"Was the king's blessing truly a gift or a curse in disguise? A noble privilege, or a binding oath we were doomed to serve?"
The sky above Baelur hung like a tattered shroud, neither day nor night but something sickly in between. Light seemed to crawl through the air rather than shine, as if the very atmosphere bore the weight of old curses and unburied sins. The wanderer had grown accustomed to such places, towns where hope went to die, where the stone itself seemed to weep with the memory of better days. He stood before Nabu's Corner, the inn's weathered sign creaking in the stagnant air. The building hunched against the blackstone ruins like a beggar seeking shelter, its windows glowing amber against the perpetual twilight that plagued this forsaken corner of the realm. Smoke curled from its chimney, carrying with it the scent of roasted meat and ale the universal promise of warmth in a cold world.
But between him and that warmth stood four men.
They had the look of carrion birds about them, lean, hungry, and quick to sense weakness. The wanderer had encountered their kind in a dozen different towns, men who fed on the desperate and preyed upon travelers foolish enough to venture alone into the frontier's dying settlements. They wore mismatched armor scavenged from battlefields, their weapons nicked and stained with rust that might have been blood.
"Well, well," drawled the tallest of them, a scarred man with yellow teeth and the swaggering gait of someone who had never faced a real warrior.
"What have we here? Another lost lamb wandering into our flock."
The wanderer said nothing. His brown hair hung loose around his shoulders, framing a face that bore the weathered lines of a man who had seen too much and said too little. At his back, wrapped in oiled leather, lay the weapon that had once made him legend, a great longsword nearly as tall as a man, its weight a burden that only those blessed by the king's grace could bear. The four thugs eyed the wrapped blade with the ignorant confidence of those who had never witnessed its like.
"You deaf, stranger?" spat another of the bandits, this one sporting a braided beard stiff with grease. "My friend asked you a question."
The wanderer's dark eyes moved slowly from one face to another, cataloging weaknesses, measuring distances. These men had the soft look of bullies who had grown comfortable in their small pond, forgetting that greater predators swam in deeper waters. They positioned themselves poorly. too close together, blocking each other's sword arms, standing uphill on loose stone that would shift treacherously underfoot.
"Here's how this works, old man," the leader continued, drawing a chipped blade that might once have been decent steel.
"This here's a toll road. Cost of passage is everything in your purse, plus that fancy pig
sticker you're carrying. Pay up nice and quiet, and maybe we let you keep your teeth."
Still, the wanderer remained silent. A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth not the warmth of amusement, but something colder. Something that suggested he was remembering the weight of his sword, the way it sang through the air, the particular sound it made when it found its mark.
"Last chance," snarled the third bandit, hefting a rusted mace. "Give us what we want, or we'll take it from your corpse."
The wanderer spoke then, his voice carrying the low rumble of distant thunder. "I was hoping someone would ask nicely."
The words hung in the air for a heartbeat. Then the bandits moved. They came at him in a rush, steel gleaming in the sickly light, confident in their numbers and their desperation. The leader lunged first, his blade aimed at the wanderer's throat a killing stroke delivered with the brutality of a man who had done this before. He would never do it again.
The wanderer's hand moved to his weapon's grip with fluid grace, and in one motion that seemed to bend time itself, the great longsword emerged from its wrapping. The leather bindings fell away like shed skin, revealing polished steel that caught what little light there was and threw it back like captured starfire. The blade swept in a perfect arc, its impossible weight guided by strength that no ordinary man could possess. It took the leader's head clean off, sending it spinning through the air to land with a wet thud against the inn's stone foundation. The body stood for a moment longer, blood fountaining from the neck in crimson arcs, before crumpling to the cobblestones. The second bandit the one with the braided beard had time to register shock before the return stroke opened him from shoulder to hip. He fell in two pieces, his scream cut short by death's sudden embrace. The remaining pair tried to flee, their earlier bravado evaporating like morning mist. But the wanderer had anticipated this. He pivoted on his heel, the great sword spinning in his hands like a harvester's scythe, and caught them both in a single, devastating sweep. Their blood painted the blackstone in spreading pools that reflected the dim sky like dark mirrors. It was over in less than ten heartbeats. The wanderer stood among the carnage, his breathing steady and controlled. The king's blessing still coursed through his veins. that divine gift that allowed him to wield a blade no ordinary man could even lift, let alone swing with such deadly grace. Not a drop of blood stained his travel-worn clothes, though crimson flowed freely around his boots. He regarded the corpses with the detached interest of a craftsman examining his work, then deliberately spat upon the leader's still-twitching form.
"Fucking idiots," he muttered,
wrapping his sword once more in its leather bindings. He pushed open the inn's heavy door and stepped inside.