by Ben Wolf
“He can handle himself.” Garrick took another drink of his mead and watched as Falna rounded the bar and ran into the kitchen. Good. It was better she stayed out of the way, for her own sake.
Irwin gawked at Garrick through his spectacles. “Against three of them?”
Garrick set his tankard down. “He’ll be fine.”
The de-bearded man swung at Coburn’s head again, but Coburn kicked his legs out and hit the man in his chest before he could get close enough. He tottered backward into the bar, hit it hard, and grabbed at his lower back, wincing.
The two men holding Coburn tried to wrench him back into place, but his left arm slipped free. He grabbed the head of the man who still held onto him and drove his knee into the man’s temple. The man dropped to the pub floor.
The other man swung a wild fist at Coburn’s face, but Coburn slipped under it and slammed his knuckles into the man’s thigh. The man yelped and fell, holding his leg with bared teeth. Only the de-bearded man remained standing.
“See?” Garrick said to Irwin. “He’s fine.”
Four other men, all of them big, bearded types, stood and started toward Coburn from around the pub.
“Is he?” Irwin asked. When Garrick didn’t answer, Irwin said, “I’m going to help him. You should, too.”
“Don’t break your hands punching anyone. We need them for the rest of this mission.” Garrick leaned back in his seat, still trying to slump a bit.
“I won’t,” Irwin replied. “I value my work too highly for that.”
As Coburn engaged the five men amid the crashing of tables and chairs, the breaking of bottles, and the clanking of pewter tankards, Irwin pulled a glass vial from inside his pack. It glowed with faint yellow light. He removed another vial, this one dark blue, and held it in his left hand. Then he stood.
“Hey!” he called.
Two of the men on the outside of the fracas whirled to face him.
Garrick shielded his eyes. He knew what was coming.
He threw the vial at their feet, and it crashed onto the floor with a loud pop and a flash of brilliant light.
The men hollered and clutched at their faces, then they started groping around and blinking as if unable to see.
Irwin picked up a tankard from a nearby table and swung it at the nearest man. It clunked on his head, and he slumped to the floor, unconscious. Irwin repeated the process with the other man, and he, too, fell.
Coburn had hardly touched any of the other three men; he was spending most of his time maneuvering to avoid getting hit, and thus far, he’d succeeded.
Irwin yelled, “Blue vial!” and tossed the blue vial into the fray.
Coburn ducked low and covered his face with his cloak.
The vial shattered, and blue mist billowed up from the spilled liquid on the floor. Two of the men breathed it in and immediately slumped to the floor and started snoring, but the de-bearded man backed away, covering his face.
A moment later, once the mist had dissipated, Irwin called, “Clear!”
Coburn swung his cloak wide open and inhaled a desperate gasp, only to be met by the de-bearded man charging into him. They tumbled to the floor together, trading blows and positions, each fighting for the upper hand. Coburn had the skill, but the de-bearded man had the size.
Beyond them, the first two men who’d joined the fight had recovered and now started toward Irwin.
Garrick also noticed the second man whom Irwin had hit with the pewter tankard crawling toward the kitchen. Probably just wanted to get out of there.
Garrick didn’t blame him. If a bunch of his friends had failed to take on a scrawny thief and an even scrawnier alchemist, he might consider retreating as well.
Irwin rushed back to his pouch to retrieve more vials. “I didn’t account for these additional costs, you know.”
Garrick waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. After this job’s done, we’ll have more than enough coin to replace what you’ve already used and more.”
“I hope you’re right.” Irwin frowned at him. “But we haven’t succeeded in either gaining any useful information or staying out of sight this whole time. So I’m not optimistic about our chances of completing this mission.”
“Behind you.” Garrick nodded at him.
Irwin popped the cork out of an orange vial, whirled around, and splashed it into the face of a very angry man. The liquid hit his face and began to steam.
The man wailed and grabbed at his face, staggering around the pub aimlessly.
“The orange one? Really?” Garrick asked. Irwin had used the orange one on the Crimson Flame cultist to get info about the pub out of him. It was a nasty brew.
“It’s what I had in my hands,” Irwin said. “And you know the burns aren’t permanent—just excruciatingly painful.”
“Weren’t you just lamenting how we’ve failed to stay hidden?” Garrick quipped.
“You saw what happened. Had no choice.” Irwin tipped his chin up in defiance. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to help Coburn since you’re unwilling to do so.”
“I’m not unwilling.” Garrick raised his tankard. “Just got this drink to finish.”
Irwin shook his head and turned away.
As he did, the man who’d crawled into the kitchen returned. He was standing now, and he pointed at Coburn and Irwin while looking into the kitchen.
Then six men in black robes emerged from the kitchen. They had shaved heads and the red insignia of a fireball tattooed on their bare chests.
The Crimson Flame. Fire-worshiping cultists.
Fanatics.
But these fanatics knew where the hidden Crimson Flame temple was. And that’s where Lord Valdis had directed Garrick to go.
The six cultists drew curved short swords and started toward Coburn and Irwin.
Garrick downed the rest of his mead and stood to his full height. He flung the cloak off of his shoulders, revealing his massive body and his leather torso armor, and picked up his battle-axe from the corner.
Upon seeing him, the cultists stopped short, their mouths hanging open as they stared. The tallest among them couldn’t have been more than six feet in height, so Garrick towered over them like he did with nearly everyone he encountered.
“Crimson Flame, eh?” Garrick grinned. “Been looking for you guys.”
He took a step forward, and all six of them stepped back.
Garrick chuckled and stole a glance at Irwin and Coburn to make sure he didn’t have to rescue them. As he did, a flash of metal lashed at his left side.
Even if Garrick had wanted to, he couldn’t have blocked the blow in time. The cultist’s swing was too fast, and for all his strength, Garrick was just too slow.
Ping.
The blade glanced off of his bare arm. The blow smarted but hadn’t cut him.
Garrick just shook his head at them. Being part troll, on his mother’s side, meant he’d inherited some of the benefit of trolls having thick, durable skin. It would take a lot more than a few puny swords to bring him down.
By the time he’d finished talking, the pain in his arm had dwindled to nothing. Accelerated healing was another perk of the troll blood coursing through his veins.
He swung his battle-axe hard and fast, and five of the six cultists dodged in time. The sixth—the one who’d struck him—caught the flat side of his battle-axe. The blow launched the cultist into the pub wall with a loud crack, and he flopped onto the floor, motionless—maybe even dead.
“Now we can play this one of two ways,” Garrick said. “If you cooperate and tell me what I want to know, I’ll let you live. If not, I’ll—”
All five of them charged toward him.
“Fair enough.”
Metal clanged against Garrick’s legs and arms and the handle of his battle-axe. He backhanded one of the cultists and sent him flying into a table, and it toppled over. He bashed another with the blunt end of his battle-axe, and the cultist dropped to the floor with his head split open and
bleeding.
The third got kicked into one of his friends, and Garrick’s battle-axe crashed through the guard of another and embedded halfway into his torso. The cultist spat up blood, and Garrick kicked him away. When he landed, the cultist’s body folded on top of itself unnaturally, and blood pooled underneath him.
Of the six, three of the cultists got back up—the two he’d knocked down with his kick and the one he’d backhanded over the table. The other three lay on the floor, unmoving.
The cultists’ swords were better for slashing than stabbing, and that suited Garrick just fine. They could hack at him for a century and not harm him.
But their sword tips could pierce through his skin if they managed a clean enough stab. That was just about the only way these idiots could hurt him, and it was why he still wore the leather torso armor in spite of his resilient skin.
Garrick checked on Irwin and Coburn again. Only they only still stood, now looming over the de-bearded man, alternating kicks to his ribs and legs.
The remaining cultists attacked again, and Garrick took their blows in stride until one of them stabbed at him. He batted the attack aside with his battle-axe, but the sword’s tip embedded in the lower right side of his leather armor.
It didn’t pierce all the way through, but Garrick still grimaced at how close he’d come to taking real damage. He rammed the blunt end of his battle-axe handle into the cultist’s forehead so hard that it caved in, and he dropped to the floor, dead.
Garrick dispatched the remaining two just as easily, careful to only kill one of them and to break the leg of the other. He got ahold of the remaining cultist’s neck with his massive hand and pinned him to the wall next to the kitchen door, then he lifted him up to eye level.
“Another benefit of the troll blood is ridiculous strength. I can hold you here for an hour if I have to,” Garrick said. “Or you can tell me where the Crimson Flame temple is located, and I’ll let you go.”
The cultist squirmed and sputtered in Garrick’s grasp, but he managed to rasp, “I’ll never… tell you anything!”
Garrick sighed and glanced back at Irwin and Coburn again. They’d finished with the de-bearded man and started toward Garrick, and Irwin had detoured to grab his pack first. But as they approached, they stopped short, staring at something.
Garrick followed their gazes to the kitchen door. Red light flared around its edges, brighter with each passing second.
Then the door exploded.
Raging fire incinerated the kitchen door, billowed outward, and scorched the walls. Garrick dropped the cultist and dove to the side, away from the conflagration, but the cultist couldn’t move in time. The flames charred the cultist’s body black along with several of the pub’s patrons and the other cultists.
When Garrick looked up, he saw both Irwin and Coburn taking cover behind tables. Wooden tables.
Whoever or whatever was coming for them, it could wield fire. It would burn through the pub’s measly wooden tables in seconds.
“Move, you idiots!” Garrick hissed as he recovered his footing. “He’ll burn you to a crisp behind those!”
“Not a he.” Irwin adjusted his spectacles and pointed. “She.”
Garrick faced the kitchen again in time to see a busty, female figure step forward. Flames wreathed her body and hovered above her empty palms. Her blonde hair flowed behind her and teased her face, blown by the swirling fire around her, and she glowered at them with fiery red eyes edged with charred black skin.
Coburn gawked at her. “Falna?”
Chapter Two
Garrick couldn’t believe his eyes either, but he wasn’t about to let some small-town barmaid light him up. He’d faced much worse and survived.
Falna hurled a ball of fire at Coburn’s position first. He leaped over the bar as the fire engulfed the table where he’d been taking cover, reducing it to ash.
Irwin had nowhere to hide. Instead, he rummaged in his pack for something.
Garrick knew the drill—Irwin would find a solution, but he needed time.
No problem.
Garrick lurched forward and swung his battle-axe at Falna, hard and vicious.
Falna saw it coming and ducked underneath it, and she moved to blast Garrick to dust, but Garrick followed through with a kick that caught Falna’s sternum.
It wasn’t as hard of a kick as he’d wanted, but it knocked her off-balance, and her attack veered upward again. Fire seared a hole into the ceiling and ignited the pub’s roof. Stars twinkled in the open night sky overhead.
When his foot touched the floor again, Garrick realized that the flames swirling around Falna had lit the leather on his boot on fire. It burned his shin and crept up toward his knee, but if he didn’t keep pursuing Falna, she’d roast him like a holiday quail.
To buy himself some time, Garrick reached for a nearby chair and whipped it at her. She erected a wall of flames and destroyed most of it, but a few pieces of charred wood pelted her and knocked her over. Meanwhile, Garrick bent over and smacked the fire on his boot out.
Though his skin was resilient to most impacts, fire affected him the same as it would anyone else. His accelerated healing would take care of the burn in time, but not as quickly as it would a cut or a bone break. Trolls didn’t like fire, and the human part of his makeup did nothing to protect him from it, either.
By now the place had filled with smoke, obscuring Garrick’s vision and threatening to choke him. One of the drawbacks of being so tall was that the smoke got to him first. If Falna hadn’t accidentally blown the hole in the roof, smoke would’ve filled the whole place by now.
Small, scattered fires gnawed away at various spots on the floor, on tables, on chairs. A corner of the bar itself had caught fire, but it hadn’t spread much yet. Chunks of wood smoldered across the room, kicking smoke into the air.
Garrick had lost sight of Falna in the smoke when he’d patted out the fire on his leg, and with the smoke stinging his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. He crouched low, trying to determine whether the growing flames around him were just fires or a fire mage hiding in her ideal environment.
“Irwin?” Garrick called. “What have you got for me?”
“Just a moment, please!” Irwin’s voice cut through the smoke. “I’m having trouble finding—”
Fire billowed up from behind the bar, and a body rolled overtop of it. Coburn.
Flames licked at the heels of his boots as he toppled onto the floor between two smaller fires. Behind the bar, bottles of hard liquor ignited and burst, spewing flames in every direction.
“I’ll admit, I was hoping for a hot night with a well-endowed barmaid when I started talking to her,” Coburn wheezed, “but this isn’t what I had in mind!”
Garrick hurried over to him, and they crouched against the burning bar together. “Where is she now?”
Coburn shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t see anything.”
“Found it!” Irwin shouted.
“Get over here!” Garrick hollered back.
Irwin scampered across the pub floor and held up a vial of clear liquid. “I’ve only got the one.”
“We’re trying to find the temple of a fire-worshiping cult called ‘the Crimson Flame,’ and you only brought one anti-fire potion?” Garrick growled.
“I’ll make more later,” Irwin said. “And it’s a suspended solution, not a potion. I’m an alchemist, not some hack apothecary. But if you prefer, I can always take out the black vial…”
“No.” Garrick shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Then make sure this one counts.” Irwin planted it in Garrick’s open hand.
To their right, the bar burst apart and flames shot forward, boiling the air around them. They rolled to the left, skittering and crawling to avoid the fire.
“Shake it before you break it,” Irwin reminded him. “It’ll get foamy and frothy, but it’ll keep you safe from the fire until it runs out.”
“I’m not going to use
it to protect myself,” Garrick said. “I’m going to use it on her. I’ll distract her. You two sneak around from behind. Once her fire’s out, grab her and hold her down. Dose her with something if you have to. If we don’t get her away from the flames, she’ll keep using them against us.”
As if on cue, all the fires around them swelled in size. They burned brighter and hotter, and Garrick had to shield his face against the heat. He cursed and started shaking the vial.
“Go that way.” Garrick pointed to the other side of the bar. Then he crouch-ran around the opposite side to where he thought he’d find Falna, shaking the vial as he ran.
Sure enough, a maelstrom of flames and fury greeted him through the haze. Falna’s vivid red eyes fixed on his position, and the flames around her burned brighter and hotter as she drew her arm back to throw another fireball.
For once, Garrick was quicker. He’d been ready to throw the vial as soon as he saw her, and that’s what he did.
As the vial flew at Falna, the heat exploded it in midair, and a plume of white foam slapped into Falna, caking her from head to toe. The foam also splattered onto nearby tables, chairs, walls, and the floor. Whatever fire it touched it extinguished with an angry hiss, including the fireball conjuring in Falna’s hand.
“Now!” Garrick yelled.
As Falna tried to claw the foam from her eyes, Coburn hit her from behind, knocking her to the floor. Coburn pulled his knife out of its sheath with a shing and put it against her neck.
“Don’t move, enchantress,” he said, his voice sharp with rage.
She kept scraping at her eyes. “It… it’s burning my eyes!”
“It should. It’s a compound designed to extinguish fire, and your eyes were steeped in flames,” Irwin said.
“Let’s get her out of here. The place is going to burn down,” Garrick said.
Coburn stood and wrenched Falna up by her hair until she was standing. Then Garrick grabbed his battle-axe in one hand and slung Falna over his shoulder with the other.
“What about your cloak?” Irwin asked.
“Leave it. It’s not worth the risk.” Garrick kicked the pub door so hard that it snapped off its hinges and slammed to the ground outside, then he ducked under the doorway—like he had to with almost every doorway—and set Falna down fifty paces away from the blazing pub.
