Calling On Fire (Book 1) (9 page)

As he followed, Esset acknowledged that they had probably lost enough time already. He knew his reservations were well-known, so he resolved to hold his own council unless something new cropped up.

Still, Esset kept a close eye below as they sped over the landscape. A distant smudge of smoke grew clearer, until it was distinguishable as multiple plumes from a few chimneys: a forge, a smokehouse, and a couple homes. The village was small, but necessarily self-sufficient. By the time they were close enough to make out individual people, they'd been spotted themselves, and all of the residents fled indoors and hid.

Toman and Esset landed in what could have been a ghost town.

"What do you think? Do we play hero, or pretend we're exotic hunters only, tracking a rare beast?" Esset asked, keeping his voice low so only Toman was near enough to hear.

"My abilities are well-known to Moloch, thanks to my predecessor," Toman said. "Any deception on our part will only point to conspiracy if Moloch catches wind, and we want to keep Erizen clear if we can."

Esset nodded; that made sense. It was just as well, since he preferred simply being who he was.

"Think we can persuade them to help us help them?" Esset asked. Toman looked around the seemingly deserted village.

"Tough to say. We can't tell them Erizen sent us, and they may fear his reprisal for speaking to outsiders," Toman replied. It was too complicated a situation for his taste.

"I guess all we can do is try," Esset said.

Since no one seemed to want to come greet them, they finally dismounted and approached the biggest house in the village—odds were good someone important lived or worked there.

Toman knocked. Esset thought his knock was a little overly assertive, but then, that was probably why Toman was doing the knocking. When no one answered, Toman knocked again, even louder. Finally, the animator pounded on the door and yelled into the house.

"Hey! We hear you have a dragon problem!"

Still nothing.

"I really hope they're not going to make us drag them out of there," Toman muttered. Esset eyed him; they wouldn't really do that. Probably.

Toman raised his fist to pound on the door again.

"Hey—"

The door opened. Toman froze, fist in the air. He slowly lowered it. The man in the doorway was short with a frizzled grey mustache and a sagging belly. His clothes and everything on and around him were grey, but his skin was still the proper color.

"Good noon, m'lords," the man said.

"Good noon, but we're no lords," Esset said, taking the lead now. "I'm Summoner Esset, and this is Animator Toman. We heard you're having some trouble, and we've come to help."

"Beg pardon, m'lords, but only the dark lords have magic in these parts, and our Lord wouldn't take kindly to us talking to you," the man said with a bow. He was sweating profusely. Toman and Esset exchanged looks.

"What's your name, sir?" Esset asked.

"Kerby Carver," the little man replied, his eyes shifting from side to side almost in time with his feet.

"Be at ease, Mr. Carver," Esset said. "All we want is to hunt your monster. You don't have to say a word else to us, if you're worried we're spies. Just tell us what you know about the monster only. How could that hurt your lord? It could only help him, by us getting rid of your monster so your fine village can thrive again."

"Er, I suppose just telling you about the dragon can't hurt, m'lords," the man said, but he still shifted nervously from foot to foot.

"Good. Tell us what you know, and we'll leave and only come back if we kill the monster," Esset promised.

"Okay then, m'lords." Despite Mr. Carver's agreement, he still glanced around before continuing. "Well, it's a dragon, sure enough. It's massive, especially its head and jaws, but its forelegs are tiny, not useful for much of anything. It doesn't need them though. It just swoops down and picks up whatever it wants in its jaws—livestock, people, deer, it makes no difference," the man said. Toman and Esset exchanged looks again. "Massive" was a fairly general term for describing size, but it had to be big to carry off livestock without a problem.

"How big, sir?" Esset asked.

"The size of my house, m'lord, easily! We've all seen it. We've lost three people and over a third our herds since it first came."

"And you say dragon—can it breathe fire or anything?" Esset asked.

"Not that I've seen, m'lord, despite all the old tales saying they can," the man admitted. Esset was certainly glad to hear that.

"But you should know, m'lord, old farmer Erikson tried to shoot the beast and the arrow bounced right off him. Scales of steel, he has," Mr. Carver told him.

"Thank you, that's very helpful," Esset said. "Do you know where the beast lairs?"

"I don't, m'lord, but he always heads west, into Lord Koris's kingdom. And he always comes from the west, from behind the mountain. Like as not, he lairs somewhere over there, m'lord," Mr. Carver said.

"Anything else you can think of that might help us, sir?" Esset asked. Mr. Carver thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"Sorry, m'lord, that's everything I know. Likely all anyone knows," the short man replied. Esset looked over at Toman, who shook his head—he didn't have any further questions either.

"Okay, we'd best be on our way then," Esset said. He turned to go, hesitated, and then stopped. "I don't suppose you can tell us why everything is grey here?" he asked.

Mr. Carver looked surprised. "Why, everyone knows that, m'lord. 'Tis Lord Erizen's Greymaker."

"Greymaker," Esset repeated.

"Aye, it's—well, if you don't know, maybe I shouldn't be telling you, m'lord," Mr. Carver said, thinking better of an explanation.

"Right, sorry," Esset said. "We'll be off." He and Toman exchanged another look but returned to their mounts. A quick survey of the village indicated that everyone else was still closeted away, without so much as a ruffled drape.

"Let's go," Toman said. They did.

"Well, what do you think?" Toman asked as soon as they landed on a hillside overlooking the town.

"Definitely not a real dragon," Esset said. He was simultaneously disappointed and very grateful, but Toman just gave him a blank stare.

"You know more about dragons than I do," Toman finally said.

"Oh. Right. Well, dragons are incredibly powerful, magical, and intelligent creatures. This one sounds strong, but not especially magical or intelligent. Also, physiologically speaking, dragons are well-proportioned, even beautiful creatures. They certainly don't have itty bitty forelegs and massive heads. It's also pretty rare for them to eat people, or really to be evil at all. The exceptions to that are usually very notable, but they really are rare," Esset explained.

"Uh huh. So what is it then, if not a dragon?" Toman asked.

"A monster. I can't really be more specific," Esset admitted. "I mean, it might be a relative of the wyvern, which is dragonish in appearance while still being just a beast, but wyverns rarely have forelegs and their necks are too snake-like and heads too small for them to fit Mr. Carver's description."

"Monster," Toman repeated. "That's disappointingly non-specific."

Esset shrugged. "That's it for my knowledge of naturally occurring dragon-like species."

"So you're saying it might be a mage-construct. Erizen did mention the possibility," Toman said.

Esset nodded. "That means it might have some unexpected traits, but there's not much we can do to prepare for that," Esset acknowledged.

"So what's our basic plan then?" Toman asked.

Esset shrugged again. "Find the lair. If it's a cave, we might be able to trap it inside with a cave-in or something. That would be easiest. If something goes wrong, we did bring supplies. We can't make much more of a plan without more information, but unless it has abilities far beyond what we're aware of, this should be relatively easy."

Toman nodded his agreement. "Can we still call it a dragon? Just for simplicity's sake?"

Esset grinned crookedly. "But I want to call it a semi-drakish monstrosity."

Toman gave an exaggerated wince. "Let's go find that lair."

They could have found the lair by smell alone. The unfinished remains of rotting carcasses—and corpses—littered the ground around the mouth of the large but relatively shallow cave, which was more of the underside to an overhanging cliff that a true cave. Esset supposed that, given how large the creature supposedly was, it would be difficult for it to find
any
cave large enough to accommodate it. And if the monster was as big as the size of the lair suggested, then Mr. Carver hadn't been exaggerating.

They'd found the place by flying grid searches in the general direction that Mr. Carver had indicated. It had taken them beyond the grey area and into the neighboring territory. Now they flew lower to investigate more closely, since there was no sign that the beast was home now. As he drew nearer, Esset noticed some odd markings in the rocks around the lair. He gulped. The odd marks were gouges in the stone—gouges furrowed deep by claws that were likely as long as his arm or better. Between the gouges and the decomposing bodies of man and beast, there might as well have been "Here be monsters" written on this spot on the map.

"Good, it's gone," Toman said beside him. "You go keep an eye out for it in case it comes back. I'm going to see if I can't make some preparations."

"Sure thing. You be ready to fly if we need to," Esset said unnecessarily.

"Brother, I ain't even gonna dismount," Toman said, laughing. He was intimidated by the claw marks too, but he was still fairly confident.

They could easily handle the vast majority of creatures without magical abilities, Esset reminded himself as he took to the skies. No matter how big and fierce this monster was, it was still well within range of their abilities. With their particular skillset, he and Toman excelled against purely physical threats. It was when they were up against magic-users that they struggled, since they had little defense against magical attacks.

And that was why he worried about the possibility that this was a mage-construct. Just because there was no trace of a master behind the beast yet didn't mean there wasn't one, or that he wouldn't show up at an inopportune moment. But as he and Toman had already agreed, there was little they could do to prepare for such a possibility.

Esset glanced down at Toman, who had his hands on the rock of the cave's ceiling and his eyes heavy-lidded in concentration. He could guess what his brother's plans were, but he'd find out for sure later. For now Esset kept his eyes on the skies as well as the ground below. The ground was remarkably sparse on wildlife, he was unsurprised to see. Some tiny movements betrayed a marmot, but the larger wildlife would have learned to steer clear of the beast's lair by now. The only other creatures around were birds, which made sense to Esset, since he couldn't see something the monster's size being able to catch such tiny and fleet meals.

Esset circled Toman's location continuously, even checking the skies above—just in case. He started going through mental exercises to keep his mind from wandering, as it was wont to do, but he still found himself wishing that his brother's abilities didn't require quite so much time to prepare for a battle. And despite his attempts to keep sharp, Esset found himself surprised and unprepared when his mount suddenly started descending without his instruction.

Esset panicked for a moment, cueing the animated stone to pull up several times before he saw Toman waving at him from below and realizing his mount's disobedience was of his brother's doing. He relaxed and waved back, curious as to why Toman was bringing him down.

"Hey, nitwit, you've got all my chains!" Toman called when he was in earshot. Of course.

"Well, numbskull, you should've taken them before I took off," Esset retorted good-naturedly. His mount's stone hooves clattered against the rocks as the chains wound around it slithered off.

"So are we almost ready to go?" Esset asked, scanning above them in case the monster was returning.

"Yup. I figure we can hide over there," Toman waved an arm at the rocks overlooking the cave, "and wait for the monster to enter his lair. When it does, I have a golem already posing as the ceiling. It'll drop down and crush the monster. With luck, that's all it will take, but if not, a bunch of these boulders I've animated into snakes can wrap around it and crush it. We shouldn't even need these chains, but I'll have them hide around here too. At the very least, me and mine should be able to keep the beast from taking off, which means you can summon your beasts to fight it."

"Sounds thorough. But I still don't know why you brought
daggers
along," Esset said, waving at Toman's mount, which bristled with the weapons. "Those tiny little blades aren't going to be much use against the monster's tough hide."

Toman gave him a broad grin. "Nothing has a tough hide on the inside," the animator said. "And they're small enough to fly inside the mouth of pretty much any large creature."

"That's disturbing," Esset said, nonetheless impressed with his brother's ingenuity.