Calling On Fire (Book 1) (42 page)

“The both of you are lucky to be alive,” she warned them. “Just remember, this is what comes of messing with Moloch—except with him personally, it’ll be ten times worse.”

“We know,” Toman replied, rock steady. For just a moment, Sergeant Gretchen Warthog’s gaze flickered away from his. She was unnerved by his gaze. Yes, they did know what they were getting into, and not only were they prepared to look death in the eye, they knew what it meant to do so.

“That’s why we’re going to lay low until Toman’s healed. Well, we will after this now,” Esset amended.

“We probably won’t even get paid for this,” the sergeant grumbled, looking over at Francis, who was admiring a tapestry at the other end of the hall.

“Yeah, but look at him. He’s pathetic. We have to help him,” Toman pointed out. The sergeant
harrumphed
but didn’t contradict him.

“Well then boys, you ready to rescue a princess?” she asked. The three of them exchanged looks for a second, then busted out laughing simultaneously. Like a traditional fairy tale, this wasn’t.

“Oi! Martin!” Sergeant Warthog shouted to the young man.
At least she called him by his last name,
Esset thought. That indicated that she at least respected what he was trying to do. Francis hurried over, and they commenced planning. Half an hour later, they were in the air again.

“Darkfires take it, I was hoping for something more open,” Toman cursed. They’d just found the bandits holed up in a large cave. Snatching back the princess would have been easy if they’d been in a field or canyon or under any open air at all—Esset could have simply had one of his fiery birds swoop down and snatch her up before the bandits knew what hit them. In a cave, the princess was that much more vulnerable to being used as a hostage.

“So we all were,” the sergeant responded. “But we prepared for this too. We all know our parts. Let’s do this.” The three young men nodded and got into place.

“
Foolish thieves
.” Toman was hiding at the mouth of the cave with a funny contraption that looked like a metal cone. When he spoke into it, it amplified his voice—and he was bellowing to begin with. He was also having a grand time with his allotted job. Francis sat in stony silence, letting the bandits assume that he was using magic to speak instead of deigning to speak with his physical voice.

“Return what you have stolen.” Toman demanded.

Just as he finished speaking, the “Dark Sorcerer” and his “minions” suddenly “appeared” in the cave entrance. In reality, Francis had used his illusion magic to briefly mask their approach and then dropped the false image when they were in place. Francis and his “minions” needed no help looking fierce, however. Toman had animated three massive gargoyle-like quadrupeds for them to ride. They snarled silently and pawed the ground menacingly, leaving shallow furrows in the stony floor. Astride the lead beast was Francis, in all his black-clad, pasty-skinned glory. Somehow, he was actually managing to look somewhat menacing atop his fierce steed.

To either side of him were mounted matching suits of armor. Inside one suit was Sergeant Warthog—the other was simply animated metal borrowed from Toman’s castle. Altogether, they made a fierce sight. They were all hoping to get the princess back without having to fight, but those wickedly curving claws and fangs on the stone beasts weren’t all bluff.

Meanwhile, Esset was hiding behind rocks and slowly making his way around the side of the cave so he could get behind the bandits. At best, he would be able to extract Arabella with a fiery horse and a quick exit. At worst, he would be in a better tactical position to send some kind of fire creature into the fray if it came to that. Given the terrified expressions of the bandits at the moment, it was looking like it might not be necessary.

“You will pay for your hubris, puny men!” the voice bellowed. “Return my prize to me now or suffer the consequences!”

For a moment, it looked like their plan would work flawlessly, and the bandits would turn over the princess without any fight at all. Then the leader managed to regain his courage and rally his men.

“You bluff!” he yelled back. He waved a hand at one of his men to get him to grab Arabella and draw a sword on her threateningly.

“
Bluff? You will pay for this insolence!
” Toman roared into the voice amplifier. The stone beast with just the suit of armor lunged forward. It snatched up the nearest bandit in a clawed hand and raised it up into the air. The man screamed, a high-pitched squeal of terror, and uselessly battered his sword blade against the creature’s stone arm. The gargoyle snapped at the man’s face menacingly and shook him like a doll. The man dropped his sword and it clattered towards his mates. They drew back as if it were a poisonous snake. The gargoyle crashed back down to the ground and pinned the bandit to the ground under one gargantuan foot, its claws scraping the rocks gratingly. The bandit was slightly flatter under its weight, but he was otherwise undamaged.

“Stop! Move again and she is dead!” the bandit leader frantically ordered.

“Who is bluffing now?” Toman roared. “Know this—I am Dark Sorcerer Zaren, and you know not the territory into which you have wandered. This is your last warning: return my property or I shall destroy each and every one of you. If you damage my possession, death shall be the least of your fears.”

Despite the seriousness of Arabella’s situation, Toman was having far too much fun. In fact, that shred of seriousness was all that was keeping him from busting out laughing and ruining the entire thing. Not that this was a bluff—far from it. Still, they were hoping to avoid bloodshed. Meanwhile, Esset was almost halfway around the cave, level with the bandit leader.

“What kind of guarantee do we have that you won’t kill us anyways?” the bandit leader shouted back. He looked worried—very worried, and his fear was legitimate. After all, Dark Sorcerers weren’t exactly known for keeping their word.

“I will give you this guarantee only: return my possession in the next minute or you will all die. I can replace any possession I choose, but your lives are irreplaceable to you.” Toman managed to growl menacingly while still amplifying his voice. It was quite intimidating.

The whole thing was a bit melodramatic for Esset’s taste, but it was coming across as genuine to the bandits—at least half of them immediately threw down their various weapons and raised their hands in the air. The rest of them looked around at their comrades and quickly followed suit, the bandit holding Arabella included. Arabella immediately began running forward, but she had to pass the leader, and he snaked an arm out to grab her. She shrieked in surprise as he gained a harsh enough grip on her arm to bruise.

Esset was close enough—the simple syllables of the incantation rolled off his tongue and a fiery wolf materialized behind the bandit leader. The summoner didn’t anticipate Arabella’s next move, however. She balled her hand into a fist and punched the man square in the mouth. She wasn’t strong enough to do serious damage—she was still a relatively small woman—but she startled everyone, including her captor, and he let go of her in surprise. The flaming wolf lunged and snapped its jaws around the bandit’s now-empty outstretched hand. The bandit screamed in pain as his hand was simultaneously burned and crushed in the creature’s jaws. The wolf vanished within a moment, but the damage remained.

Princess Arabella ran right up to the feet of Francis’ gargoyle and flung herself onto the ground before him. She shook and wept so hard that Toman was worried that the woman had been permanently damaged by the experience. Then again, she had mustered up the spirit to punch the bandit leader. Was she
this
good of an actress?

“My lord, please forgive me my absence!” she wailed. “These men stole me away—I never would have dreamed of stealing myself away from you! Have mercy, my lord, please!” She groveled in the dirt as Sergeant Warthog dismounted and walked woodenly over. Then the sergeant picked the princess up and unceremoniously slung her over one shoulder.

“You okay?” the sergeant murmured, almost inaudibly, to the princess.

“Fine,” the princess peeped back, equally quietly.

“
You are foolish, puny men,
” Toman roared. As he spoke the armor-bearing gargoyle reared up and clawed the air, freeing the bandit that had been trapped under its claws but menacing the rest of them. The bandits drew back, and some began pleading for their lives. Meanwhile, Esset was using the distraction to sneak back towards the rest of the group. The giant stone beast lunged forward and swiped at the air, causing the bandits to scramble back. Toman was fairly certain that they all thought they were about to die. He let them think that for a few moments before putting their fears to rest. Sort of.

“You are fortunate, you imbecilic meat-sacks, that I have other, more pressing matters to attend to. You may keep your lives, this time. If I grow bored later, perhaps I will seek you out for my entertainment,” Toman added, making his tone almost bored. Francis and the sergeant turned their beasts away a moment before Francis put up an illusion of their absence, so they seemed to simply vanish. The other gargoyle menaced the bandits a moment or two longer before lunging out of the cave after the others. In that time, Esset had snuck past the illusion as well, leaving the bandits completely alone. In reality, Esset paused at the mouth of the cave so he and Toman could mount the gargoyle-like stone beast before all three of the beasts carried the princess and her rescue party away.

“Hey Esset,” Toman said as soon as they were out of earshot—that wasn’t difficult, since the bandit leader was still raising a fuss over his injuries.

“Yeah?” Esset responded, leaning into his brother’s back to hear and be heard better.

“We just rescued a princess!” Toman laughed back.

“I know! I doubt this story will ever end up in the tales!” Esset laughed too. It was all totally absurd, really. The old tales were totally formulaic, and they definitely hadn’t followed the formula. Yet at the same time, rescuing a princess did make them feel like a couple of giddy little boys living out a tale of heroes and dragons, good and evil. This little incident restored their faith in the world—just a little bit.

“Imbecilic meat-sacks?” the sergeant stated skeptically. Esset howled with laughter and almost fell out of his chair. They were back in the castle, in a small room sporting some comfortable chairs and a card table that they were seated around, having a bite to eat. After leaving the bandits far behind, they’d stopped briefly to make sure Arabella was okay and wait for the sergeant to climb out of the uncomfortable suit of armor. They’d introduced themselves to the princess but waited until they’d reached Arxus to give her the whole story. By then it was evening, and Toman and Esset had offered to put up Francis and Arabella for the night. At the moment, they were razzing Toman for the bits of his performance that they perceived to be overdone.

“I can’t believe you used the word ‘hubris,’” Arabella put in. “I’m fair certain they didn’t know what it meant.”

“Haha—I can see them now! ‘Please, tell me what that means so I can avoid doing it again!’” Francis joked.

“Hey, that one was all Esset. When we planned the first bit, he said to say that!” Toman said, pointing at his brother.

“Oh come on, who doesn’t know what hubris is?” Esset said.

“Not everyone likes to be up to their ears in religious literature, Esset,” Toman pointed out. “And you don’t find that word anywhere else.”

“Nonsense,” Esset huffed, pretending to be snooty about it. Only the glint in his eyes gave him away.

“Regardless, I’m sure they’re still shaking in their boots,” Francis put in proudly. “We owe you a great debt.”

“Indeed we do,” Arabella agreed, snuggling into her beau’s side. “Thank you for helping this lug come get me.”

“Lug?” Francis put in woefully before Toman and Esset could respond.

“Loveable lug,” Arabella amended, sneaking a kiss onto the tip of Francis’ nose. He was entirely appeased.

“It was nothing,” Esset interjected, shifting awkwardly in his chair and deliberately looking away from the couple.

“Don’t worry about paying us anything,” the sergeant put in. She was in the business of favors, after all, and she knew that a favor could be worth more than any payment. Not that she expected to ever call in a favor on these two, but one never knew.

“Thank you so much. You are too generous,” Arabella thanked them sincerely.

“Yes, thank you,” Francis echoed. “I don’t know what I would have done without you three.” The rest of them knew that he probably would have gotten himself killed. Arabella too, probably. But none of them said it—he probably knew it already too.

“Well, it’s been a long day—more than one day, for Francis and me. If no one objects, I think we should retire for the night.” Arabella got to her feet and the rest of them rose only a moment behind her. Everyone bade their good-nights, and the princess and the merchant’s son departed to their room.

“I should be heading out too,” Sergeant Warthog said once the pair were gone. Toman was slowly sitting back down, trying to hide a wince as he did so. Both Esset and the sergeant noticed anyways, but they pretended not to.

“I’ll show you out,” Esset offered, stepping forward. “I know this place can be a maze.”

“It might be small for a castle, but it’s still plenty large,” the sergeant agreed, accepting his offer. As it turned out, she had more than one motive for getting him to come along, but she waited until they were a ways down the hallway before speaking.

“I know you two are set on catching that mage, but I can’t see you being okay with how things have turned out for Toman recently.”

“No,” Esset conceded, avoiding eye contact.

“I trust you’ve been giving this particular trajectory of yours some thought?”

“Of course,” Esset replied, slightly defensive. He looked at her then, but only very briefly, with barely a glance.

“Just remember that you don’t have to go after Moloch. Revenge is a dumb reason—” Esset tried to say something, but Sergeant Warthog forestalled him. “I know that’s not why you’re doing this, let me finish.” She waited for a nod before continuing.