The Land Set Aflame

Chapter 18: The Beasts

" 'Am I good with animals'?" she asked indignantly over the din of snarling and scratching as she pressed her back hard against the door, "What exactly were hoping I could do about this?"

"I don't know!" Svenden said defensively, flexing to contain the beast that was trying to break through the door, "They didn't seem aggressive at first: I thought maybe you could charm them or something."

One of the creatures slammed against the door again, and Callyndia's feet slid out from under her. She landed hard on her bum. "Ow!" she said, "Maybe I still can! But it's awfully aggressive!"

The boards at the bottom of the door were groaning loudly now, and one of them looked like it could give out at any moment.

Leofric stirred and sat up, looking groggily around himself. "What—?" he started to ask, but he seemed to figure out what was happening before he could finish asking the question, "Oh!"

"They look like giant skunks or something!" Callyndia said,

There was a terrific crack! A board on the bottom of the door tore open, and a black muzzle pressed through the gap, full of pointed teeth. Svenden stomped at it, but his foot mostly deflected off and did little to actually deter the creature.

After a few more growls, the inside of the beast's maw began to glow with fire, and a large gout of flame poured out, just missing Svenden's feet but lighting the straw around him on fire.

"Fire!" Leofric called, extending a hand and whispering some arcane words that seemed to thrum and echo throughout the barn. The burning straw was swiftly quenched of its flames.

"Giant, fire-breathing skunks?" Svenden called out in disbelief as he pressed one of his feet onto the beast's muzzle and tried (unsuccessfully) to shove it back out of the barn.

"Alright, I'm going to try something," Callyndia said, closing her eyes and raising her arms.

She felt her hair flutter lightly on a nonexistent breeze as her fairy magic spread out around her. She directed the various threads of it to converge on the fire-breathing beast at the door, and shoved her will into it. She focused her mind on a single word: "Leave!"

The beast yelped once in surprise, and backed away from the door for a moment, whimpering uncertainly.

Another of the beasts slammed into the side wall, shaking free a cloud of dust and straw that joined the smoky air in assaulting lungs and throats.

"I'm going to shoot it!" Svenden said.

An arrow flew past from Callyndia's peripheral vision, followed by a second and third arrow in quick succession. All three arrows struck the second beast in a tight cluster, just as its forequarters shoved through the broken wall. It yapped in pain, and collapsed on the ground right where it stood.

There was suddenly a foul odor in the air, and what looked almost like a billowing cloud of smoky shadows began spilling out from the dead beast, filling the air with a palpable gloom. As it touched her, Callyndia felt her eyelids droop almost instantly, and her magic weakened.

"What is that!?" Callyndia managed to say through the fog in her head, backing away from the door and losing focus on her fairy magic as she tried to shake her head clear and cough away the unbearable stench.

"I don't know," Svenden said with a sleep-slurred voice.

Through the umbral haze, Callyndia thought she could see Leofric digging into his satchel, searching through his vials and herb packets and whatever else he had in there. "I've got something that might work," he said, "Give me a second!"

Suddenly, the first beast rammed its head hard against the door again, cracking the beleaguered board even further and shoving its entire head inside. The noise briefly jolted Callyndia awake, but the sleepy vapors flooded back in almost instantly, making the world spin a little bit.

"I've found it!" she heard Leofric triumphantly declare. Then she heard him yelp almost an octave higher as the air burst into flames again.

There was a moment of racket, the bright lights of the fire, and the shouts of both men. Leofric seemed to be trying to cast a spell, and Svenden seemed to be trying to line up another shot. But they were both struggling against the wooziness of the weird shadow stench.

Callyndia steadied herself against this surprisingly multifaceted skunk attack, and formed her magic into a shield that forced all the sleepy, gloomy stench away from her head. She instantly felt clarity in her mind again, and she looked up to see what was happening.

Leofric's head was bobbing groggily as he tried to toss some gouts of clumsy, wizard magic at Svenden, who was rolling around on the ground with flames consuming his legs. But the second beast was dead beside the first, with one of Svenden's arrows in its head. Two others were protruding from the wall behind the skunk, but at least the one seemed to have found its target.

"Hold still!" Leofric said.

Callyndia quickly grabbed her traveling cloak and tried to toss it over Svenden's burning leg, blinking against the spreading shadows, which still seemed to sting her eyes, even through her magical shield.

"Sven!" she shouted in frustration as he accidentally kicked her, "Hold still!"

Amazingly, he did exactly as told, lying rigidly still with a look of confusion and pain frozen on his face.

Did she just... was that a spell she just cast on him?

No, no time to think about that right now. She seized Svenden's legs within the cloak and delicately smothered the fire.

"Can you get rid of this cloud?" she called back to Leofric, "You might have to move the bodies, too."

"Oh, right!" Leofric said, looking down and locating his dropped packet again. He immediately began rolling the packet around in his hands, crushing its delicate packaging and unleashing herbal crumbs that tumbled to the ground. His low, thrumming arcane chants filled the room, and there was suddenly a gust of air that whipped around the room and out the door.

The wind blew Callyndia's straw-strewn hair into her face. She quickly tossed it back over her head, and when she looked again, most of the inky stink had dispersed.

"Now, for the bodies," Leofric said, standing to open the door.

From his place on the ground, Svenden held up a hand. "No, wait!" he said, "There might be more of them out there. You'd better just stay in the barn."

Leofric paused to consider, then nodded. He pulled from his satchel a small strip of bamboo that was marked with several peculiar symbols. He spoke some more of his arcane words, and a small cloud of reddish vapor diffused out of the bamboo and gathered in the air above him. He breathed gently on it, and the little cloud wafted over to the dead skunk, surrounding the body and shoving it out the door. It continued rolling the body away for several more paces. He repeated the process for the other body.

"There," he said, "That's taken care of that."

After a moment of quiet, Svenden started chuckling. "Giant skunks that breathe fire and fart shadow," he said, "What just happened to us?"

His chuckle was contagious, and Callyndia found herself laughing alongside him. But, it really wasn't that funny.

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I don't know how many of you were keeping score, but this is the first time Svenden's actually solved a problem by shooting it with an arrow. See? It does work sometimes.