The Runesmith’s Ruined Rug

A Saga at Realm’s Rim Prologue

By Tempest

If they'd forsaken their way, they'd have survived the coming of day. Alas, when the sun rose, all were bathed in resplendent, warming radiance. It washed over them and burned away their heresies and barbarities.

To Adgar it was the same pious ramblings madmen always used to justify the bloodshed. If he'd forsaken his way like some others, he couldn't have defended his home now. The parchment drifted forgotten in the crimson pool staining his father's rug. An old thing. That rug had survived more tragedies than Arnalt. Speaking of… "Arnie!"

Somewhere a man begged for his life. Screaming. Gasping. Silent. The old soldier was still standing then.

"Arnalt! Are there more of them?" His shout boomed in his helm, threatening his future hearing. Sure, I didn't have enough problems in that department… "Arnalt!"

"Don't shit yer britches yet, brother!" The salt and pepper locs of the haggard seamster were speckled with glistening red beads. "If you can find another, I wouldn't mind taking the blood price for that fuckin' rug…"

He'd pointed at Adgar's scene of carnage. Oh Erona… Sorry for the mess…

His heart sank as he gazed across a once beautiful family room filled with expertly carved oak. The fine seating chairs were soaked in scarlet. Erona would sing to Azra there. Simple material, shaped by a master, draped in gore. Tainting his memories. Five full suits of plate scattered splintered furnishings.

All of them had smoking runes scorched into a piece of armor. One was encased against the far wall by penetrating spikes of pink ice. All erupted from within. One was still smoking from the gaps at joint and visor. The flames hadn't escaped the suit, as the wearer had so clearly failed to do. One had been skewered by every sword in the room. Whether they were wall mounted, affixed in scabbard, or clenched tight in lobstered steel gauntlets, each and all had plunged through plate, chain, and padding until the hilts met the shell he'd depended on for salvation. Only the Great Blade of the Rune Smith had been neglected in the metallic pincushion man.

Adgar had switched to fist and rune ignition after he'd gutted the first man in the room, and vertically bisected the second. The massive length of steel was singularly powerful, true, but he'd have brought the roof onto his brother and the babe in the other room.

"I learned my art from that fuckin' rug. It's worth more than your armor."

The steel scraped and the grand blade rested comfortably in the huge back sheath, "Well, if the runes still burn, read them. Meet me by the water, I'll get Azra." He boomed from within his hulking mass of blue plate, engraved with golden runes.

"They'll burn you ignorant shit…" he grumbled, deftly stepping on every unblemished piece of board. Adgar had thought there wouldn't be enough for it, but he knew Arnalt would leave no red trail. Shame that Adgar didn't rightly care about such.

His lumbering foot falls quivered the wall hangings. A subtle gasp halted him before he'd touched the florally carved nursery door. He hung there for a heartbeat.

"D-don't you dare! I'll knife the babe if you open that door!" The voice was thin, quavering, and just low enough in pitch to distinguish it from a woman's shriek.

How to handle this… "If you harm that child…" He growled low, activating a vibration rune just left of the vertical slit in his helm. His words passed through that rune, and each syllable buzzed through the plate. The low words rumbled from his whole suit at once, "... you'll be pulled apart… inch by inch."

The magnificently crafted door sent a nostalgic melancholy up his spine as it splintered apart. No time to mourn Erona’s sacrifice. In the corner, a shaking boy in dented plate with peeling gilding held a cheap dagger to his baby's supple throat. His baby's throat… "Get out or she dies!" The lad screamed.

He considered igniting a radial heating rune, targeting metals, and boiling him in his armor. It would take too long, and the dagger would burn the child.

Adgar imagined himself quite the fearful sight. He blocked the wreckage of the door, allowing his helm to break free the boards above the threshold. His armor warned in a booming whisper, "If that child comes to any harm at all… Your pathetic existence becomes a cautionary tale told to frighten other babes for a thousand generations."

The boy couldn't be blamed for his craven heart. The bravest man would quake in that cramped space, with that metal giant who spoke distant thunder that filled the room, and filled the mind.

He flinched, the blade scraping the gentle skin for the length of an eye. The glistening blade left a red line before the ornate black and silver weave twisted around it. It wrapped its way up his wrist before his shocked yelp could take shape. Adgar was unsurprised.

Arnalt's scarf was anchored to his hand on the opposite end of a small portal wreathed in flame, "You're forestalling our flight, squire!" The silver threads gave an orange glow. They contracted. The blade twisted toward the heavens, punching through the hybrid cloth, skewering a smoking symbol. He released every ounce of fear and grief a man could hold as each bone from fingertip to elbow twisted and splintered through the flesh.

Azra finally cried as they were dropped. The hulking Rune Knight pinched the thick swaddling cloth. The dented young man was dragged from his feet with a yelp by the mystic scarf. Sheltering the baby, Adgar finally released his rage as his fingers wrenched the massive blade from his back. One smooth motion, no burning runes, a deep gash through the ceiling, and a rolling head.

The timbers groaned an omnipresent wail as they dropped on and around him.

Burning a chain of runes wrapping his greaves, shielding the fragile crying bundle with bracers and breastplate, the hulking mass of steel bounded high above this ruined work of art, he’d called home for such a short time. Splinters and stone chips fled from his ascent and showered back down as he peaked above treetops. A blinding flash from distant clouds glinted blue as he hung in the air for the slightest moment. The thunderclap masked the crushing impact into damp soil. It sucked at his boots as he stomped through it up to a sturdy dock.

The ship, a cutter, rocked with his weight. Placing his child snug in a secure basket filled with cushions. Normally, he’d untie the line from the dock, but time was short just then. He shattered the dock, grasped the piling, twisted it from the bottom of the river bank, and yanked it from the waters. After lifting anchor, he used the long pole to push away from his home.

Something stung in his eyes as he watched the smoke billow from Erona’s last surviving works; of course, with the exception of Azra: her most beautiful creation.

He pulled the line, tied it down, and watched the sail fill and go taut. Unfolding a parchment from a hip pouch, he grumbled to himself, “Always running from gilded insects…”

The page folded out larger than a normal scroll or poster, and fell to the deck. The written rune sparked, glowed, and ignited. From the flame, several satchels erupted, smoking. The same smoke of the Amosi hall chased Arnalt from the flames just before Adgar upended a bucket of fresh water.

Slapping the flames from his rune lined and silver woven cloak, while tightening his arcane scarf, “Fuckin’ wait three seconds more than your gut implies, brother.”

“And let the flames take the deck from us? That eager for a drowning, or hoping to burn?”

“Just some scorching. Since when do you fear the dragon’s touch?” He stepped to the helm. Cables of copper connected to coins of iron with the same rune etched in each dangle from the spokes of the helm. They chimed together as he adjusted the rutters to angle away from the shore. The coins had small leather straps wrapped around the wire where it met the coins. This had no runes, but rather, Mindilic writing scorched into them. He gently held one labeled propulsion, whispered under his breath, and the rune lit up bright. The wire scorched into the wood, winding across the deck, up the mast, and into the large steel plate. A much larger rune burned and gusted hot air into the sails. The cutter lurched forward.

Adgar took a last look at his late wife's last works, and the snaking column that issued from it. He etched a promise into his heart as they sliced through the wide river. He'd protect her final legacy with all he could conjure.

Oh, Erona…

Azra will be safe.