Evil Iron. (standard:fantasy, 1441 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jul 19 2020	Views/Reads: 1198/860	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Many thousands of years ago, long before the dawn of human history, on a dark night a long streak of flame surged across the heavens.

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Tying the pig's feet together with a strip of sinew from its own
intestines, Oog waited for it to bleed out then slung it over his 
shoulder for the long trip back to his family. 

Later that year, Oog's tribe suffered through a run of bad luck.  The
hunting turned lousy.  Half the tribe became ill and died.  They prayed 
to their gods, but to no avail.  By the time the weather turned warm 
again, they were down to only a half-dozen individuals.  When they left 
for their summer home, with no way to carry them, they had to leave 
much of their meager possessions behind.  Oog did take his "lucky" 
piece of gray iron. 

The next spring, another family came upon a scattering of corpses along
with their possessions.  The unlucky group was rotting, torn and half 
eaten by wild animals.  Of course they picked over the meager goods.  
One of the items they took with them was a large, rounded, piece of 
iron.  It felt so good in the leader's hand, and might be useful. 

That tribe was soon overtaken by a larger one, and were either killed or
enslaved.  The leader of the new tribe kept the piece of iron.  It 
became his "lucky" piece.  He had one of his slaves, who was artistic, 
scratch holy symbols onto the rounded meteorite.  Although his tribe 
would, in their turn, have bad luck the piece of sky iron would become 
a religious symbol – even a god – to the various tribes which later 
owned it. 

Over the next centuries, the piece of unlucky iron saw many hundreds of
people die who owned or spent any time near it.  By some quirk of human 
nature, the carved chunk was always considered "lucky." 

*** 

In the year 1415, the iron meteor, still showing faint tracings of
cave-art, came into the possession of a blade-smith in Romania.  He 
heated the piece of raw iron and pounded it into a short sword.  Being 
already purified by fire in its descent, it held a proper edge.  Though 
small and light, the new blade was strong and sharp.  Taking his time, 
the blacksmith inlaid the sword with semi-precious stones.  Attaching a 
jeweled hilt, he eventually sold it to a local nobleman.  That man was 
Prince Vlad Tepes, who had aspirations to the throne of Romania, a 
position which his brother held. 

Later Vlad would become famous as Count Dracula.  For the first time,
the iron did not bring bad luck – at least not to its owner.  Possibly 
because it was very bad luck to his enemies.  It was used to kill many 
of them. 

After his death, the sword disappeared.  It surfaced hundreds of years
later in a collection owned by Adolf Hitler.  Subsequently he went from 
a world leader to a corpse in a very few years, taking millions with 
him.  After his death, the sword disappeared again, taken by an 
American soldier as a souvenir. 

*** 

After that war, the soldier left the military.  He hung his stolen sword
over a fake fireplace in his new home built with a government loan.  
Soon after, things began going bad for him.  He took to drinking and 
beating his wife. 

They lost their first baby at childbirth and the second was a
thalidomide baby, born without limbs.  The drunken father lost his job 
and was faced with insurmountable bills.  He committed suicide with the 
sword.  His wife lost track of the weapon. 

It next showed up as the favorite weapon of a man who killed eight
hookers with it in L.A.  He kept it, between uses, in a special 
homemade sheath under the dashboard of his car.  The serial killer was 
never caught, or even suspected.  Hookers disappear often in that area. 
He died in a car crash on the interstate while evading police. 

When his wrecked auto was was searched by forensic experts, the short
sword, more a large dagger, was found and eventually shined, gold 
plated and inscribed “To Governor George W. Bush for Meritorious 
Service.”  It was then given to the governor of Texas, leading to a 
million innocent people being killed in the Middle-East for little or 
no reason. 

Right now, it molders inside a crate in the White House basement,
waiting to be classified and stored along with other memorabilia, soon 
to see the light of day once again. 

The End.


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