Earlier in the evening they had taken two nice does, and we’re now trying for a third. Four of the archers had ridden north making a wide berth around the river. They were riding back toward Mikahl and the other three men. They were coming slowly, trying to flush a buck, or maybe even a wild sow, out into the open. Mikahl didn’t find much sport in hunting this way, but when there was an army of men to feed, and the sun was setting, there was no better way to drum up a meal. The High King was positioned closest to the band of thick underbrush that ran along the river’s bank. He was reminiscing about the last time he’d been on a true hunt.
His fond memory was interrupted by two dull red embers a good foot apart, glowing in the deepest shadows of the forest ahead of him. He squinted, blinked a few times. Then, just as he realized that the embers were actually eyes, the beast charged.
Mikahl loosed the arrow he had nocked, then flung the bow at the enormous beast and drew his sword. Whether from the sudden appearance of Ironspike’s magical blue glow, or from fear of the huge charging demon- boar that it illuminated, Mikahl’s horse reared and whinnied loudly. In Mikahl’s head, the eldritch symphony of Ironspike’s power blasted full force, into a glorious and triumphant harmony. Mikahl turned the horse with a yank on the reins and was ready to slash when one of the fool archer captains tried to be a hero and charged his horse right between Mikahl and the demon-boar. The boar’s tusks were razor-sharp and at least the size of a young girl’s forearm. The archery captain’s poor mount didn’t have a chance. The boar dug his head down and gored up through the animal. Then it reared back and sent horse and rider twisting into the trees.
Mikahl was awed by the size and strength of the creature. It was as tall as a man at the shoulder and was as big as a horse-drawn wagon, but low to the ground and covered in bristling hide.
The archery captain’s sharp scream was abruptly cut off as his head slammed into a trunk. The disemboweled horse crashed down not too far from him with a thumping whoosh.
Ironspike’s glow went from blue to lavender, then to cherry-red, as Mikahl’s anger grew. When the boar came charging at him again, he sent three wicked pulsing blasts into the beast’s neck and shoulder. He tried to spur his mount out of the way, but the terrified horse baulked. The last thing Mikahl sensed before his horse made a desperate twisting leap was the horrible stench of burnt hair from where his blasts had scorched the beast. Ironspike was knocked from his hand and he was smacked gracelessly out of the saddle by a low hanging limb. In the now completely darkened forest, he landed hard on his back.
For a few heartbeats he thought he might have been knocked out, but the deep grunting of the angry beast and the thrum of an arrow being loosed from nearby came to his ringing ears and told him that he was still in the realm of consciousness. As soon as he had his breath back, he scooted himself back against a tree trunk. He strained to see, but it was too dark. Men were shouting, and nearby he heard his horse crashing through the trees. Blasted animal, he thought, Windfoot wouldn’t have frozen up like that. He found that he missed his horse quite badly.
Since he didn’t know where his weapon, or the boar had gone, Mikahl figured that he was all right to wait where he was. Then someone fired up a torch. The red eyes of the demon-boar were coming in at him again, this time with a vengeance. He felt around him on the ground hoping to find Ironspike, but had to give it up. He barely had time to roll out of the way.
The demon-boar hit the tree Mikahl had been leaning against so hard that it shook the ground. It didn’t advance after that, it just stood there. Mikahl could smell the acrid stench of the creature’s wounds as it staggered in place right next to him. It was all he could do to hold in the contents of his bladder. Even in the torch-lit darkness the boar’s size wasn’t lost on him. He brushed against its side as he tried to get away. Its coarse bristles felt more like pine needles than hair.
Someone called for him but he couldn’t find his voice to answer. He had a dagger in his boot, but he knew better than to waste the effort. A dagger probably wouldn’t even get through the thick hide of something that big. The only course of action was to get away while the thing was still stunned. If he hadn’t lost the sword, things would be different. As he stumbled blindly away with his hands up to guard his face from branches and thorny brambles, he couldn’t help but feel naked. Without Ironspike he was vulnerable. He knew he wasn’t defenseless without the sword. He was better than everyone on the practice yard. He had grown used to the feeling of invincibility that the magical blade gave him, though. He had grown used to its power. He decided that, if he lived through this, he would try to be more careful. He knew if he died, the power of Ironspike would die with him. Without Ironspike, who would unite the realm into a place of peace? Like it or not, he was the last of Pavreal’s bloodline, and the sword would only recognize him as its wielder. For the first time, he actually understood why Queen Willa was trying so hard to get him wed.
“King Mikahl!” an exasperated voice shouted for the umpteenth time, as long wild shadows went flying about the area. Mikahl heard the call and responded.
“Here,” he rasped back. The Captain found him quickly then.
“Where is it? Where is the beast?” the man asked in a frightful panic. As an afterthought he added a quick, “Your Majesty.”
The demon-boar grunted beside them and made a low gurgling noise. The slow but solid sounds of trees being pushed aside, of fragile limbs suddenly being shaken loose, and the thump of heavy retreating footfalls followed.
“It’s getting away,” the Captain said. “Should I give chase?” His words sounded far braver than his voice.
“We’ll track it together in the daylight,” Mikahl replied.
The archery captain’s sigh of relief was louder than he intended it to be. Mikahl thought that he could see the man flushing with shame, but didn’t hold it against him; didn’t hold it against him in the least.
A short while later, General Spyra’s guardsmen came storming through the forest like a chaotic parade of giant fire bugs. Ironspike lay not three paces from where Mikahl sat, which saved him some embarrassment on the long ride back to Tip. Captain Finley died from the head injury he sustained when the boar threw him into the tree, and two other men had been wounded when they gave chase by torchlight. Mikahl learned all this by the campfire while munching on the hot greasy haunch of one of the does they’d killed. He raised a toast to the fallen man and then proceeded to down several cups of stout ale before promising the good people of Tip that the demon-boar would be rooted out before the host moved on to Dreen.
General Spyra didn’t like the idea of staying any longer than necessary, but didn’t voice his opinion. Instead, at first light, while Mikahl lay sleeping off the intoxication of the night before, the General organized a party to go kill the beast and get it over with. He sent two hundred men far to the north and had them form a tightly spaced line from the river all the way out to the tree line. They moved southward through the forest at a steady clip most of the morning before finally finding the creature. It was already near death from the wounds Mikahl had inflicted with Ironspike’s magic.
Mikahl woke to the news, brought back from by rider just after midday. A wagon was sent to bring the carcass into town, and upon seeing Mikahl’s hung-over condition, the General informed the men to take their time as they would be staying in Tip for one more night.
Later, after seeing the massive body of the dead boar, the townsfolk of Tip put on a feast for the General, his captains, and the hero of the day, High King Mikahl, who, according to the men, had more or less killed the beast single-handedly. As much as he wanted to, Mikahl didn’t drink more than a goblet of ale that night. He didn’t like the attention these people shoveled onto him for such a trivial deed as defending himself. It was a deed that he couldn’t even credit to his own action. Everything he had done had been a reaction. Nevertheless, the people of Tip were happy and relieved, and that was enough to keep the smile on his face genuine until he found his way to his bedroll.
Five days later they passed through Kasta, a small city and fully fledged trading center that had only tasted a minimum of damage from Pael’s army. “The undead just marched right through,” the people told Mikahl and the General. “They killed a few, but didn’t stop long enough to do much more.”
Pael, it seemed, hadn’t been around when his army of living corpses had passed. All of the people of Kasta knew who Pael was, though. Dreen was just up the road, and of the several thousand that had lived there, only a few hundred had escaped the death and destruction Pael had wrought. The story was that half the people of Kasta had moved to Dreen to claim the shops and farms of their dead families.
The entire two days it took for them to march the troops around Kasta, Mikahl was swamped with invitations to enjoy the hospitality of every noble, and some not so noble, house in the city. Both afternoons were spent wading down the avenues with a small detachment of Blacksword soldiers, through the sea of gathered crowds that
