The Barbed Wire Blade

To thee who findeth this writing,
Hearken unto the tale of a blade wrought in fire and sweat, ere the fields were yet tamed.

In a dale of blackened stone, where men of hammer and tongs did labor, there was a smith hight Eadric. His hands were seamed with scars, yet steadfast, for he forged not for gold nor lord, but for the keeping of his folk.

One morn, he drew from the earth a vein of iron, coarse and sharp as the briars that tore the hides of cattle. From this hard gift he smelted ore, and in the furnace he wrought a blade strake with barbs along its spine, like the cruel fence of thorns that girded their meadows.

Men named it The Barbed Wire Blade, for no foe might grasp it barehanded, nor wrest it away without blood. It was no sword of kings, gilded or adorned, but a farmer’s wrath made steel. With it, the borders were kept, and raiders turned aside, lest their palms be riven.

Eadric lived long, yet the blade outlasted him. When his bones were dust, still the steel abided—lean, bitter, and honest. No sorcery lay therein, only the craft of fire, and the will of a man who chose toil over terror.

So it was said: a kingdom may fall, but a true blade endureth.