Reviewed by Elizabetta
TITLE: The Rusted Sword
AUTHOR: RD Hero
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 31 pages
BLURB:
In his prime, Raleigh had snared the vicious fighter Moshe into marriage through a mutual game of push and pull. Ten years later, Raleigh suffers from a chronic knee injury and flagging confidence, while his bond with Moshe has eroded drastically.
During yet another domestic squabble, Raleigh learns that Moshe intends to leave their home to take part in a winter sword fighting tournament. Roused by a mix of broken pride and desperation, Raleigh chooses to attend as well—in what he believes is the last chance to win back Moshe’s devotion.
REVIEW:
Raleigh and Moshe are an established couple when we enter their story. The focus here is on what sparked their youthful connection and why things seem to be going so very wrong for them now.
They’ve been married for three years in a tumultuous relationship that looks to be undergoing more strain. They’ve grown up together as fierce rivals and competitors, always physically pushing the other to be better, fiercer, stronger.
Raleigh is mesmerized by Moshe…
‘… he was bowled over… watching Moshe fight, of wanting him and wanting to defeat him, and all the prizes that lay in wait from doing that.’
And what prizes… those intimate games that taunt and tease… and lure. These two have some provocative power-play going on, some sweet rough and tumble. When Raleigh realizes that dominance intrigues and enthralls Moshe, he capitalizes on that and finally wins him in marriage. But we’re guessing it wasn’t easy, Moshe is demanding and aloof and he needs to be taken in hand.
Somewhere along the way Raleigh sustains a serious injury and things go cold. He goes into a downward spiral of frustration and fretting about how he will keep Moshe if he can no longer compete with him, no longer keep that edge that seems to fuel them. An invitation to a sparring tournament with some serious swordplay is the catalyst that gets the sparks flying again.
Really, you just want to slap Raleigh upside the head. He slides so often into bitter self pity and doubt. His stupid pride eats away at him, he gets lost in memories of the glory days, and you wonder how Moshe can put up with it all. It’s not really clear at first that Moshe even cares enough to do anything about it.
And that is the fun of the first half of this short story… all the verbal jousting and trying to figure out the dynamic between these two. And who can resist two alpha males duking it out? The second half is not quite as gripping for me… I chalk it up to the inevitability of the slide towards the HEA. I just love the delicious turmoil a tad more than that slide, I guess. Ah well, such is romance.
Though, come to think of it… I think what I really want is more of what must have been a luscious rivalry and coming together of younger Raleigh and Moshe. I’m mostly left guessing at it. Weighting this with more of their backstory would have been so much fun.
So things come to a head at that fight tournament and it does become clear (to the reader) where Moshe is coming from. And the author builds a case for not giving up on Raleigh. We see some of what pulled Moshe to him in the first place.
The writing, mostly strong, got a bit muddier towards the end with a fair amount of ‘Moshe this, Raleigh that, Moshe this, Raleigh, etc…’ Just kinda awkward. Story-wise, Rusted Sword works well… It’s a good look at what happens when someone loses themselves and has to reinvent. Or discovers that they didn’t really knew what they had in the first place.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: