Borne of Fire

Prologue

Not long now.

He knew he was dying. The blood pooling under and around his body was only confirmation of that. It was the way his punctured and torn forearm pulsed with such intense pain, the heat of which he could never have imagined outside of a smelting furnace, which told him he had been poisoned. Infected. Even as his immune system fought against the invasion, his own traitorous blood acted as a conduit, carrying the poison up his arm and around his body. His veins burned with a searing heat, as if such a fire could cleanse him from within.

A man approaching his later years, slumped against the base of a tree, perspiration coating the leathery skin of his face and causing droplets to form in his beard. A beard once full and red, now peppered with grey. Just like his woollen tunic and leggings - too many seasons and too many battles - the years had taken their toll.

At first he had clutched his arm at the elbow in an attempt to stop or even slow the corruption but it wasn't enough. The cold weather had played its part also as he sat there, still and silent, slowing his breathing, slowing his heart rate. But that wasn't enough either.

He had even thought about removal. If he could amputate the limb and cauterise the wound somehow he may have recovered eventually but for once he wasn't quick enough. The pain had reached his upper arm by the time he had unsheathed his short sword, the effort of this alone leaving him gasping for breath. The physical demand required to sever his own arm out of the question.

When he felt the poison reach his shoulder he accepted his fate. He had relinquished the grip he held on his hardened, swollen bicep, his all too feeble attempt at controlling the infection, and fallen back against an old fir tree.

Not long now.

As he lay there dying, the man called Rek-iar, once known as the boy Wirral, took scant comfort in the fact that he had killed the creature as it had locked its teeth onto his arm. He had witnessed enchanted weapons at work in his time watching and knew that no sorcerer had seen fit to bless his blade but nevertheless sparks and flames had flown as he drove his steel through the beast and pinned it to the frozen ground. Rek-iar had no time to consider such concerns, simple relief overwhelming him as he watched it die. A smell of burning drifted past him from time to time carried on the slight breeze. He glanced over to where it lay with wisps of steam rising from its prone form. It was only now, as he lay under the snowy sky, feeling the damp from the frost around him melting from his heightened body temperature that he began to wonder.

Not long now.

Despite the initial ferocity that the poison had shown, it had not killed him outright upon reaching his heart. In many ways he wished it had as he felt it coursing its way through the rest of his body with the hunger of a summer fire through dry scrub - his organs being destroyed one by one like outposts being captured by an enemy, until all that was left was a human furnace.

No, not long now.

But somehow he knew that was wrong. And as he began to recite the ancient words, taught to him in what felt like another lifetime, drawing in the dirt beside him the symbols necessary for the communique to be performed, realisation fell over him like a wolf falling on a lamb.

This was not the end.

This was just the beginning.