Galar still remembered the now-legendary day of the Hust Resupply, the huge wagons lumbering out of the dust clouds and the moaning and lowing that filled the air – sounds the battered troop of Borderswords believed were coming from the burdened oxen, only to discover that the terrible cries came not from beasts, but from the weapons nestled in their wooden crates. He recalled his own horror when he was summoned to exchange his blade, when he set down his worn, scarred sword and took in hand the new Hust weapon. It had shrieked at his touch, a deafening peal that seemed to drag talons down all the bones of his body.

It had been a son of Hust Henarald himself who had given him the weapon, and as the cry abruptly fell off, its echo a ringing clangour in Galar’s skull, the young weaponsmith had nodded and said, ‘Well pleased by your touch, captain, but be warned, this is a jealous sword – the most powerful ones are, we have found.’

Galar was unsure whether to thank the weaponsmith or not. Some gifts proved curses. Yet the weapon’s weight suited the strength of his arm, and in his grip it felt like an extension of his own bones, his own muscles.

‘There is no such thing,’ the weaponsmith went on, ‘as an unbreakable sword, though Abyss knows we have tried. Captain, listen well, for the words I now speak are known to only a few. We struggled in the wrong battle against the wrong enemy. All iron has limits to its flexibility, its endurance: these are true laws. I cannot guarantee that your new sword will not break, though it is of such power that no mortal blade is likely ever to shatter it edge to edge; nor could any swing or thrust you manage make the weapon fail you. Yet, should it ever break, captain, abandon not the sword. There are many knuckles in the Heartline, you see. Many.’

At the time he had known nothing about ‘knuckles’ or ‘Heartlines’. Such knowledge came later, when the secrets of the Hust swords became his obsession. He thought now that he understood the significance of these knuckles, and though he had yet to witness, or even hear of, a Hust sword breaking, he believed that a miracle was buried in each blade, an expression of sorcery unlike any other.

Hust swords were alive. Galar Baras was convinced of this, and he was hardly alone in that opinion. Not one soldier in the Hust Legion believed otherwise. Urusander’s soldiers were welcome to mock and make their snide remarks. It had been the Hust mines that had been a Forulkan primary target in their invasion, and it had been a stand by the south Borderswords that had preserved them. Hust Henarald had shown his gratitude in the only way he could.