Shield

By now, I had a nice set of armor that I was learning to use and a good weapon. I learned some things, but not everything by this time.

You may be wondering about time, which I will again say is irrelevant. But, I know the human obsession, so I’ll oblige a little. We really didn’t track time very close, or our ages. We did talk about how many seasons we’d lived through, but this wasn’t the same as the seasons you use here. We had only two real seasons, which I mentioned earlier. Either warm or snow, or wet or dry. There were transitions, but we didn’t call them seasons as you do on Earth.

If you were born in the warm season, you counted that as your first season, and the next warm season as your second. And so on, and so on. How many seasons did we live? Well, that depends. Some only lived a couple seasons, some lived several hundred. I lived several hundred. I had finished my castle around my season three hundred. Maybe a little later. My travels made it difficult to track. My time ended within fifty seasons of that date. My time in my first life anyway.

Now, you may be asking, or thinking, about the number of days in a season. We didn’t track those. Or couldn’t. Our gods liked to change the number of days and nights on a whim, or so it seemed. Long nights, long days. Sometimes, a long night would create a snow season, and a long day a warm season. A long day in the middle of a snow season could create two snow seasons in a short time.

Time was as irrelevant then as it is now.

Back to my shield. It was a lovely shield. It would reflect any light directed its way with absolute perfection. That wasn’t the way I found it, of course. As with the armor, it was a dull black when I found it.

There’s a voice in the back of my mind now, reminding me who really found my shield. It was my horse. He’ll never let me forget that truth. Name? I really don’t mention his name, primarily because it’s about as boring as mine. Considering the speed of my horse, and his ties to my mother. Moon Racer. See, boring. I could find a language that gives it flare in English, but it will be boring in that language. So, he’s a horse.

By this time, I’d been with my horse for a few seasons. He was still flesh and blood at this time. More on that later. He had learned to hold my legs behind his winglets to keep me from falling off as he walked high in the air. Usually, and thankfully, this was high enough to get into my own flying form. It took me some time to find my horse after that first transformation. Don’t know why he was so spooked.

This type of horse absolutely hated riding gear. So, all controls were verbal. Or thought, to be more accurate. And, they were more requests that control. He was quite smart for a horse, rivaling some humans I’ve met in the more recent past. And telepathic.

Because of some of our mishaps, we regularly trained high in the mountains in the eastern part of Drak-Bahr’s Boulders. Above the water. These mountains jutted out into the ocean and were inhabited mainly by furry creatures and very few sentient beings. Those that were there were typically hiding for some crime, or lost. So, it made a nice place we could practice without anyone knowing.

There were also many caves in these mountains. Some of the caves were more like tunnels, and led through the mountain. These were great for practicing flying as well. The bigger ones, anyway.

It always seems that caves were home to creatures that didn’t want to let you be. This was unfortunate. Most of the time, it was a bear-like creature or a cat-like creature. But, sometimes, it was a large creature that was almost sentient. And other times, it was a sentient creature that was in the criminal realm.

What constituted a crime on my world? Thievery was well tolerated, to a modest extent. If you stole something needed, or all of something, that wasn’t tolerated. But, a trinket or dagger wasn’t usually something we worried about. Harm to another person wasn’t well tolerated. Undeserved harm, let’s clarify. If someone picked a fist fight with you and you brought out a dagger, you and your dagger wouldn’t be tolerated. The guy picking the fight would be. Generally, fist fights could be used to solve most grievances. Assuming both parties agreed.

On to the more severe crimes, like murder. Not tolerated. These are the ones that would get you tracked down. There were many crimes in this category, including rape, attacking with a weapon, harming a child or defenseless person, or one of many things I’m sure you can think of.

Money crimes weren’t overly common. There were some that were extremely greedy, but money wasn’t central to your ability to survive. Then, there were magic crimes. These were not well tolerated. At all. You could heal someone that was injured, but if you wove the wrong strands and caused damage, you were not well liked, and usually cast as a criminal.

For any crime, you could declare yourself in the wrong and work your way to freedom, usually through some sort of agreement consisting of labor or money. I wouldn’t say crime was rampant, but there were plenty of bounties available for someone like me to make a few coin.

What does this have to do with a shield? Everything. As we were training in the eastern mountains, we came across a tunnel that was too small for flight. We had no real reason to be here, but my horse insisted. He kept saying someone was in trouble here. I didn’t believe him, but sometimes humoring someone’s belief is the better humor of the day.

This was a long tunnel, and you wouldn’t guess it was a tunnel for the first few days of travel. Yes, days. We had plenty of food for forty meals, but we were nearly out of food before we left the tunnel. There were no game animals in that particular tunnel. But, now I skipped over the part about a shield and a damsel in distress.

In the center of this tunnel was a large lake, complete with shacks, boats, and an island. I’m sure that sounds strange to read. Now, think how strange that felt. There was even a hanging light that looked very much like a sun. Just not as bright. I could see fish in the lake. And, there were definitely people living here. And, no, I don’t consider fish to be proper food. They stink.

My horse kept saying there was someone in trouble. I check my bag, but it was empty. Horse sense. I climbed on his back and laid towards his neck. Maybe a floating horse wouldn’t attract too much attention if there wasn’t a visible rider.

Wrong.

There was someone in distress. Me. The inhabitants of this place were living, but not really. They worshipped the sun god, but not the one that lit the entirety of Drak-Bahr’s Boulders. They worshipped the sun god that ruled the land under the land. Yeah, that one. My mace was talking quite rapidly at this time. There was no connection to the moon. My armor moaned in horror.

Then, my horse spotted the damsel. In the middle of the island. There was no way I was going to win a large battle here, but maybe I could rescue the girl. I was hoping it was a real girl at this point. It wasn’t. Much better, really.

You see, this damsel wasn’t really a person. Or a truly living thing. It was the same magical entity as my armor and weapon. They had voices and some sentience, but they really weren’t living. It was my shield. Shifted into the shape of a damsel in distress. It truly was in distress, as the things around it were trying to alter its magic to match their own. It was surrounded by wizards. Kinda. This was going to hurt.

Long story short, our plan was to climb as high as we could and swoop down as fast as we could to just grab the damsel. Don’t worry, we weren’t going to remove any arms. We use magic to grab people when flying, usually from my mace or a net. One of these wasn’t working and feeling dreadful, so we had to stop when we got to the ground. I never said magic maces weren’t without their faults.

After a few fireballs and lightning strikes, for lack of a better description, we were back in the air. Mostly. My horse decided that he’d take off without me at the first fireball. It was mine. I did manage to grab the damsel in one hand and the rear leg of my horse with the other. This, was my graceful exit.

Thankfully, my shield recognized that I didn’t have infinite strength and transformed into its normal size and shape.

What’s so special about this shield, aside from its ability to look like a person? Well, pretty much everything. For its normal size, it was about the same as my breast armor. And, in fact, that’s where you’d find it under most circumstances, attached to my breast armor. When I needed a shield on my arm, I simply slid my left hand under the edge and it crawl onto my gauntlet and attach itself there. No, it didn’t go for my arm piece, it liked the back of the gauntlet better. Damsels aren’t worth arguing with.

It was triangular in shape, almost like Earth’s baseball diamond, with the tip facing down. It matched itself to my armor at will, and emblazoned itself with a crescent moon at most times. It would even add a silhouette of an eagle most times. When it wanted.

As you would expect, its effectiveness wasn’t in the physical realm. It would stop most physical attacks, as you’d expect from a shield, but it was more delighted to show off its magical abilities. Which it tied to my mother. They met shortly after we left the tunnel.

After that meeting, I had another flashlight without an off switch. But, it could also produce an ethereal wall. Big wall. It wouldn’t last very long, but long enough to stop an arrow barrage from hitting friends. If I stuck it in the ground, which it seemed to enjoy, it would tell everyone in the vicinity of any movement. Even your own. It would also throw small rocks at scurrying creatures to keep them away. That was nice.

And, it did have a nice trick that wasn’t defensive. That crescent moon? It was a weapon. Anytime I asked, it would launch that moon at whatever target I’d chosen. Similar to the moon launching from my mace, but different. Its explosion would engulf an area and incinerate anything under that small shell. About a man’s height above the ground, and a man’s height diameter on the ground. It wouldn’t hurt grass or timber, just the formerly living objects.

I’m sure there’ll be more stories with my shield, but, for now, that’s where my shield came from. Kinda. I still don’t know who crafted it.