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Duty
My purse is heavy.
I force myself to imagine the clinking silver, the jostling copper.
My stallion heaves beneath me, tossing his head wildly. His mane flows fluidly in the frigid air, like quicksilver in an alchemist’s vial. I see them ahead; several dusty shapes, swarming uncontrollably. I glance to the right and to the left; my companions glare forward. They are wordless, unshaken. Their faces are stone. Their horses are boisterous. Their gazes are steadfast. Unbroken.
I grip my sword tightly. Squeezing the hilt, I will the blood to flow back into the desiccated veins of my hand. My knuckles are red. Raw. Bitten by winter’s growing chill. My horse breathes heavily, the drum of his heart matching the drum of his hooves. Each hoof-beat casts a swirling plume of dust into the air. My horse’s sinewy muscles are mechanical, like the motions of the miller’s wheel. His eyes are bloodshot. My eyes are watery.
The cold of the air seeps into my nostrils, chapping the fleshy lungs hidden deep beneath my tunic. The scent of Christ’s Mass is on the wind. The trees are skeletons, standing tall like crucified victims. Their flesh is crusted. Dry. Christ’s Mass is on the wind. It smells of decay.
My purse bounces at my hip. I catch my drifting thoughts; I force them back to the metal in my bag. It is heavy, hanging from my belt.
The forms ahead of me begin to take shape. First arms. Then legs. They almost blur in their haste.
Duty defines us. Duty makes us. What are we without our duty?
We are nothing.
My duty is to the sword. Vow-breakers die by it.
The shapes are fully-formed now. Peasants hurtling over one another, their piercing yelps betraying their mortal fear. These runaways had been easy to track down. They were slowed down by the sick. By the women.
My purse is heavy. Silver. Copper.
Some of the peasants whirl around in terror, frozen in fear. They are like the skeletal trees, unmoving, their hands thrown over their faces. They are the trees. We are the woodcutters.
It is my duty.
My companions press harder. I keep pace. I see a sword raised high in the corner of my eye. I hear a squeal, and then a wet sound. The same sound the cook makes when he carves the pork for Christ’s Mass feast.
How heavy it feels on my hip.
I see a woman break free from the convulsing mob. A comrade veers off after her, his horse snarling violently.
Copper.
A man with a leather cap trips, and tumbles into a bedraggled mess. My stallion bears down on him, instinctively.
Silver.
His eyes are white with terror. My sword is made of lead. I wrench it high above the iron cap that rests atop my skull. It too, is made of lead.
I let the sword fall. My hand still clenches it.
My purse is heavy.