Legends of Belariath

Roquai

Urma Gets a Package

Urma had a package. Bards were Belariath's couriers, which is why mail circulating through the Mudcrab Swamp rarely makes it to the desired location. Imagine the surprise of our 8 foot, bulky, musculature friend when she had a neat and elongated bundle tucked beside her face this morning, as if the deliverer put their parcel to bed with her.

Urma sniffed it, shook it, and rapped it on a stone table before deeming it as safe and fair for the taking. She ripped off the burlap coat and then the white sheet beneath that, and the black sheet beneath that. When all the unpacking was done, the bundle had shrunk from something bigger then a human's arm to something suspiciously smaller. Peeling back the final layer of cloth wrapping swept Urma's doubts away in a flash flood of confusion and remembrance, but be assured that the flood left teeming pools of the stuff behind. This troll has killed too many kobolds to let her guard down as readily as most do.

Calmly, collectively, she set the long white blade down in the shredded multicolored cushion of its former protective parchment. The chill from the weapon was... familiar.

The white mithril was cold. She knew that much feeling the metal through the course dyed burlap. And it had no sheen. Its luster remained, now and forever, at a steady mark of zero. That was because it was covered in a dusty coat of frost that ate and refracted the light that illuminated it. Urma had not shed the total length of the sword, so the hilt was still wrapped and tied by a knotted leather band. From this band, she could see, was a thin section of parchment. There was the stain of flowing blue ink of both sides of the ivory weave, and by a very precise, very excited hand. Urma reached for it undauntedly and yanked it out of place, jilting the weapon as it lay on the table.

This was Sosio's exotic accent, and she recognized it immediately despite never once having seen the man with a quill in his hand. She began reading what she assumed was the proper side of the parchment. The indigo ink smelled strongly of blood and, as odd as Sosio's tastes may range, flowers.

”Keep Nola close. Do not expect her to return to you after she is lost, as I did. Although she may as many times as needed until either you of she have become dull and feeble with age, every brush with infirmity she takes will make her edges less sharp and her aim less true. For every night she wanders her loyalty is diminished. Keep your hand on the hilt, Troll, and do not bifurcate from that favor.

'While on the advice of edges, and because you haven't noticed yet, she has two of them. In our short correspondence I have noted that you lack the courage to wield a sword with both sides sharpened. If you show your lack of confidence to Nola then her bite will find your neck for each time you stay your thrust and withhold the killing blow. She is your protector and servant, and knows her role in battle as superfluously as anyone ever will. Do not betray her or I with your errant ways. Stay Brave”

Urma has had a frown on her face since she finished the last sentence. The text breaks of suddenly, as a long scar of ink trails to and over the frayed edge of the page.

This sword was familiar, all right. It had only saved her life a dozen times while under the skillful use of another. It flayed skin and cleaved muscle like a sword both twice as heavy and sharp as it appeared to be - when not being swung by its Master. Under Sosio's unwavering battle stance, the sword has never failed him when he remained true to it... Or to her, rather. Urma had never thought of the sword as a female, or giving it a name. But she couldn't deny it of a name it was already given, could she?...

Urma the troll's thoughts stopped their meandering when a cool draft rolled over her feet. She clutched the letter in her hand and squinted at the sword. If it had eyes it might have squinted back, said a notion foreign to Urma's routinely insight-less thinking. With a slight shiver crawling up her spine, she turned the piece of milky colored parchment and read the backside.

”Your punishment (Our troll sneered critically at the word, partly out of a dormant fear in the back of her brain that didn't want to be discovered.), if you choose to misuse her, will be terrible. You have felt my whip in many instances of all kinds, and I have the proud pronouncing marks of your teeth on my body, but my imagination and penchant for torture is subjected to ignorant trolls as much as any race. Nola will tell me, and I will know, one way or the other, if you mar the pure foulness of her body.

'… I have rambled. This is the end of what was to be a “note” and is now a letter. Nola is my gift to you, Urma. My companion through youth, most trust worthy mate, a mutual leech, as it may be and you will understand in time. Cherish her and she will return your simple praise. Keep the blade clean and she will stay swift forever…

Power befell your allies, Pain befall your foes,

S-V-“

The man's name was illegible, a garbled mixture of gibberish letters that looked like a breed between erudite and Dark Elf and Common and whatever else seemed to be on his mind at the moment. Urma licked her top row of teeth, skimming over the reverse side of the letter once more. She then took out the knot above Nola's hilt, disrobing it completely as the crumpled fabric fell away, and took the golden grip in her hand.

She moved with the letter held delicately in two fingers and the sword in the other. Urma kept the tip of the white blade at the height of her shoulder and no lower. Intimidation was an eerie sensation for any troll, and Urma was fighting hard to repress it right now, a chilly and unnatural draft flowing over her hand and wrist.

Urma stood beside a sconce filled with flaming embers. She brought the sword about face; not at all cautious about bringing it near her nose as Sosio both warned and suggested to do in his uniquely skewed way. She then took the letter and stabbed it over the tip of the blade, letting it sink several inches, dividing both fluid paragraphs on both sides. Our troll brought the letter and sword tip to the grate of the iron sconce, and stopped.

She thought about how many times she's used her own crude scimitar as a meat skewer. She considered how much more mehrial that this sword alone would purchase her if she heckled it away in the East Commons. Urma knew right away that this sword was worth more then in her life in many ways, and that she would never part with it. She knew there were questions to his gift, such as “Why?” that he utterly avoided answering. She knew that they didn't matter.

She looked back, the sword still hovering inches from the open flames, checking for its scabbard. There was none. The troll's gentle and ungodly strong hand plucked the letter from the tip of the blade and dropped it into the small pot's orifice, a wave of heat licking her thumb and palm.

Shaking out her hand as the sweet musky scent of burning burlap fibers permeated the small sleeping chamber, she walks through the open door and towards the smithy to find a clean, unused scabbard for her new best friend.

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