The Old Man in the Blood Red Armor

Velkis slept restlessly through the remainder of that night and rose before the sun. Aching and bleary eyed, he lit a single lamp and retrieved a large and long disused trunk from the space above the rafters in his small, mountain cabin. Two cubits wide and three long, it was heavier than he remembered, and he struggled to bring it down the ladder without breaking his neck. He set the chest on the cabin's sole table and used a rag to wipe away the years of dust from the rich wood beneath.

The ends of the planks were all fastened with dovetail joints, and the whole was reinforced by four brass straps like the ribs of a ship turned inside out. The corner joins were hidden from view and reinforced again by brass plates, bent ninety degrees, running their entire lengths. These ribs and plates as well as the matching corners, hasp, and hinges were black from tarnish. The stained wood was aged to the color of new, red wine—Velkis had chosen the lumber for just that reason—fading to black wherever it contacted metal.

His rough hands traced the bold, amateurish lines of the relief carved on the flat lid, rubbing stubborn dust from the deeper cuts of the devices at the four corners: the cross, the sword, the skull, and the flame. A rough beach scene occupied the center. The waves of the sea rode left to right, breaking on the frozen dunes of a desert. A man stood at the juncture, one foot on land and one on the water, looking out from the wood in a volatile mix of emotions that was obscured by the crude workmanship, invisible to all eyes but Velkis'.

Backwards, his old mentor told him twenty years ago. The desert should be to the west as it is on all maps. East, west... Conventions of cartography were of no concern to Velkis. His heart inclined southward yet, and he arranged the sand and sea according to his own taste without regard to the ideals of book-learned men with no knowledge of the real rivers and mountain ranges that stood behind their parchment shadows.

The chest was not fine work, he thought, but not bad for a novice. He made it to replace a much finer chest, which he then sold to buy a better set of chisels, vices, and hammers.

The twin brass latches rotated smoothly under Velkis' hand. He lifted the lid on its hinges and rested it against the tabletop. The wood on the underside was a brighter, older wine, and a large, oiled cloth lined the interior. The opening of the yellow liner folded and refolded on itself along the center, clipped tightly together as a barrier against moisture and vermin. He set the clips aside and unfolded the cloth to reveal a large bundle wrapped separately in an oiled sheep skin sack and filling the bulk of the chest.

The old fighter breathed deep and placed both hands flat on the soft material. He remembered the many times he had opened that trunk and caressed those hidden contours, and the blood in his veins quickened in habitual anticipation woken after a long sleep. He worked his hands beneath the bundle and lifted it out onto the table, laughing at his own childlike excitement. He removed the wooden dowels from the leather hoops and released the lamellar armor from the veil which had held it safe from the world all these years.

"Been a long time, old friend," he said.

The shirt was secured to a headless wicker torso to keep it from losing its shape in storage. More than two hundred rectangular pieces of leather overlapped like dragon scales. Dyed in the same deep red pigment as the armorer's trunk, each was adorned with a small steel disk. Straps of the same material, reinforced with strips of steel—once bright, but now faded from neglect—attached at the top of the breast piece and arched over each shoulder to buckle at the rear. Faulds of larger leather plates extended three hand-breadths down each hip. The girdle and sleeves were of thinner material, dyed black, and reinforced with evenly spaced, steel squares.

The whole ensemble glistened from countless applications of oil-infused beeswax. He remembered the way it would flash in the sun like fire, the sound and feel of the gravel beneath his boots—so real, so grounding—banishing the cacophonous throngs of patrons and plebes from his consciousness.

Eager to feel its weight again, the old gladiator unbuckled the armor from the dummy that kept it from warping during the long storage and pulled it over his head. He straightened the skirts and shrugged his shoulders. Unbuckled though the shirt was, the leather seemed to hang looser on his frame than he remembered. Had it stretched lying unused all this time? He sighed and allowed his shoulders to fall. Perhaps it would sit right with all the buckles fastened.

He knew it would not.