by D. J. Tyrer
in Issue 116, September 2021
The sky glowed a dull red from the flames, the light bleeding into the sanguine half-disc of the sun that slowly rose to fill the horizon. Smoke bruised the sky like rain clouds besmirching the dawn. There was a smell that was, unfortunately, pleasant, given the circumstances.
“That is half my domain gone.” Landgrave Ur Esk hung his head in sorrow at the sight.
Esdrell guessed his feelings were for a tax base halved and not the loss of lives and livelihoods. But, if she were to seek employment only from paragons of virtue, her income as a sword-for-hire was likely to dwindle to nothing.
Beside her, the diminutive sorcerer N’Kaz stood impassively, form hidden beneath thick black robes. Whatever he thought of the scene of devastation, he kept his own counsel.
“Do you know who or what is responsible?”
Rumours of the destruction inflicted upon the Esk Landgraviate had spread far and wide, but none seemed certain as to its cause. Barbarians, said some; demons, said others.
Ur Esk shook his head. “Those who’ve seen it are dead. It isn’t human, I am sure of that, but beyond that…” He shook his head again. “However, I do believe it came from the mine at Zallingen.”
N’kaz inclined his head a little beneath his hood.
Esdrell asked the question: “Why do you say that?”
“The seams were played out. I hired a rhabdomancer who pinpointed new veins. It was shortly after the miners dug down to them that Zallingen was destroyed; the first settlement to be incinerated.”
N’Kaz nodded. The correlation seemed strongly indicative of a causal link.
“Something unleashed,” he said; “bursting back into life.”
“Well?” said Ur Esk, after a brief silence. “Can you stop it?”
Esdrell looked at the scene of devastation before them but could sense the whispers of her companion’s mind in hers.
“Yes, I believe we can.”
“You will be well rewarded.”
She nodded, and, then, she and N’Kaz stepped away from him and towards the village to seek a hint of where the cause of the destruction had gone.
“I think there can be little doubt,” said N’Kaz, taking in the scene, “as to the cause’s route, merely a question as to which represents its approach and which its departure.”
Scorched pathways more than a dozen feet wide left the village to its north and east.
“Excuse me, excuse me.”
They turned. The voice belonged to one of the Landgrave’s equerries who had accompanied them to the village, a thin youth in a uniform of green silk and a matching cloak, one of a gaggle of such men who surrounded the Landgrave. An older man, dressed in mail and carrying a halberd, followed behind him.
“His Serenity orders me to go with you – to guide or assist you, as may be necessary.”
Esdrell looked him over. He wore a fine, silvered foil at his waist, but she doubted he had much martial ability to speak of.
“I am Baron Ur Orcrazy,” he said as if the name must mean something to them. It didn’t.
“Well, Baron,” said Esdrell, irritation in her voice, “as you can see, we know the passage taken by whatever caused this conflagration. Tell me, what lies to the north and east of here?”
He considered for a moment. “The villages that have been previously afflicted lay mainly to the east of here.”
“To the north?”
The young man gave a shrug. “More villages, farms, then you reach the river and the towns of Gwelu and Zug.”
“It doesn’t travel a direct line, but goes from village to village.” N’Kaz paused. “As if feeding. Stoking the flames.”
“Do we follow it?” Esdrell asked.
“It moves quickly.” N’Kaz raised a shrouded arm to gesture at their surroundings. “The buildings are not yet fully gutted, but it is long gone. Fire moves swiftly.”
Esdrell turned to the Baron. “Do you have a map of the Landgraviate of Esk?”
He patted himself down. “I always carry one on my person.”
She resisted the urge to gut him. “Can you get one?” Maps were a rarity, but if anyone had one, it was the nobility.
“I can get one.”
A short while later, they were seated in a carriage poring over a map of the region. It was more representative than accurate, but it gave the approximate relative locations of villages and towns. If the devastation took a route between those closest together, the town of Zug would be its fifth target.
“Can we get there quickly?” Esdrell tapped at the town.
“There is a fairly direct route.”
She looked at N’Kaz. “Ideas?”
“One or two.”
She turned to the Baron. “Get us there, now.”
He leaned out of the carriage window and gave an order to the driver and the vehicle began to bounce off along the rutted track.
The night sky glowed red on the horizon. Somewhere, more villages burned and whatever was responsible was coming their way.
Esdrell and N’Kaz stood outside the walls of the town of Zug. With no real knowledge of what it was that threatened, planning had been nothing more than guesswork and a discussion of generalities. Was it an entity or object of fire, impervious to steel? Or, a physical being that could be harmed by the sword?
Esdrell and the Baron had gathered a cartload of barrels at the direction of N’Kaz. With the items in place, the young lordling had slipped away at nightfall to the bed of some willing doxy, while Esdrell remained with her friend.
“You should sleep,” said N’Kaz. It never seemed that he did.
Esdrell shook her head. “It’s coming.”
A pillar of flame rose at the horizon, a twisting column of fire that appeared to be coming closer.
As it drew nearer, they could see it was a ball of fire that was hurtling towards them, flames rising skyward from it like the blazing tail of a comet.
“Steel cannot kill fire. A sword won’t have much effect, and I don’t believe reasoned debate will be an option, so I hope your plan works, or that you have a few spells inside those voluminous sleeves.”
He didn’t respond.
The fire grew closer as she spoke. The width of the charred trail it had left was no surprise: the flames leapt out quite a distance from its core.
There was an old saying about using fire to fight fire that the robed sorcerer had decided to put into play. Looking at the fireball, Esdrell doubted it was going to work.
As it came nearer, they could see there was something within the ball of fire, a dark shape at its heart.
“It looks like…” Esdrell studied it “…a huge boar.”
Although the flames obscured it, the shape was porcine and of exceptional size.
It drew nearer with great rapidity.
N’Kaz extended an arm. From the sleeve there protruded a white-metal wand. He stood like that in silence as the beast grew closer. Beside him, Esdrell drew her sword.
It was almost upon them.
A serpent of flame leapt from the wand’s end and twisted towards a point just in front of the fiery boar, where the ground was disturbed: it was the place where a team of workmen, commandeered from Zug, had buried the barrels of oil, tar, and firework-powder.
The flame struck the earth and there was a massive explosion, just as the boar reached that point.
A towering shaft of fire, far greater than the flames that rose from the beast, tore skyward and the flash forced Esdrell to look away, eyes closed.
When she looked back, a gaping pit was open and burning oil was splashed about the area.
N’Kaz slowly lowered his arm. “It is in the pit.”
Not for long. With an explosion of its own, the boar burst up out of the hole and bellowed a roar of challenge. Flames spat from its jaws with the sound.
“It looks angry,” said Esdrell.
“I had hoped the blast might kill it, or drive it off. We must try more direct actions.”
“Great…”
It charged at them, a flood of blazing bile spewing from its mouth towards them.
Esdrell didn’t wait for it to reach them: She dodged to the side, out of the path of the flames and ran at it.
The boar turned its head, the fire scouring an arc across the ground, as it followed her approach.
But, N’Kaz had produced another wand and struck it with a beam of silvery light that seemed to enrage it. The boar bellowed again and focused its attention on the tiny figure.
Esdrell leapt with grace and sliced her blade along the creature’s flank. It stumbled to a halt with a roar of pain. Flames licked up her arm and she shrieked with her own pain.
She landed into a roll and, then, beat the flames out.
It seemed you could hurt the beast – if only you could survive to strike it.
N’Kaz sent more beams of light into the boar before it could resume its charge. It bellowed, then turned and ran away in the direction from which it had come.
“We stopped it,” Esdrell gasped.
It was a small, but inspiring victory.
The lodgings the Baron had chosen were salubrious and the food good. A chirurger had smeared Esdrell’s arm with a soothing balm and she had managed to sleep a little.
“It has not been killed,” said N’Kaz. “Perhaps not even severely wounded. The mere fact it felt pain for the first time may have been enough to rout it.”
The Baron made a harrumphing sound.
“Oh, we will kill it,” said Esdrell, with more certainty than she felt. “We just have to find it.”
“But, where did it go?” The Baron poured himself some more win and pulled the doxy close.
“Where it was born.”
Esdrell looked at N’Kaz. “The mine?”
His hood twitched a nod. “Arrange our travel, Baron.”
It was evening when they reached the outskirts of what had been the town of Zallingen. The settlement was little more than a scorch of earth smothered in ash with a few charred splinters of wood protruding up from it.
The coach rumbled past and crawled up the slope to the mine-head. The work buildings that had stood there were also destroyed.
The coach halted and they climbed out. The horses sniffed the air, nervously.
“Wait for us by the town,” said Esdrell. The Baron had seemed disinclined to let his transport leave.
The coachman gave a nod and quickly turned the coach about and headed off.
The Baron hung back behind his bodyguard, whose expression was grim with a hint of fear in his eyes. Esdrell didn’t blame him. She had no desire to face the beast again, especially within the tunnels of the mine.
N’Kaz looked slowly about them. “If fire cannot harm it, perhaps we can turn its flames to our advantage. See that iron door? Look behind it.”
There was a door made of metal in the mountainside. The charred remains of a building indicated it led to a storeroom; the iron had protected its contents from the flames. Inside were barrels, filled with a powder similar to that used in fireworks.
“Blasting powder,” said the Baron with a sniff. “They use it to break apart those rocks that are too stubborn to part with picks or wedges.”
“Yes, this will do.”
Esdrell shook her head. “Blowing it up didn’t work last time…”
N’Kaz didn’t answer, instead directing the Baron’s guard to lift two of the small barrels and carry them to the mine entrance. The wizard produced a wand that emitted a warm yellow glow to light their way. They took the barrels in about a hundred yards down the sloping tunnel.
“You two, go fetch the boar.”
“What?” The Baron’s voice was a terrified squeak. “I am not going down into the darkness.” N’Kaz handed him the wand. “Mines are dangerous enough places without demons hiding in them. I’m a noble, not a miner.”
Esdrell slipped a dagger from her belt – the tunnels were too tight for sword-fighting – and set off without a word.
Baron Ur Orcrazy groaned, drew a dagger, then set off after her, leaving his guard to position the barrels under the wizard’s direction.
The main tunnel ran fairly straight down into the depths of the earth. In the yellow light of the wand, they could see the walls had been burnt black by the passage of the boar.
The floor grew steeper under their feet.
“I hope your friend has a plan…”
Esdrell held up her hand to silence him; she could hear grunting and snorting breaths ahead, echoing along the tunnel. In the distance, a red glow could be seen, like the light of the setting sun.
She crept slowly along the tunnel, careful to make no noise, and gestured for the Baron to follow her.
Ahead of them, the tunnel opened into a cavern, ragged walled near the entrance, smooth further in. The boar stood at its centre, pacing occasionally. It filled a substantial part of the cavern. This was, she realised, where it had been trapped before the miners blasted through a hole, releasing it.
There was movement at the edge of the cavern. At first, Esdrell thought it was just the dancing shadows cast by the flames that wreathed the boar, but it wasn’t. A person lurked in the shadows.
“Look.” The figure had stepped forward, a man in star-spangled robes and a tall, pointed hat. He held an orb in his hands that seemed to have some effect on the boar and chanted words in a strange language.
“The rhabdomancer,” said the Baron, recognising him.
Esdrell nodded. That explained much. Whatever his motivation, the release of the fire-boar had been a deliberate ploy.
“Hey! Hey! Traitor!”
Esdrell winced. This wasn’t the time for the young man to discover his bravery.
“Baron!” He ignored her cry.
The rhabdomancer turned and pointed at him and uttered a string of syllables. The fire-boar focused its gaze upon the Baron, who cursed.
The Baron threw his dagger at the man, but it fell short, clattering onto the floor of the cavern. He turned, the wand falling from his fingers, and ran, Esdrell ahead of him, the boar, literally, hot on his heels.
They charged up the tunnel, the red glow and flames pursuing them like a rush of magma surging towards the surface.
Then, ahead of them, Esdrell spotted N’Kaz. He waved for her to follow him, before turning and heading up the tunnel.
They passed the spot where he had been. A moment later, the fire-boar reached the same point, its flames licking over the tunnel walls.
Esdrell wasn’t certain quite what happened next. One moment, she was running. The next, nothing. Then, a sensation of flying, followed by a painful impact.
Slowly, her senses returned and she sat up.
She looked about. With no evidence of the fire-boar about to roast her, she paused to check her limbs and ribs. Nothing was broken. She stood, her legs a little wobbly. Her dagger had disappeared.
Esdrell turned and looked about. The guardsman was helping the Baron to his feet. The young man looked groggy and one arm hung limply at his side, broken.
She spotted N’Kaz. The tiny figure was standing at the mine entrance, gazing down the tunnel.
Esdrell joined him. The roof had collapsed, sealing the tunnel.
“The boar’s flames ignited the blasting powder,” he explained. “I don’t know if it is dead, but it is trapped once more, beneath the rocks, or behind them. I will suggest the Landgrave not reopen the mine.”
Esdrell quickly told him about the rhabdomancer. “I hope there are no smaller tunnels for him to use.”
“If we are in luck, the boar’s flames will use up the air, suffocate him.” There was no malice in his tone, merely practicality.
Esdrell hoped he was correct.
“I wonder why he did it?”
N’Kaz’s tentacles twitched what she recognised as the equivalent of a shrug.
“That secret has died with him, I think,” he said. She looked silently at the collapsed mine.
“Right,” she said, at last, “let’s head back to the coach, return the Baron to his master and claim our reward.”
As they walked down to the ruins of Zallingen, the night sky was reassuringly dark overhead.
©September 2021, DJ Tyrer
DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines around the world, such as Winter’s Grasp (Fantasia Divinity), Tales of the Black Arts (Hazardous Press), Pagan (Zimbell House), Misunderstood (Wolfsinger), and Sorcery & Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen (Hieroglyphics Press), and issues of Fantasia Divinity, Broadswords and Blasters, and BFS Horizons, and in addition, has a novella available in paperback and on the Kindle, The Yellow House (Dunhams Manor). This is their first appearance in Swords & Sorcery.
DJ Tyrer’s website is at https://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/
The Atlantean Publishing website is at https://atlanteanpublishing.wordpress.com/