A Little Story.
Warning: This is a Star Trek related story, and though it’s more fantasy than sci-fi, it’s pretty geeky.
The Story of Bat’Leth.
Long ago, before the time of Kaless and Molor, there was a just king. This king’s name was To’Ruug. To’Ruug ruled for many years over a peaceful kingdom which prospered through both his strength and his intellect. He was the first Klingon to understand the power of trade, and so, without a single war in fifty years, To’Ruug built the largest and most powerful civilization Kronos had ever seen.
To’Ruug was a much respected leader, even among the people of neighboring nations, and even without his peerless army, he would have had little to fear from his neighbors if it had not been for Kleesh. Kleesh had once been a trusted advisor of To’Ruug. Then, after many years of loyal service, Kleesh’s heart turned black, and he began to covet the power of the king. If he had been possessed of a shred of honor, he would have left the service of the king, but he used his position as advisor to travel to every king, chief, or warlord, spreading a false story of To’Ruug’s plan to conquer every nation, one by one, bringing all of Kronos under his rule.
Most of the leaders of these nations believed the stories of Kleesh. How could they not, knowing the power that was at To’Ruug’s command. Those who did not believe the stories surely saw a chance to increase their own power with the dismemberment of To’Ruug’s kingdom.
And so, in the common pattern of prosperity broken by greed and violence, Kleesh united the armies of many kings under a single banner in an attempt to seize the throne of To’Ruug.
The war that ensued devastated a generation. Hundreds of thousands of warriors from every kingdom of Kronos met their deaths with courage and honor before the gates to To’Ruug’s palace city. Even though Kleesh drove his warriors like slaves, it took one thousand days for the gates of the palace city to fall. By the thousandth day of the war, morale on all sides had waned such that many of the would-be conquerers had deserted. Kleesh was left with merely a handful of soldiers standing within the shattered city.
Kleesh strode into the city as though he were the very bringer of light. He crushed the bodies of the fallen beneath his boots, and as he neared the royal mound of the king, he began to make proclamations. In his most powerful voice, he named the king a coward, a despot, and the shame of his people. With every angry epithet, he climbed another step toward where the king sat upon his alabaster throne. King To’Ruug never raised hand or word against his accuser, and yet merely a dozen steps from the king, Kleesh retreated, leaping down the steps to hide behind is few remaining warriors.
For when the pretender’s foot trod upon the twelfth step, the red step, Bat’Leth stepped out from behind the throne. Bat’Leth was the oldest, the fiercest, the strongest, and the greatest of the King’s warriors. Though he was aged, and stooped with the weight of his years, he still towered over other warriors. Bat Leth, in the tongue of To’Ruug’s people means “Four Teeth”, and true to his name, Bat’Leth had been possessed of only four teeth for so many years only he knew how he had come to lose the rest. To their credit, his four remaining teeth were sharp and strong, and presented a fearsome aspect when he showed them in anger, as he showed them to Kleesh.
As he moved down the stairs toward the traitor, Bat’Leth unslung from his back, his great moon blade, an unbroken two-meter length of steel in the sweeping shape of the crescent moon. Most Klingons could not even have lifted the blade, but even with every step of twenty thousand kilometers passed beneath his booted feet, Bat’Leth raised the blade above his head as though it were a stick of wood, and made the steps of the royal mound ring with his battle cry.
To their sorry destruction, the young and angry warriors in the service of Kleesh saw only the age of Bat’Leth, and neither his power, nor his cunning. Two of them rushed up the steps toward him, and he easily parried their swords. He even slapped them with the flat of his blade many times, but they were not wise enough to see the meaning of his warning. They saw the insult in it, but not the concern. Not seeing the respect Bat’Leth showed them by allowing them to live, they were led by their anger. After they had ignored his warning blows one too many times, Bat’Leth impaled the two young warriors on the ends of his crescent blade, lifting them both over his head and releasing once more his stone shaking cry of battle.
With his legendary strength, the hurled the two dead warriors down the steps to land at the feet of their cowering leader. The remaining men of Kleesh’s army dutifully tried to defend him, but once his blade had been blooded, there was no more patience left in Bat’Leth. He cleaved through steel, flesh and bone alike, casting the poor young warriors dead to the bloody steps.
As he approached Kleesh, a grimace of disdain on his face, Bat’Leth commanded the fool to stand, and to face his death with the bravery he had demanded of so many promising young warriors. Kleesh stood, and raised his blade in a gesture of defiance, and was cut cleanly in half by the last fall of Bat’Leth’s crescent blade.
With the bloodshed ended, Bat’Leth climbed the steps, and laid at the feet of his king the blade he had forged with his own hands. The two old men looked at each other then, and both wept. They wept for the uncounted lives destroyed by fear and greed, and they wept for they knew that the kingdom they had built together could never be rebuilt within the span of their own lives.
And so it came to pass, with the son of To’Ruug growing to resemble the pretender more than the king. Molor, as all know, grew into a fearsome tyrant, and sought the goal of which his father had been unjustly accused. And as Molor sought to lay his boot heel upon all of Kronos, it was Kahless, the son of Kleesh, who came to know the meaning of freedom. It was Kahless the great, who slew Molor with the first blade to be named Bat’Leth. It was Kahless who saw that a great weapon that none could wield was a useless weapon. It was Kahless who stole the great crescent blade, and cut away the sweeping, heavy crescents, and who gave the blade it’s four great teeth, in honor of the greatest warrior the Klingon people have ever known. And now, when every young warrior receives from his father his first Bat’Leth, he learns first the story of how Kahless used the first Bat’Leth to free the Klingon people from the cruel rule of Molor. It is only later, when he has shown mastery of the weapon, that he earns the honor of forging his own Bat’Leth, and learns of its true beginnings.
