Item from Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Singing swords forged in ancient Kharkanas — they scream when drawn, howl in battle, and weep when sheathed, each blade carrying a fragment of the grief that broke the Tiste.
The Hust swords were forged in the Hust Legion's armory in Kharkanas during the Tiste civil wars — weapons created for a war that would shatter a civilization. Each blade was imbued with a fragment of the grief, rage, and despair that permeated the Tiste world as it tore itself apart. The swords sing because that emotion has nowhere else to go — it is trapped in the metal, expressed as sound, a permanent record of the worst moment in Tiste history. The screaming is not ornamentation — it is weaponized. The sound disorients opponents, disrupts concentration (and therefore sorcery), and carries a psychic weight that presses on the listener's mind. Wielders must endure the same assault, which means that Hust swords choose their bearers as much as bearers choose them — only someone who can absorb that grief without breaking can hold the blade steady. The swords are rare survivors of a fallen age, each one a piece of Kharkanas that still remembers what it felt like to watch everything end.
Longswords of dark metal with a faintly iridescent sheen, forged in a style that predates every modern school of smithing. The blades are inscribed with sigils that shift and rearrange under direct observation. When sheathed, a faint keening is audible — like distant weeping. When drawn, the sound escalates to a full scream that has been known to shatter glass and break the nerve of soldiers who have never fled from anything else.
Also known as: Hust Sword, Hust swords, singing swords, screaming swords