It had been a wretched, straggling storm; a thing with rain that fell in stringy sheets all day and all night but with no force behind it beyond dogged persistence. The earth had turned to mud and then muck; the plants had gone from lush to drowned; the sky was a tired grey-blue muddle of exhausted maybe-clouds, and Lemm had gotten up early and been kicked out of the house because a full day and a night trapped indoors with a teenager was more than a reasonably loving family could bear. She accepted this and was standing by the river, which was usually a stream. Things came down it when it was like this; odd rocks from up the mountain; old coins from hill barrows; helmets from dead bandits; all sorts of stuff.
This time it was a sword, pristine despite the rotting scabbard. Excited beyond all belief, Lemm stirred it closer to shore with a stick and plucked it from the riverbed, where she realized it was attached to a few stubborn bones of some guy’s arm.
“Gross!” she said happily, and she took it home to her parents for perusal.
“It was attached to some guy’s arm,” she said proudly.
“Gross,” said her mother.
“Tricky,” said her father. “That’s probably grave goods, and grave goods mean ghosts and curses and goodness knows what. And it costs money and we aren’t meant to have swords. Give it here.”
So Lemm reluctantly gave the sword there, and Lemm’s father took it to his simple forge where he made nails and horseshoes and took his simple hammer that he used to make knives and shovels and he put in an unreasonable amount of fuel and made Lemm stay much longer at the bellows than she’d have wanted to and one zillion years later he pulled out a hoe, a good sturdy hoe, with a sliver-sharp edge.
“There,” he said. “Now it’s useful, and now it’s your turn: the field is absolutely walloped right now. Get back there and put it into recognizable shapes.”
“Ugh, FINE,” said Lemm, taking the hoe.
Sever their limbs and drink their blood, said the hoe.
“Pardon?” said Lemm.
“Scoot,” said her father. He was already working on something else.
***
So Lemm took the hoe to the back field – which was a mud flat – and she started tilling the soil. Rows were reshaped, plants retrieved, formlessness removed, order restored, and it was so drear that she wanted to die.
“This SUCKS,” she said aloud.
You are being watched, warned the hoe.
Lemm jerked her head upright, saw a small rabbit freeze among the greens she’d just cleared, and swung all in one smooth, efficient motion, immediately decapitating the animal.
Eat its heart, eat its heart, said the hoe.
“The hell? That is gross as all get out,” said Lemm. But she was sort of responsible and liked food, so she picked up the rabbit and got ready to tell mom when the hoe vibrated in her hand again and she turned and saw an inscrutable-yet-round bird at the other end of the field, picking at the soil.
This time she threw it. Very successfully.
“Oh jeez,” said Lemm, as the number of birds in the field became divisible by two. “I’m gonna run out of pockets.”
***
Lemm didn’t run out of pockets by the time she came back home, but she didn’t have many to spare either. “Here’s dinner,” she said to her mother, holding up the rabbit. “Oh and here’s breakfast. And, uh, a snack? And another dinner. It was busy out there.”
“Looks like you were busy too,” said Lemm’s mother. “But maybe not as busy at the field, from the look of it. Were you stabbing these with the hoe? That’s not what it’s built for.
Silence the doubters and mockers with their own blood, said the hoe.
“It’s a noisy and evil instrument, mom,” said Lemm. “But I did finish the field.”
“Great going, kiddo,” said Lemm’s mother. “Now go down the way and help the millers do their garden.”
“Shit.”
“Hazi’ll be there. She came back from town to help out this morning”
Lemm left with her mother laughing at her.
***
It wasn’t that Lemm liked working with Hazi, it was that she was very bad at working with Hazi for enjoyable reasons, like Hazi’s legs, eyes, lips, and everything else, and that Hazi found this funny and wouldn’t make fun of her too hard when she tripped over things, said ‘bwuh?” instead of full words, or forgot what she was holding.
So when Lemm walked into the little overstuffed garden behind the mill – which was even more rainwashed than their field had been, and frankly astounding that it hadn’t been taken by the river – and saw Hazi there in all her glory in full fury with a shovel, up to her calves in mud and saying every filthy word that had ever been dreamed of and whispered into a pillow before waking, she maybe stopped and looked a little longer than necessary until a flying weed hit her in the eyeball and made that impossible.
“Augh fuck,” articulated Lemm.
“Shit, sorry,” said Hazi.
Avenge this slight immediately, said the hoe.
“Aw no, I’m blind, I’m blind,” said Lemm. “Please, pour water into my wounded eyeball and tend to my wounds for the rest of my days, it’s only fair.”
Hazi came over and pulled the weed off Lemm’s nose and counted all her freckles twice to make sure they were there and then pushed her over into the pile of dismembered weeds she’d made instead.
“I’m blind and now I’m dead,” said Lemm.
Destroy all that she holds dear, said the hoe.
“Shore up the fence, you complete dumbass,” said Hazi with fondness.
And so Lemm did, and so the afternoon passed very agreeably with only one or two breaks where nobody got anything important or useful done, and so when the job was done and she picked up the hoe from where she’d leant it against the fence it took Lemm a moment and Hazi swearing very earnestly to notice that it had chopped the fencepost clean off from crown to base.
Vengeance is ours, cried the hoe.
“Oh COME ON,” said Lemm.
“Well, guess you owe us a new one,” said Hazi. “See you tomorrow?”
“Oh absolutely yes,” said Lemm.
***
Lemm got up and found the hoe next to her bed. She put it away. Lemm finished breakfast and found the hoe leaning on the bench next to her. She put it away. Lemm got dressed and ready to go and explained to her parents that it WAS NOT HER FAULT that she had to go and replace a fencepost and was very patient with her mother laughing in her face and slapping her back repeatedly and when she was at the threshold the hoe was there, leaning across it casually with its haft over the doorknob.
So Lemm took the hoe with her, because at least this way it wouldn’t suddenly appear under someone’s foot or someone’s head.
“My field is already tended, but thanks for the community spirit,” said Jur, the forestry man, from somewhere behind a pile of timber and hairy muscles and a very large saw.
“Aw okay,” said Lemm. “Mind if I go looking for a fencepost for the mill?”
“Only as long as you don’t beat Hazi to it,” said Jur, in a flurry of sawdust and beard. “She’s got dibs.”
So Lemm said ‘thanks’ or something else she didn’t pay attention to and went among the trees and found Hazi and they had a long, serious, productive hunt for a replacement fencepost that only veered off-topic for very important things, like checking Lemm’s biceps or trying very hard to figure out PRECISELY what shade of brown Hazi’s eyes were most like or having to stop and fix Lemm’s shoes for her because bending over would be so very hard on her back with all that she’d been working and so on and on and on until at last they had bad luck and found a tree that would make a damned nice fencepost.
“Oh well,” said Lemm. “Right, let’s get to it.” And she lined up her stroke, tensed her back, and let her fly.
“That’s not an axe,” said Hazi.
“Bwhn?” inquired Lemm.
Death to the foe, said the hoe.
‘shrip,’ went the tree’s trunk. Followed immediately by a large crash and a lot of swearing from those present.
***
“Tree fell on her,” said Hazi when Lemm was delivered home to the raised eyebrows of her parents. “But it’ll be fine. Just don’t let her run around like an idiot.”
“This will be impossible,” said Lemm’s mother, and they all laughed at her and while they were doing that Hazi kissed her so casually that nobody noticed except Lemm who was probably going to remember that for a few thousand years and then she winked and left.
“How did you manage to fell a tree on yourself?” asked Lemm’s father.
“The hoe doesn’t like me using other tools or not stabbing or cutting things or being put aside for a moment,” said Lemm. “I’m starting to think it might have been easier to leave it as a sword.”
“Nah, swords are pushy too,” said Lemm’s mother. “They always want to be used, and they’ll never shut up until they get the fight they want.”
“Oh shit,” said Lemm, “I just thought of something. Dad, can we go out to your forge?”
***
The next morning Lemm turned up bright and early to the mill with her father’s hammer and a basket of bright, shiny, fresh nails. By midday the fencepost was replaced, the entire rest of the fence was repaired and reinforced, food was ready, and there were some very serious idle conversations happening indoors.
And from the new fence, a hundred tiny battle cries rang in permanent exaltation as the foe was bitten deep and true.