Lake Lewisia #715

The words "mother told me never to pick up strange swords" squirmed just behind his teeth, but the jeers of the other boys clamped his jaw shut ever tighter around that sensible advice. It was a dagger, not a sword, embedded hilt-deep in the roughly snapped-off stump of a lightning-struck tree, at the center of the black and twisted heart, but such distinctions seemed unlikely to help in the event of a quest. He was afraid to be called a coward, somewhat more afraid of a four-on-one fight if he refused, and still more afraid of what came after one closed their hand around a weapon of unusual provenance--something on which his mother had failed to elaborate.

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LL#715