The grate of metal against metal reached my ears a moment too late and I kept lurching forward, burying the handle of my plow into my stomach. My mule had reacted faster and stopped pulling the plow as it bound against some obstacle buried in the soil. I gasped and a single profane word slipped involuntarily from my lips. My son, having heard the outburst, sprinted over from across the field.

“What was that?” he cried, eyes wide as he approached.

“Just a word you don’t need to repeat,” I said. “The plow hit something.”

My boy scrunched up his nose and cocked his head. “I didn’t hear what you said. What was it you hit?”

“Oh,” I sighed, relieved that I wouldn’t have to explain his newly expanded vocabulary to his mother. “I don’t know, but it’s not a rock. Why don’t you grab the shovel and we’ll find out what’s buried here?”

He took off running to fetch the shovel. I gripped the plow’s handles and slowly eased myself to the ground. The mule shot a disinterested glance my way before sniffing around for sprigs of anything edible within reach. I didn’t need to see what the plow had struck this time to know what was buried across the field. Nonetheless, my son’s curiosity might help get the plow moving again. If it had been another rock, I would’ve been left digging alone. He was returning with the shovel and, even from a distance, I could see the spark of imagination lighting up his face.

“Dig carefully,” I said. “If it’s something valuable, we don’t want to break it.”

The first plunge of the shovelhead into the soil yielded the same scrape of metal on metal that had stopped the plow. My son grinned from ear to ear and dug with as much care as his feverish interest would allow. I watched the sweat bead on his forehead as the climbing sun drew droplets from the back of my neck. He could work hard when he wanted to. The glint in his eye never faded as he exposed more and more of the underground relic, and he bit his lower lip like he always did when he wanted to say something but was too focused to sound the words. Finally, he tossed the shovel aside and reached down into the soil with both hands. He beamed a smile I couldn’t help but return as he lifted a round shield above his head.

“Well done!” I said. “That shield looks Dyniirian, even through all the rust.”

My boy rested the shield on the ground and wiped the sweat from his brow, though his dirt-stained hands merely left a brown streak across his face. He was breathing hard but managed to ask a question between breaths. “You remember the battle, don’t you?”

“I certainly do. We fought alongside men from Dyniiria, Gaelon, and Egrigaia the day we won back our homes from Gaethnin.”

“And with the dragon, right?” he asked, still trying to steady his breathing.

“And with the dragon,” I said. “The shadow of his wings as he flew overhead was the sign that gave those of us on the ground the hope we needed to keep fighting.”

The imaginative glint returned to his eyes and he lifted the rusted shield with one hand and seized a nearby stick with the other before charging across the field, bellowing to his invisible fellow warriors that they must drive the unicorn-riders from the land. I smiled, grasped the handles of the plow, and heaved myself upright. My right pant leg had come untied and I redid the knot just below where my knee used to be. I had been more fortunate than whoever had carried the shield that day. The echoing war cries from my son renewed my smile. With any luck, he’d never be forced to shelter behind a shield as the thunder of hooves and rattle of landing arrows overwhelmed his senses. But that was a conversation for another day. Some relics are easier to understand than others.