For twenty nights, the forges had burned, hammers ringing on steel. The finest smith in the land put all his art into the work, shaping arms and armour such as had never been seen, the likes of which would be remembered through the age.

Finally, on the morning of the winter solstice, it was done. Each piece was a work of terrible artistry; each link in the mail was shaped just so, each plate curved exactly as it ought to be and inlaid with fine filigree. The sword was exquisitely balanced, sharp enough to cut the very wind, and a brilliant fire opal gleamed in its pommel.

That blade was wrapped in a length of pure white silk, and now a half-dozen men took up the pieces of armour, fitting them to its owner. Straps were shifted and buckles turned. Piece by piece, the armour took form, enclosing a form mightier than any hero the bards had ever sung of. At last, the helmet was laid in place, and the fearsome picture was nearly complete.

The figure strode then along the aisle, and all eyes turned to it as it progressed toward the dais. A sturdy young man bore the silk-swathed sword forward, kneeling with it at the foot of the dais; more slowly and carefully, the armoured figure knelt as well.

The priest spoke formal words, calling upon five different gods to witness these proceedings and bind the principals to their sworn oaths. Lord Davian spoke his part clearly and with conviction; the other spoke in little more than a whisper, yet those words filled the hall even more than did the Lord’s.

Lord Davian turned back the silk, admiring, for a moment, the terrible splendour of the blade, and the artistry in the hilt and guard. Then he gripped the hilt in both hands and bore it up.

Despite Davian keeping his feet firmly on the dais, the figure kneeling on the floor came up to his shoulders. It took all his strength to bring that blade high, to let it rest for a moment atop one shoulder, then the other, and then back to the first, before he drew it away. “Rise, Sir Vardraxten,” he intoned, holding the massive blade point-down, “and wield this sword in my service.”

Vardraxten rose, then, to his full and towering height. One massive hand gripped the sword’s hilt, taking it up from Lord Davian’s hands; obsidian claws, no meagre weapons themselves, extended from the inlaid gauntlets. As Vardraxten lifted the sword aloft, sunlight from the windows gleamed on crimson scale and onyx horn. Golden, slitted eyes looked out from under the helmet’s brim, meeting the gaze of the man who had once saved Vardraxten’s life.

“As you will it,” Vardraxten rumbled, his voice thundering off the walls, “so shall it be done.” That blade, which any normal man would need two hands merely to lift, he turned easily in one, sliding the point into its elaborately-tooled scabbard and letting it come to rest there. His wings mantled over his shoulders; the spade on the tip of his tail, capped with honed steel, gleamed as it settled by his feet, and the greatest warrior the land had yet known brought a hand to his chest in salute. “Command me, my Lord.”