Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 178 - Borrowed Time

The Ebon blade did not mince words when it revealed the terrible truth to its wielder. You will die much sooner than you think, it told its wielder, for while most of my powers are fueled by the blood of those we slaughter, my magic also places a terrible burden on the body and soul of its wielder.

Geral didn’t panic or try to bargain. He didn’t even deny the cruel reality or attempt to bargain with the blade. He simply asked. “How long do I have?”

I do not know exactly, the blade admitted. It might be six or eight or even ten years. The burden might be lessened to some degree by the pace of our killing, making it even longer. It is impossible to say; mine is a violent path, and no one has ever carried me long enough to die of old age.

Geral was silent for a long time then, and though the blade could feel his emotional turmoil, it did not attempt to pry or influence him. While time and age would never touch it, it had come close to similar abysses in hell, and it was up to its wielder to find his own peace with this.

The blade hadn’t expected a response before they got back to town. It thought this was something that its wielder would share with his wife. Instead, he finally asked a question. “If you hadn’t healed, my wife would she still be alive tonight?”

No, the blade answered with certainty. She had hours or days. Your desperation was correct. Weeks were beyond her mortal frame.

“And now? Are you still healing her? Would she live without your interventions?” he continued.

She would for a few months, the weapon answered. She’s growing stronger. Perhaps in time, she could last for years without my help. Her body is slowly purifying.

“Then my sacrifice is worth it,” he declared, “But she can never know. She already worries I’ll die at the hands of one of these fiends. Knowing I will die sooner rather than later will make it that much worse.”

Even though the weapon didn’t disagree with that assessment, it was clear that its wielder was talking to himself anyway. It couldn’t have told anyone anything. Well, if I really needed to, I probably could have found a way by killing someone who’s had dealings with her and using the strange social powers of the Path of Vengeance to call in that favor, it decided, considering how it would overcome such an obstacle, but such behavior would be counterproductive in the extreme.

It used the quiet time on their way back to contemplate how it would motivate the man to keep doing what they were doing. Its powers had grown tremendously since it last tried to influence a wielder in a significant way, and it worried that it could very easily drive him mad by accident, and it didn’t want that. Geral was not its best or most talented wielder, but he was diligent and deserved to see his loyalty returned. Inadvertently transforming him into a berserker who killed everyone would not be appropriate.

Really, though, it needn’t have worried. While its wielder stayed in his village longer than usual and spent a few passionate nights with his wife, he seemed more motivated than ever when they left. That was when he confessed to the blade that he only had a few goals left in his life. “I want to keep Simone safe, father a son, and purge the area of anything that might threaten either of them. If I have only a few years left to me, we will see just how much blood we can spill in them.”

To that end, he requested, and then demanded that the blade use him as it did before. “If you pull my strings and make me dance to your tune, we can kill twice as fast!” its wielder insisted, but the sword declined.

Twice as fast, with half the satisfaction for either of us, it agreed. I am tired of wielding humans. They should be wielding me. If you think we are not killing fast enough, we can go faster.

The blade explained to him that hunger and fatigue were human limitations that could be offset by its magics. You can’t go without eating forever, I expect. I can’t heal flesh that has wasted away to nothing, but you could easily kill for hours more every day. All you have to do is suffer.

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Suffering became their watchword in the weeks that followed. Its wielder slept less, ate cold meals on the move, and fought as often as he could. For a time, the sleeplessness especially degraded his technique, but Geral overcame that handicap.

+6,833 Life Force

+242 Lesser Monster Souls.

+89 Monster Souls.

They killed beastmen whenever the blade detected a surviving tribe, but the main event was always hunting orcs. They died by score, and no matter how many times their dull spears ruined one of Geral’s organs, he came back for more.

His fellow visitors hailed him as a hero and shunned him as a monster. It wasn’t hard to see why, when he returned wearing stained armor and shredded clothing. Geral didn’t give in to savagery, though, nor did the weapon encourage him to. Rage had its limitations, and though those weren’t likely to be discovered when facing orcs and other thoughtless creatures, it would be a hard habit to break.

+7,330 Life Force

+14 Lesser Monster Souls.

+131 Monster Souls.

The time when they would be forced to find someone else to fight was close at hand, too. Against all odds, Geral had almost completely purged his valley of the monsters that had made venturing out after dark impossible. There were still monsters in the high peaks, but the only one that showed itself was a wyvern, and the blade brought it down with a Bolt when it tried to ambush its wielder. After that, it didn’t last long in a fight on the ground, and though its poisoned stinger made Geral scream in pain, it only managed to land the one blow before its wielder cleaved its head from its long, sinuous neck.

+644 Life Force

-231 Life Force.

+14 Greater Monster Souls.

In that moment, the sword was briefly reminded of Baraga and the way he’d slain his dragon. It wasn’t the blow itself. Baraga had stabbed his nigh impenetrable lizard opponent through the eye, where Geralt had beheaded its lesser cousin. There was a look there, though, that both of them shared, a determination.

It said nothing to him, but in the days that followed, it reflected on the parallel often. Eventually, the weapon decided that was probably because they'd both been men fighting for something larger than themselves. So when the time came to decide what to fight next, it had a pretty good idea of what its wielder was going to say.

+1,875 Life Force

+9 Lesser Monster Souls.

+21 Monster Souls.

“If our valley is clear, then we must start work on the lower valley next, or the warlords in the highlands beyond,” Geralt declared on the third day, where they could find no one else to kill.

The blade didn’t disagree. Its wielder had told it stories, but while it had no desire to taste demon spawn again, it wanted to see the wastelands and the Miasama for itself with senses that its wielder barely even understood.

That didn’t happen immediately, though. Instead, they buckled down for the winter, and he spent the season with his wife, laying out plans for the community with the men for the coming year. Geral was not the chieftain, but he might as well have been. He had a body count in the thousands now, and no one disobeyed him. No one even suggested anything untoward about him or his weapon anymore, not as long as he was in earshot.

Geral laid out which areas were too polluted and entirely out of bounds, and gave his people crude maps of where the best pieces of land were, deeper in the valley. While no one quite believed such places were suddenly safe, they were hopeful. In fact, hope was the dominant feeling it read in the people these days. Despite the cold and the perilousness of their situation, they hoped for a better future. The Blade wondered if that was how the citizens of the Inner Kingdoms had felt when it had generated a lifetime worth of miracles in an afternoon.

It hadn't decided before Geral got the news he’d been hoping for since before he’d picked up the blade; his wife was pregnant, and he was going to be a father. The weapon did not congratulate him, but it was glad for the news.

With another life to defend, he’ll fight all the harder, it reflected. He’s got a world to make safe, and only a few years to accomplish it. I wonder how far he’ll get.

The blade found that situation more interesting than any since Var’gar’s march on Sevrin. It lacked the urgency of any one life; the only choice it had to make right now was whether or not to get the Path of Undeath, or not. It still hadn’t, because it saw no need, but it also didn’t see the need to waste Life Force, and without using very many of its powers lately, its reserves of energy and souls were full to bursting.

What if there’s a new power you want beyond this one? It asked itself from time to time, but really, it didn’t care. It was enjoying this wielder’s life as it was, and didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that until it saw how things played out.

Perhaps when he dies of old age, I can resurrect him, with those powers, and continue to use him as my wielder, the weapon mused. I wonder what it would feel like to be wielded by a dead man…