Lifting the weapon up before him, Lann pulled the sword free of the scabbard, staring down at the black metal of the blade. He could see. He could see the world again, and the realisation filled him with a happiness that was so great, tears immediately obscured his newly returned vision. Wiping them away, he lifted the blade up towards his face, holding the thing point up. A noise, a long-drawn-out sigh, filled his ears and he was forced to clamp his eyes shut as a thousand images flashed through his mind so quickly they became a blur. The sword showed him glimpses of battles it had been used in, armour it had rent, blood it had spilt, souls it had drunk. The terrible images tainted Lann’s happiness with fear as the weight of responsibility and power he’d accepted finally dawned on him.

Along with the images came a voice, and Lann had little doubt it was the voice of the blade; a deep and sinister whisper in an alien language that had long since disappeared from the earth.

Ish’nukk rahhg.

He shuddered at that sound. At some deep and barely understood level he was aware the weapon was itself satisfied to be once more in the hands of a living, breathing being. He also sensed the longing it felt; a hunger to return to the thing it was forged to do – to reap the lives of the dread creatures for which it was named, creatures who had no right being in this world.

Forcing himself to calm down, he hefted the weapon in his hand, feeling its weight. It seemed to him there were strange symbols set into the dark matter of that blade, symbols that could almost be made out as he turned it this way and that in the dim light, but which always remained just too faint and indistinct.

Lannigon had no idea how long he’d stayed like that, sitting at the edge of the bed staring down at the black blade in wonder and fear, but with the first stirrings of the birds in the forest it slowly occurred to him that dawn must be approaching. He couldn’t imagine anything he would like to see more, his newly seeing eyes filling with tears at the mere thought of witnessing a dawn again.

Returning the blade to its scabbard, he strapped the thing to his waist and made his way through the dark house so he might watch the waking of the world.