The Sword That Does Not bleed
A Snap-Fiction Story
By Micah Siemens
The blade found him before he saw the hand that held it.
There was no flash of steel, no dramatic arc—only a sudden resistance in his body, as though something essential had been interrupted. The pain arrived a breath later, cold and deliberate, spreading inward rather than outward. He staggered back across the broken stone of the Breachlands, clutching at his side, but his fingers came away almost clean. No blood soaked his palm. That frightened him more than blood ever could.
The agent of the Umbric Accord withdrew the sword smoothly, already turning away as shouts rose from behind. The man’s face was familiar—too familiar. He wore the colors of the Marshal’s forces, bore their sigil on his cloak, spoke their cadence when he shouted orders that sent others rushing past. But now his eyes were hollow, disciplined in a way that did not belong to them anymore. The blade in his hand hummed faintly, as if satisfied.
“You should have stayed back,” the agent said, not unkindly, and vanished into the smoke and confusion.
Then Bram collapsed against a slab of exposed bone rising from the earth like a bleached rib. The pain deepened. It was not sharp now, but structural, as though something inside him had cracked and was being slowly pried apart. Each breath felt thinner than the last, not weaker, but less anchored. He pressed his forehead to the stone and waited to be finished—by the enemy or by his own failure, he could not tell which.
When the old man’s shadow fell across him, he almost did not notice.
“You were cut to the marrow,” the old man said, kneeling beside him.
His voice was steady. Concerned. With a touch of grief on his face.
The old man worked without asking permission, laying Bram flat, cutting away torn armor, pressing a hand near the wound. At his touch, the pain shifted again—not easing, but more focused, as if it had found words. Bram gasped.
“Don’t,” he muttered. “It’s… it’s not like other wounds.”
“I know,” the old man said. “That is why I am here.”
He drew a thin vial from his coat and poured its contents slowly along the cut. The liquid sank into the flesh without shine or steam, leaving behind a faint warmth that steadied Bram’s breathing.
“You encountered one of the Accord’s listeners,” the old man continued. “They favor blades like that. So do we.”
Bram turned his head weakly. “Then why—”
“Why does it hurt?” the old man finished. “Because you still belong to the Marshal.”
That answer settled over him like a weight.
The old man bound the wound carefully, tightening the cloth with precision. He did not hurry. He did not apologize. When he was done, he sat back on his heels and studied Bram’s face.
“You were not where you were ordered to be,” he said.
The words were quiet, but they struck harder than the blade had.
“I was guarding the rear,” Bram said. “I was told—”
“You were told to advance with the line when it moved,” the old man replied. “And when the captives were taken east, you stayed where the ground felt safer.”
Bram clenched his jaw. “Someone had to hold.”
“Yes,” the old man said. “And someone had to go.”
Silence stretched between them, filled by distant sounds of battle. The old man’s gaze never hardened, but it did not soften either. It waited.
“You swore a vow,” the old man said at last. “Do you remember it?”
The words stirred something deep and aching. Bone-memory. He nodded.
“To submit humbly to the Marshal’s command,” the old man continued. “Not in word. Not in posture. In movement.”
“I obey,” Bram said quickly. “I’ve always obeyed.”
The old man tilted his head slightly. “You have honored the shape of the vow,” he said. “But shape alone does not carry life.”
He reached behind him and drew his sword partway from its sheath. The steel caught no light. It did not gleam. It seemed to absorb the air around it. The faint hum returned, low and constant.
“Bone,” the old man said, tapping the flat of the blade with two fingers, “is what holds. Marrow is what moves. The vow can remain unbroken and still be dying.”
Bram swallowed. The pain in his side pulsed in agreement.
“You fear this sword,” the old man said, sliding it fully free. “Not because it can kill you. But because it cannot be fooled.”
He met Bram’s eyes now, and something ancient passed between them—recognition, perhaps. Or warning.
“An enemy has no bone left to protect,” the old man said. “Only surface and intention. The blade glides over them. But you—” He tightened the binding just enough for the pain to sharpen. “You still carry a vow. The sword feels that. It follows the line of what you promised and measures what flows through it. Where the marrow is thin, it burns. Where desire is divided, it cuts deeper.”
The old man released the cloth and leaned back.
“The Accord fears this blade because it exposes them,” he said softly. “You fear it because it exposes yourself.”
The sword hummed again as he turned it in his hand.
“That is why it wounds the us more cleanly,” the old man finished. “And why it can still save them.”
He extended the hilt.
Bram stared at it. The weight of the thing seemed already present in his arms, his chest, his bones. He thought of the captives, bound somewhere beyond the Breachlands, held not by chains but by promises they had been forced to make. He thought of the Marshal—of the calm certainty in the orders given, the expectation that obedience would cost something real.
“If I take it,” he said, “I’ll have to go forward.”
“Yes.”
“And if I wield it wrong—”
“It will turn on you,” the old man said, without hesitation. “As it should.”
Bram reached out and took the sword.
It was heavier than it looked, not in mass, but in consequence. The hum settled into his hands, traveled up his arms, rested behind his ribs. The pain in his side flared, then steadied, as if acknowledging a decision.
He did not draw the blade.
Not yet.
“I don’t trust myself,” he said.
The old man nodded once. “Good.”
The battle sounds were shifting now—closer to the east. Toward the Accord’s territory. Toward the captives.
Bram rose carefully to his feet, leaning into the weight of the sword at his side. The wound burned, but it held. Bone intact. Marrow stirred—thin, perhaps, but not gone.
He took one step forward.
Then another.
Behind him, the old man remained kneeling, watching, grieving, hoping.
Ahead of him lay the line he had avoided.
And between them, a blade that would not let him pretend.
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