Her limbecks dried of poison

[Drowble Oh Seven]

The orogs believe that swords have souls.

It is a belief that drow snort at; that draws muted laughter and casual disdain. But not from her. She knows the orogs are right.

There are two of them; these weapons she has made, and they hang from the lines above her bedroll like bats from the ship’s ropes, darksteel glinting like the dread mother’s eyes. They are different as only siblings can be. One; impossibly thin and delicate as a nightmare, so fragile that she fears her anxious breath will break it. The other, short and squat and ugly as a half-orc’s rage.

Both are fresh-born and fragile as her hopes. Both are darksteel; bought at exorbitant price from the slaver’s barge before she turned from Andunor, coaxed to flow by the sixteen runes she has etched upon them in her life’s blood. It has left her dizzy and weary as she has not been since she was a child; and so she staggers for her waterskin and curses the weakness of her body, and prays that her enemies do not choose this cycle to devour her.

They do not; and with each cycle, the blades grow. With each cycle, the ship presses deeper into the black of the oceans beneath the earth. Soon Andunor is a smear in the distance. Soon after it is not even that.

When all is quiet she closes her eyes and lies beneath them.

Sometimes, she thinks she hears their hearts beat.