Death Sentence

Derius Bard hesitated as he drew his sword. He looked at the shining metal of the blade, the slight curve to the single-edged blade distorting his reflection slightly; Derius’ dark hair and sunglasses became a wavy doppelganger of reality. He looked down at the sword handle, his one hand wrapped around it; carved from the whitest ivory into the form of a rose stem and culminating in the pommel, shaped as the petals of the yet to bloom flower.

“If I do this, they’ll find everyone here.”

A voice rose from behind him. “If you don’t, this place will be wiped off the damned map! You clearly see what that thing’s doing!”

“You’re damn right I do!” shouted Derius, “And I don’t wanna see it happen either, but if I do what you ask of me, this town will be just as damned! Do you even know who the hell I am?”

Derius turned, his dulled red buttoned shirt decorated in various tropical trees and flowers almost as bright as the fires in the distance. His tattered khaki shorts and worn sandals looked as if they’d been taken from the trash, giving him the look of a vagabond. In front of him on that tavern’s roof a young man stood glaring at him in the plain earthen clothes of a commoner.

His bright blue eyes begged Derius. “I know you’re a master swordsman, and that that’s a special sword! There’s no one else in town who can stop that thing! You have to help us!”

Derius sighed and looked away from the young man. Off in the distance, a hulking, humanoid form of the blackest mist trudged through what was left of that side of town. Fires igniting around it, whether in hopes of defeating the beast or because of it, the giant was leaving a marked path of destruction in its wake.

“Listen, kid,” started the swordsman, “I’m a very wanted man. If I do what you’re asking me, every ounce of strength the people who’re after me have will come crashing down on this place; you’ll all be tortured, and worse. This village will either die by that giant’s hand or another that’ll follow…”

“You could stay!” wailed the young man, “You could protect us from them too—I’ve seen what you can do with that sword! You can defeat anything!”

Derius’ head sagged. “Kid, that thing’s a Shadow Giant. Normal weapons or modes of attack won’t affect it at all, not in the slightest. There’s only one way of killing one of them, and if I use magic, it’ll be just like a lighthouse for the people lookin’ for me. Afterwards I won’t be able to protect any of you from a cockroach, much less the army that’ll descend on this place. Just…just run while you can…there’s still time…”

The young man turned sharply and moved towards the roof’s edge. “I don’t believe you! There has to be a way to save us, and if you won’t find it, I will!”

Derius watched as the young man bolted from the roof of the tavern, scampering down the ladder at the wooden building’s side. His solitary gaze from behind his tinted lenses dropped once more to the sword in his hand, and then moved back to the monstrosity that still rampaged off in the distance. The smoke finally began to reach his nostrils, forcing him to cough a few times before adjusting to the smell of the smoldering town.

Was I like that? Like that boy? Derius thought, his grip on the sword becoming a little tighter. Maybe I was, a long time ago.

He sighed heavily as he watched the misty black fist of the giant crash into the side of another building, causing it to immediately collapse. It’s almost through to the slums…but what can I do? If I ignore it, they die. If I destroy it, they die. No matter what I do, they’ll pay for my decision!

He heard a murmuring from the street below where he stood. Looking down, Derius saw a group of armed men and women had assembled before the building, many wearing the same kind of plain clothing the young man had been wearing. They were armed with the simplest of weapons; pitchforks, rusted swords, even kitchen utensils.

The young man from before stepped forward from the small group. “These people are all willing to fight if you’re not! Whether we die fighting that thing or whoever follows you doesn’t matter to us, but we’ll fight for our town!”

Derius slid his sunglasses down his nose a bit, his perfectly serious and icy blue stare making contact with the boy’s own defiant glare. “You all realize it’s a matter of degrees? That you’ll die, no matter what action I take here?”

A murmur traveled through the crowd before the young man spoke up once more. “We do—we’re willing to fight for our homes!”

Derius held the eyes of the boy one more time, something decidedly familiar in them. He pushed his black glasses up the bridge of his nose once more, grabbed the sword’s handle with both hands, and swung it out in front of him. The circular hilt lined up with his forehead and the long, curved blade pointed towards the starry night sky.

“Fine then, sign your own damn death warrants…”

With that, Derius stabbed the blade into the air. Instantly, white spikes ripped outward through both his hands from the handle, each one webbed with crimson. Derius’ face remained static as the pommel of his sword opened like an actual rose into full bloom, a bright red light shining forth, and a soft pink glow enveloping the entirety of the blade.

Derius nimbly leapt to the next rooftop, and continued towards his prey, a single tear escaping from behind his sunglasses…



END