Grey Swordplay 3

“Haedrig. Do you have an extra sword?” I asked, turning toward the green-haired ascender.

Without a word, Haedrig withdrew a thin shortsword from his dimension ring and tossed it to me.

Grasping the handle and pulling the sword out of its sheath, I was suddenly overcome with a sense of calmness. It was a silly thing what a weapon could do, but after fighting so long with Dawn’s Ballad in my hand, I realized how much I had missed the sensation of wielding a sword.

I let out a sharp breath as I imbued aether into the sword; a fine crack appeared in the blade, leaking a subtle purple light that only I could see, and I knew it wouldn’t hold up long. Still, though the sword was simple and obviously just a spare weapon, it was perfectly balanced with a good weight on my hand.

It would do.

The world around me seemed to slow and the sounds distracting me became indistinct. My first strike seemed to confuse even the ghoul, who didn’t know what happened until it slumped and fell off the bridge.

The next series of slashes killed any and every ghoul within my reach. The sword in my hand travelled in a flurry of narrow arcs that shimmered, catching the reflection of Kalon’s fire-clad spear.

My eyes constantly scanned our surroundings, making sure none of the ghouls managed to slip by. I hoped to see some sign that the onslaught was beginning to slow, but it seemed that, if anything, the ghouls became even more desperate the more of them we killed.