The Blacksmith

Brambles tear at our clothes as we follow a river deeper into the Thicket. Passing by a low waterfall, we discover a tragic sight: the bleached skeleton of a man who died in combat, his bones a meal of white within his armour.

As we pause to honour the dead, we see that the knight’s broken sword points to a nearby tree. Upon the bark, runes have been roughly etched: his last message to the world. The runes tell his story — that this knight came to the Elder Wood to duel a man who challenged his honour, only for his sword to snap at the first blow.

His story puts us in mind of an old proverb: “Buy no sword from the smith who makes many, but buy many from the smith who makes few.”