[Winter Contest Entry 2022] The Garden of Blades

The Hero came to her realm in a coat of steel and dragonhide, wielding a sword forged from the Broken Mountain. He climbed out of the forest with his left leg dragging behind him, a face caked in dried blood and a gaze that made her wonder what it was in the world that was worth going to such pains for.

He was a strong man, she thought, to have worn those steel links through the tangled woods, to dare don the skin of a dragon. Dragonhide was not simply given by a dragon to a man. Dragonhide was either ripped from the dying beast itself, or stolen from the grave of a legend, or purchased from the King’s vault for a fortune and a half. Perhaps it was this strength that drew her to him, despite the ragged beard, the filthy mane, the chipped and scarred face. Then again, all the heroes who reached her realm were strong in one way or another. One did not simply stroll to the heart of the Whitewood unless they were strong.

“My lady,” the Hero said, and fell to one knee. “The tales did you no justice. You are truly as beautiful as they say.”

“Spare me your flattery,” she said. “I know what you’ve come for. Fire; Frost; tend to his wounds.”

From behind her two great wolves emerged, each as large as a forest bear, one with a mane of silver and one burning autumn. They loped down to the edge of the wood where the Hero knelt and Frost picked him up and tossed him over one shoulder. The Hero did not resist; if anything, it seemed the strength finally left him and he was sleeping before the beast returned to its master. She took one look and began the trip back to her hut, wolves trailing behind her.



Her name was Griselda, though few knew her as such. The heroes who visited her called her the Goddess of War, the Wolfmother and the Lady of the Wood. She had no mother and she had no father, and she had memories spanning so far into time that they were largely forgotten. Fire and Frost were her only companions. Heroes came and went, taking with them her knowledge, leaving nothing but emptiness and quickly-forgotten names.

The Hero took a week to recover from the trials of the Whitewood. In that time Griselda strolled through her realm with her wolves, watered her flowers, counted the leaves on the oldest oak. Her hut lay at the top of a hill overlooking a river, and sometimes fish flew out of its waters and as if hoping to fly. She caught a few with her bare hands and cooked them, experimenting with different herbs and spices in search of a flavour she had yet to taste, finding none. She tended to the Garden of Blades where swords and spears and axes had already begun to grow. A hero had asked her once how the garden worked; where the seeds came from and if they needed water and sunlight like plants did. She did not know. All she knew was how to use those weapons, and how to kill with them.

The Hero woke eventually. In that time the goddess had bathed him and shaved him and cut his hair. He looked younger now, maybe only a third of a century rather than the half-century she’d taken him to be at first. He had scars across his body as well, and deeply calloused hands, and his nose was crooked in the way that only those who had been broken and put back together could be.

“Goddess,” he said. “How long have I slept for?”

When she told him, he blanched.

“I have no time,” he murmured, and then, burning eyes affixed to hers, grabbed her by the shoulders. “Please. I need your help.”

It was always the same. Teach them the Way, the Forbidden Technique, the Blade. The heroes knew war by different names but they all wanted the same thing. To learn to kill.

She asked him why.

The reasons were the same, too. To slay a beast. To train an army. To defeat an unrivaled general. To take one’s life, whether for revenge, to save the lives of others or otherwise. She’d heard them all before, so many times that it no longer mattered, and she simply did as she was asked. Why else did she exist in this realm?

They began his training that same day, pulling a sword from the garden to spar. He was bigger and stronger, yet she bested him each time with technique. They fought from daybreak to nightfall, taking breaks only to eat and drink. They slept with each other too, of course, for the goddess was a woman as well, and she did long for the warmth of another. The Hero tried to talk to her in their downtime, but she did not entertain him. Warriors spoke through the clash of their blades.

As the days and nights passed and their steel intermingled, she learned more about him. His favourite weapon was a sword, and he erred on the side of caution. He hated killing, but he had taken up arms to protect his home. His natural talent and determination had brought him to the rank of general in the army, and now, as invaders from the north threatened their land, his King had asked him to lead them to victory. His foe was a monster, a demon, whatever they called non-humans these days, and unmatched in battle. Rumour had it that, in addition to this, it could shapeshift and take on a far more dangerous form. The enemy could and would, if unchecked, single handedly turn the tide of the battle.

Time passed, and soon the goddess’s victories became more and more strained, until the Hero himself began to win. Griselda’s realm did not follow the laws of time; the Hero did not age, nor did his hair whiten, but his strength spoke for itself. Whether it be spear or sword or bow, the Hero took everything he could from her.

On the final day, the Hero asked her.

“What if it’s not enough?”

She had never planned an end to their training, for that was not how true mastery worked. But once the question had been asked, she decided that the end had come.

She told him of her greatest technique, one that she had created yet never used—for its use would mean the loss of one’s own life. She told him by the Garden of Blades, and he nodded and understood it, for by that time he was all but her equal.

“I may have to do it,” he said. “I don’t want to, but if it means a guaranteed victory, then my life is a small price to pay.”

She asked him why. Why protecting his home meant so much to him, why he would so willingly throw away his life for such a cause. Her life had never been in danger, and in her realm she could not die, so she did not see the meaning of life. Surely life was more cherished to those who could not live it.

“I had a wife,” the Hero said. “She was the most beautiful thing ever. I loved her with every bit of my soul, and more besides.”

The goddess nodded. She had always suspected this, for their nights together had felt different to other heroes she’d met. They’d felt emptier. Not that it mattered, for no one ever stayed, and no one ever came back.

“I lost her to the enemy,” he continued, “one night when we were fleeing our home. Shot in the back with an arrow, and choked to death on her own blood. She left me a daughter, the spitting image of her mother. I left her in the care of a friend, somewhere safe. I want to go back to her, to watch her grow up and become a fine young woman, to watch her love and laugh and run and sing.”

Then why? Griselda asked. Why throw away your life so easily?

“Because none of that matters if we lose this battle. And if that’s the only way, then so be it. I’ll gladly pay the price of my life if it means she gets to experience all that, even if I’m not there to see it.”

And at that moment, she knew that he knew their time had come.

The lovemaking was more frantic that night, and even when she thought he was finished he continued. Though time did not move in her realm, the night felt long while it lasted, the silver moon like a glass orb in the sky, until the orb sank and the sun rose to take its place. She held him even then, for he was leaving her like all the other heroes had, and it would be a long, long time until another emerged from the Whitewood in search of her.

“Goodbye, goddess,” the Hero said, at the bottom of the hill where they’d first met. “Thank you for everything.”

She said nothing as her wolves circled behind her.

Time marched on once more, despite the realm being timeless. Griselda strolled through the fields with her wolves, watered her flowers and counted the leaves on the oldest oak tree. She caught fish and cooked them but did not eat them, instead throwing them to Fire and Frost. The Garden of Blades had begun to rust as it always did whenever a hero left. Emptiness filled her belly.

The Hero never returned, of course. How many was it now? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand? Men and women, children and the elderly, warriors and scholars and everything in between. When would it end? Would they come as long as there were things in the world to kill for?

A long time must have passed, for the emptiness in her belly grew until it was swollen and she realised she could no longer walk as effortlessly as she did, and that her back ached and she preferred lying down. Her wolves seemed to know—they always knew—that there was life growing within her.

Griselda did not know what to think. She’d never been in such a situation before and considered impaling herself upon one of the Garden’s rusted spears. She would recover of course, being more myth than man, but the… thing inside her would be killed. An extra mouth to feed, to look after, like her wolves when they’d first come to her garden as pups, bleeding from the cursed forest. An extra life to leech her energy, her sleep, her appetite. To play with the wolves, to talk to.

The tip of the rusted spear touched her belly and she sighed. She couldn’t do it. Fire prodded her thigh with his nose, and Frost barked.

She gave birth in her hut by herself, alone as she’d always been. Fire came inside and sniffed at the child after she lay bloodied and panting on her bed, and took him by the scruff of his neck as she went to sleep.



From that moment onwards the sacred realm became filled with the child’s cries. Griselda found out that it could not drink water or anything but milk from the teat. Her days became sleepless dreams of misery, foraging for food that the baby could eat, trying to figure out why it cried, cradling it in her arms because whenever she left it would bawl until the swords in the Garden of Blades quivered.

And yet, when the baby was finally drained of its tears and sleeping, the goddess could not help but love it, and its tiny cheeks and wisps of hair and the way it sucked on its thumb.

The oak tree fell that year. Or maybe it was ten years, or a hundred years. Griselda had lost track of the time, but she knew that her little… thing was old enough to run about, and speak. She called him Heroling, for he was his father’s child, chasing birds and flying fish and trying to ride the wolves like they were horses. They entertained him of course, and sometimes she felt like they were laughing at her as well. She’d never wondered if Fire and Frost were male or female. They had never mated so she assumed they must be the same gender. At night she talked to Heroling, and told him stories about the Heroes who had come before him, stories of their ventures and ordeals and why they fought. Steel grew once more in the Garden of Blades, and Griselda forbade her son to play with it until his smile finally broke her and she gave him his first spear.

So came the day eventually that the goddess, not a day older yet years and years wiser cooked the last meal for Heroling, not that she knew it was his last meal at the time, and Heroling, now big enough to hunt for his own food and possessing quite the sword arm, asked her the dreaded question.
“What lies past the woods outside?”

And the look she saw in his eyes told her that he, too, would be leaving her.

They argued, though it was more for the sake of it than anything else. In her heart of hearts Griselda had always known that Heroling would leave, as everyone before him had. He did not belong here, and had far greater things planned by the Fates.

“Do you have everything?” she asked, as he waited by the bottom of the hill with Fire.

“Yes, ma.”

“Your cloak?”

“Yes.”

“Your knife?”

“Yes.”

“Is your spearhead sharp enough? I can fetch another one from the Garden—”

“Don’t worry, ma,” he said with an edge of exasperation to his voice. “I’ll be fine. I have Frost to look after me. And besides, I won’t go far. Just to the edge of the woods maybe, and look around.”

Griselda swallowed. “And will you come back to visit?”

“Of course I will. And I’ll bring you some new herbs and spices, and stories to tell. I’ll be fine.”

He was so handsome and strong, eyes burning with a flame so bright she felt her eyes water.

“Goodbye, then. Be careful. Make sure you eat and get enough sleep.”

Heroling rolled his eyes. “I love you, ma.”

Griselda went back up the hill with just Frost in tow this time, and she walked to the Garden of Blades which had begun to rust. There, she sat down and cried for a while as the sun rose and fell and the sky went from red to black to blue again.

It wasn’t until an axehead had sprouted from the ground next to her and Frost licked her palm that she realised time had passed. How much, she could not tell—

—but there was another Hero at her doorstep, and she had a duty to fulfill.