Mercygiver

I had another dream with the man in the gray suit. We were walking along a field. The ground was muddy and slick. I looked down and the field was strewn with bodies, the mud mixed with blood. Each body seemed to have a dozen arrows sticking out of it, like pins in a pincushion.

"Where are we?" I asked. "Another extinction?"

"Of sorts," he said. "It is the extinction of so-called civilized war, war with knights and fair battles. From now on, war shall be fought not with swords, but with arrows. With bullets."

"Where are we?"

"It is summer," he said. "August, 1346. This is the aftermath of a battle near the French town of Crecy. A small skirmish in the totality of history, but one with lasting consequences."

"Why are we here?"

"There had been wars before, but this was different. This war was not considered honorable, not considered noble. So many knights cut down by common men. So many knights cut down by small arrows. So many arrows."

"Why did you tell me to kill him?" I changed the subject of my questions. "How did I do it?"

"Look," he said and pointed to one of the bodies. I could see that even though he had been pierced by several arrows, he was still alive, still breathing under his armor.

And then a man approached him. He wore stitched clothes stained with dirt, his teeth rotting and yellow. He looked at the man in the ground and shook his head. Then he took out a thin dagger.

"It was a war without prisoners," the man in the gray suit said. "The English scoured the battlefield and when they found a knight still living, they took a special knife, thin enough to put though the slits of their helmet or in weak parts of their armor. Some thrust it under the armpit and into the heart. Death was always instantaneous. Much quicker than a slow and lingering death from infection."

The man thrust his thin knife under the arm of the wounded knight. The knight gave a gasp, an exhalation of dying breath, and then he was dead. His eyes were still open.

"The weapon was called a misericorde. Mercygiver."

"That's what you gave me," I said. "You left it on my doorstep. The Endmaker."

"You misunderstand." He turned to me and I averted my eyes from his again. "It is merely a weapon. It is useless on its own. It must be wielded."

He raised his hand and placed it on my shoulder. A shudder went through my body. "It is a Mercygiver," he said. "You are the Endmaker."