“That was a nice fight back there,” said the dispossessed voice of my demon sword. “I especially liked when that idiot charged at you and you sliced off his pants instead of his legs.”


    “That’s the part you liked?” I said to myself. After eight long years, I still felt a bit weird talking out loud to no one. But despite the sword having no ears, somehow it, or rather, she, was still able to hear my voice. “You were screaming for me to run him through. And you burned my hand when I didn’t!”


    “Yes, well, Mati. Sometimes in the moment you don’t appreciate the humor in things. I am, after all, an 18-year old girl trapped inside of a life force-draining blade cast in the fires of the Hellfire Forge by your great-great-great-great-great grandfather. I usually-”


    I sheathed the sword into the leather scabbard attached to my belt buckle before she could continue with her long diatribe, and continued down the hill to the small town that intersected the river. In my wake were a dozen bodies of bandits from the nearby Choras Mountains, who had troubled the peaceful village for many years.


    But no longer. I had seen to that.


    Or, more accurately, Lyra and I had ruthlessly dispatched the grizzled, bearded, horseback-riding raiders in the span of a few minutes. Such was the power that I channeled from Hauteclere, the simple-looking blade that I had found so many years ago in a long-forgotten cave at the edge of my town.


    However, it was anything but simple.


    The sun had nearly set when I reached the gates of Alget, and the silence had been sufficient, so I drew the blade free once more.


    “Rude,” said Lyra’s voice in my ears. “You should be thanking me, not silencing me.”


    “I thank you after every battle,” I whispered, spotting the “captain” of the town guard approaching, “by not chucking you into the nearest body of water.”


    The hilt of the sword again lit up like a small match, and I uttered a quick “sorry” before my partner went quiet again.


    “It is done,” I said to the man, who looked pretty embarrassed to have his town saved by someone who had only drank two ales in his life.


    “Thank you, Mati the Hairless,” said the captain, using the derogative that had spread through this valley over the past few years. Evidently the rough-and-tumble men here did not like being upstaged by a Heckran like me. I couldn’t blame them. If a scrawny kid showed up in my town after vanquishing the local goblin clan, my dad would have been pissed too.


    “You’re welcome, Captain Ozzlop,” I said, resisting the urge to chide him for his rudeness. “Now that the matter of the bandits is settled, I believe you have a piece of parchment for me.”


    “See, here’s the thing,” said the man, scratching the back of his head with one hand, while moving the other to his belt. “The village elder told us under no circumstance should we ever hand that over to anyone. Not even if Mephizesque himself showed up to kill us all. ‘We should all perish by the flames than surrender the Pergamon,’ he always says. Me, I’m not as idealistic.”


    He withdrew a small dagger that was clipped to his side and pointed it somewhat menacingly at me.


    “No one asked for your help,” he said. “Me and the boys, we had a good deal going with the bandits. We let them pillage a bit, maybe abscond with a few of the more striking but annoying women for a fortnight. In exchange, we get a cut of their loot, we get to play the hero now and again, and more importantly, we get a purpose.”


    “Wow, this guy is an asshole,” said Lyra.


    “And then you came along. Decided you had to be the hero. And to boot, you want the Pergamon fragment. That’s a bargain I never agreed to. So, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to come into the village, battered and bruised, and tell everyone that you failed. That the bandits are still out there and now they’re pissed.”


    “Do I look battered and bruised?” I said. “And that’s a ridiculous plan. You’re just going to pretend the bandits are still out there? You want to fight ghosts?”


    “Plenty of my men would gladly leave this dump of a village to become the new bandits. Hell, I would join them if I could. But, you know, appearances to maintain, etc.”


    “Yes, of course. I know all about the importance of a reputation. Maybe mine has not preceded me. So let me tell you. I’ve cleared the Sunken Forest of the elder spider yokai, slain the frost giants of the Jurten Pass, exorcised more spirts than I can count, and on top of that, saved an entire city from the demigod Drakon in an afternoon. Do you think I’m scared of a low-born brute such as yourself? Please.”


    “Bluster on top of bluster,” said the captain. “Your arms are barely big enough to lift your precious sword. Which I’ll be taking after I’m done with you, by the way.”


    “I don’t think so,” I said.


    “You’re going to stop me? That’s a good one! Now that I can’t spar with Marco, I guess I’ll have some fun with you.”


    Ozzlop whipped the dagger at me in a sidearm motion, but Lyra was faster, pulling my sword arm up in a flash to easily deflect the attack. The captain tried to hide his shock, but I could see the desperation creeping into his face. Like so many before him who had underestimated me, he was about to get a cold dose of reality.


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    “What’s next?” I asked.


    “Shut your mouth, whelp,” he replied, unhooking the rather large axe from his back. “I was just gonna bloody you a bit, but now you’ve pissed me off. I think I’ll take one of your ears as a trophy.”


    “Good luck with that,” I said.


    The man charged at me with a scream, spittle flying from his mouth.


    “Deflect or dodge?” I whispered.


    Lyra’s energy flowed out of the sword again, and time slowed. I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the captain to arrive a few feet in front of me, before stepping aside. The world returned to its normal state when I did, and Ozzlop was surprised to find only air when he brought his axe down on what should have been my head. Instead, the head of his weapon plunged into the damp soil, where it became stuck. As the captain tried in vain to pull the axe free, I took the liberty of knocking his legs out from under him, sending him sprawling to the ground.


    “Are you quite done?” I asked, holding Hauteclere to Ozzlop’s neck.


    “Fark you!” he said, before spitting in my face.


    “No thanks,” I said. “Now, who in the village can I see about the Pergamon fragment? You mentioned the elder?”


    “No one’s giving you anything, as long as I’m around,” the captain replied.


    “Well, then, I guess we have our solution.”


    I raised the sword up with two hands, ready to plunge it into the man’s underbelly, but he finally relented.


    “Please,” he said. “Don’t. I’ll give you what you want.”


    I paused for a moment, trying to pierce through his words to see if he was being genuine. But it only took a second for me to realize that he was full of crap, as I spotted the remainder of the town guard reflected in my blade, creeping up behind me.


    I turned around and was met with a dozen grizzled men, weapons drawn, looking to their captain in disbelief that he had been bested by the young, scrawny boy.


    “You’re done,” said Ozzlop. “Even with a mystical sword, you can’t beat all of us. For we are the Raiders of Choras!”


    “Hooo-ah!” the men yelled in response, and the captain smiled as I backed away from him. The group quickly formed a circle around me, bloodlust in their eyes, as if they couldn’t wait to tear me limb from limb.


    “Show them who you are,” said Lyra, quietly. “My power is yours, Mati.”


    I nodded and felt a surge of Lyra’s energy flow into my body. So many times over the years, I had let her guide me as I fought off the evils of the Nine Dominions. True, it was my body that swung the sword, that had killed an innumerable number of demons, creatures, and horrible men and women, but it was her will that had directed all of it. I was a conduit for the trapped girl in the sword who needed me to free her. In this moment, though, it would be up to me, to use all that I had learned watching Lyra.


    And I liked those odds.


    In the end, I was surprised at how easy it was. The men were strong, but mostly untrained, and incredibly undisciplined. They had no tactics other than rushing me all at once. Half of them fell to their compatriot’s blades as I deftly maneuvered around the now-bloodied clearing. Those that challenged me one-on-one had slightly more success, but compared to the power of Lyra and Hauteclere that I wielded, they were like flies against a swatter.


    Finally, it was down to just me and Ozzlop. You would have thought that seeing all of his men die in quick succession would have humbled him. But he remained arrogant until the very end.


    “You … you’re a monster,” he said, as he tried one last desperate charge against me. But that too was in vain, and I ended his life with a clean slice through his abdomen.


    Exhausted, I dropped Hauteclere to the ground, the strain of two huge battles in one day finally catching up to me. But then I felt one last bit of energy from Lyra emanate from the sword, and it made it all worth it.


    “My hero,” she said sweetly in my ears, and I felt my face go red, before passing out.


    <hr>


    The elder village librarian was only too happy to part with the Pergamon fragment after I showed him the copious ledgers and correspondence between the captain and the bandits that had been neatly organized in a dusty chest in the corner of the armory.


    “You have freed us from a great evil,” the man said, as I set out from the town gate. The stench of the dead bodies of what had been the town guard filled the air, and I didn’t envy whoever would be tasked with cleaning up this mess.


    “Two great evils,” I corrected. “I wish I could stay and help protect you, but I have a greater mission calling me. Find the good that dwells among you, and teach them to be strong.”


    “That is a tall order,” said the man. “There are few left here who can wield a weapon. What will we do when someone new comes along to harm us?”


    I reached into my satchel, pulled out a bundle of herbs, and handed it to him.


    “Should that happen, burn these in the town square. And I will return here within the day to help.”


    “Thank you,” the elder said. “I hope it never comes to that, but we are counting on you if it does.”


    Two gatherings of villagers were clustered near the gate as I approached. Several small children came up to give me hugs. The wives of the corrupt guardsmen stood opposite and spat at my feet as I passed. I knew better than to be baited to action, but some in the other group had no such qualms.


    “Your husbands helped terrorize our town, you stupid bitches!” one young woman said as she hurled a rock across the thoroughfare.


    I tapped some of Lyra’s blessing and sliced the projectile in half before it could hit its target, causing the rock thrower to yell out in anguish.


    “This town has seen enough violence,” I said to the woman. “You must learn to forgive if you are to truly heal. Can you do that for me?”


    She nodded, and I wiped away the stream of tears on her cheek before walking through the gate. Just before I reached the top of the hill overlooking the town, I looked back down and wondered whether she would keep her word. I was but one boy with a magic sword standing against a land filled with evil and monsters.


    “Where to next, my heart?” said Lyra, breaking the silence, a note of honey and cinnamon in her bodiless voice.


    I stopped dead in my tracks.


    Sensing my hesitancy, she continued.


    “Do you not like it when I call you that?”


    “I … it’s no secret how I feel about you,” I said. “I’ve felt that way for a long time. Maybe since the first time you spoke to me from the depths of Anidem Cave where I found you. I didn’t ask for your love in return. Just that maybe-”


    “Mati,” said Lyra, and it was as if she was somehow reaching her arms around me in a warm embrace. “We have journeyed together for so long. You have sacrificed so much for me. You have shown a depth of caring I thought was lost in this world. Even after doing so much for that town, you still tried to help on your way out. How could I not love you? Never doubt it for a second.”


    “Thank you,” I said, as I choked up. “I love you, too.”


    “Then we are in agreement!” she said with a laugh that made the sword reverberate. “Come on now, it is time we unite the fragments and find the last Crystal. And then, when I am finally free, I will show you just how much I love you.”