is my name.” A grin grew on his face. “She is frisky. Can we keep her?”

With her question as a distraction, she ripped away from their grasp. Gorina turned and put the dagger’s point against Eralo’s throat.

“I have killed many men today,” she warned, “would you like to join them?”

Eralo put both hands up, never losing his grin.

“I have no time for this. I must reach the Mongor camp.”

Leonard tilted his head, and Gorina watched his eyes move down her body. His face went taut as his gaze fell upon her leg wound.

“You’ll never make it without us.” He said, smacking down Gorina’s hand holding the weapon.

Gorina’s muscles tightened as she planted her feet. More defiant words climbed into her throat, but an idea rooted in her mind. Replacing the blade back into the belt, she stepped forward, sliding her arms under theirs.

“Take me to your Mongor king. I am your prisoner.”

“We do get to keep her.” Eralo chuckled.

Walking with two towering combatants made Gorina feel small by comparison. She shoved the thought away. They were just men, not mystical beings. Searing pain each time she stepped kept her focused. Yet, as the blackened ground and the emerald wildness drew closer, the world around her tilted and blurred. Gorina’s pace slowed, and her limp worsened.

Leonard’s booming voice said beside her. “Don’t die on us yet.”

“I will not pass to the heavens until I have the sword of Huminerus in my grasp.” Her words faded as she stumbled.

Two strong arms slid under Gorina’s armpits. Her quivering hand reached for the hilt.

“Easy now, prisoner, or I will toss you over my shoulder.” Eralo flashed a crooked smile.

Rage flared in Gorina’s chest—then silence.

Reserve your strength for the Mongor king.

The sun had moved to its highest point as her mind wandered from clear to fog. Leaves grazed her face while murmurs of Mongor voices drifted through the timber.

“We are close. It is time to relinquish your sword,” Leonard said.

Gorina’s neck strained as she nodded.

“I have plans—for the dagger.” She swallowed hard.

The two escorts stopped, and Gorina leaned heavily on Leonard. The sword left its sheath, lightening the weight at her hip. Eralo drew the dagger from her belt and placed its handle into her palm. Hiding the dagger against the flesh at her wrist was risky. Yet, by the time they reach the Mongor king, her strength might be gone.

The filtered forest mist broke into a midday sun meadow, blinding Gorina. Through slitted eyes, the brown-tinted world of the Mongors stirred something within her—a final spark. The strain eased from her legs as Gorina’s toes carved lines through the grass-rooted dirt.

“You be who?” came a droned voice.

“This one caught we did, in the trees, about dead she is,” Eralo replied.

Gorina could hear the slightest hint of the Huminerus accent in Eralo’s words. Drawing her head up, she looked into the narrow pupils of the Mongor.

“I’m here to get the sword of Huminerus and kill your king.”

Laughter surrounded her.

“What army with you? King has fun, he will. There you take her.”

The stench of their decaying sun-dried hides swept into her nostrils. Reflecting beams of sharpened steel flickered into her vision as Eralo and Leonard weaved their way through the wretched foe.

Gorina’s thoughts took her home, to hardened palms and aching limbs from digging turnips all day. Her father’s coarse words in her ears and the pains in her hollow stomach.

“That’s not me… anymore.”

The sense of falling, then a pain shot up from her knees. A touch brushed beneath her chin, barely felt through the poison’s drowning of every sensation. She did not tense; her head tilted upward. In Gorina’s sight, the shimmers of color danced above a woolly shag.

“You fun have with her this Huminerus pet,” Leonard said as he knelt.

“Pet only. Near death she is. Better fight I like.”

“Fight,” Eralo loudly echoed, then sent a boisterous laugh.

Gorina heard the word. Rage sharpened her fading existence.

“I’m yours, king,” she lifted herself higher, crossing her arms over his lap.

Her fingers brushed the king’s side, touching the hilt of the sword. She lowered her head, taking a deep breath to calm the disarray in her mind.

You’re here, get your honor—Your respect.

A strength she never thought existed sprang from deep in her soul. Gorina pulled the dagger from her wrist and thrust it into the king’s chest. Spit moistened her face as she pulled the Sword of Huminerus from his belt. The weight of it dragged her arm to her side.

“Raise it to the sun,” Leonard said.

Eralo leaned in, “Do it now, you wretched woman!”

Both of Gorina’s hands took the hilt and raised the sword towards the heavens. The fine hairs on her body stood on end as an inexplicable energy surged within her. The heart quickened. The heaviness of the sword lessened, and her world became clearer.

Lowering the sword, she looked into Leonard and Eralo’s eyes. They gave no words, yet only now did Gorina see within them. The sword’s power was not honor or respect.

It gives life to those who already carry both within them.