Calling On Fire (Book 1)

by Stephanie Beavers

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Fairy Tales

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  “Fairy tales do not show children that monsters exist.

  Children know that monsters exist.

  Fairy tales show children that monsters can be defeated.”

  —paraphrased from the words of

  G.K. Chesterton

  The sun cast long shadows on the cemetery as it approached the horizon, silhouetting three people moving among the statues and headstones. The group had just come from a meeting with a client whose claims were…dubious.

  “Well, that wasn’t exactly confidence inspiring,” Toman remarked dryly, his gloved hands brushing the base of each statue as they walked past. “You may not have chosen the best mission to accompany us on, Sergeant.”

  “I’m sure I’ll live. I got you guys the job, remember?” Sergeant Gretchen Warthog’s voice was equally dry.

  “There might be something here. Even an idiot necromancer would know to stay away and hide if the entire village showed up with torches and pitchforks in the graveyard he was planning to raise,” Esset said, fidgeting with his long overcoat.

  “You just don’t want to have flown across an entire kingdom to get here for nothing, Mr. Optimist,” Toman said.

  Esset shrugged. He paused to read the flowery inscription on a headstone. “I also feel kinda sorry for our client. Mr. Johnson, right? He just wants to protect his wife.”

  “Or his wife’s death knocked him off his rocker,” Sergeant Warthog said, glancing between the two of them.

  “Would you want someone raising a loved one from the dead and turning them into a mindless abomination?” Esset asked.

  “You would think that one of the five other groups on five separate nights would have seen something if there were something, though,” Toman pointed out.

  “That may be. But I notice we’re still prepping for battle and planning to stake this place out tonight,” Esset said, looking pointedly at Toman’s hand, which brushed the base of the statue of a woman in a veil. Toman’s was a touch with a touch of magic.

  “It would be unprofessional to accept a job and not at least check it out,” Toman replied.

  “And impressing the pretty girl at the tavern has nothing to do with it,” Esset retorted.

  Toman grinned. “I know you noticed her too, what with the way you got all awkward.”

  Toman’s words wiped the smirk off Esset’s face. Sergeant Warthog lifted an eyebrow. Esset muttered a retort, but the falsehood was mostly contained under his breath.

  Sergeant Warthog, walking ahead of them, rolled her eyes where they couldn’t see. “This graveyard seems awfully fancy for the size of the town,” she remarked, and it was true. The dead of the graveyard would outnumber the living a few times over. The community was largely agrarian, with only a couple full-time merchants serving the travelers who came through on the minor trade road running through town. In comparison, the cemetery had three small private family mausoleums and two larger, more communal ones, and that wasn’t even counting the rows of statues and headstones.

  “The ground was sanctified by LightBringer Ervus a century ago, which has made this a popular place to be buried, and not just by the locals. There are a number of minor nobles buried here, and a cousin of King Pyril’s, Lord Escott. He lived clear across the kingdom but asked to be brought here when he died.” Esset pointed. “That mausoleum is his.”

  Sergeant Warthog turned to look at Esset with surprise. It was Toman’s turn to roll his eyes.

  “He does that all the time,” Toman said, tilting back his oversized, floppy-brimmed hat to see better.

  “How did you know that?” Sergeant Warthog asked Esset skeptically.

  “There was a plaque at the entrance. Didn’t you see it?” Esset asked.

  “Saw it, didn’t care,” Toman muttered.

  “Hm,” was Sergeant Warthog’s only response. Toman shook his head as he stopped in front of a statue of a weeping woman and pulled a torch and firestarter from the bag slung over his shoulder. He placed both at her feet and the group moved on.

  “We haven’t seen any disturbed gravesites,” Toman observed.

  “I noticed the same thing,” Sergeant Warthog replied.

  “We saw plenty of undead in the war up north, and we didn’t always find disturbed graveyards. Plus Mr. Johnson said it—whatever ‘it’ was—was in the mausoleum.” Esset said.

  “Always looking for the logical—and charitable—explanation.” Toman grinned.

  “I do admit that none of this really looks like necromancy so far,” Esset confessed. “But Mr. Johnson was at least convinced he saw something, and it put the fear of Darkfires in him. If there is anything out here, and it hasn’t moved on already, then the tricks we learned up north should reveal it tonight.”

  “If not, you’ll have to come with us on a different job to see us in action, Sergeant,” Toman said.

  “That I will,” Sergeant Warthog agreed. “One way or another, I intend to see what you two are really made of. I’ve been giving you two jobs for a couple years now, and with good results, but that’s no replacement for seeing for myself.”

  The two men certainly didn’t look like much. They were both young, but neither was a big man, Toman with a middling build and Esset somewhat skinny, if on the tall side. Both wore long coats, practical clothes, and belt knives, but neither carried any actual weapons. Nor did either seemed inclined to brush their hair. Ever. In other words, they looked like a couple of bright-eyed, idiotic adventurers looking for glory. In fact, Sergeant Warthog had suspected as much of them when she’d first met them, although they’d later disproven her first impression.

  There were oddities about them too. Esset looked to be more of a scholar than a warrior, which was not entirely untrue, and Toman had a distinct excess of pockets and belts on his person. His coat was patched up with extra, bulging pockets of various sizes, and he had belts everywhere—a few around his waist, two crossed over his chest, even a couple around his wrists and ankles. He also always wore a pair of gloves, which were subtly but ornately embroidered with dark thread.

  Those gloved hands were touching yet another statue, a light brush that allowed the stone to spring to life at Toman’s order. Esset didn’t even need that much preparation—a few words at any time were enough to call creatures of fire to fight for him. They didn’t carry conventional weapons because they didn’t need them. Their individual talents were enough to keep the worst of the world at bay.

  “Hey, Sergeant?”

  Sergeant Warthog glanced over at Esset with a raised eyebrow, prompting the young man to continue.

  “I was wondering. How did you end up being called Warthog? I can’t imagine that’s your real surname.”

  Toman purposefully moved so that Esset was between him and Sergeant Warthog—just in case the sergeant found the question impudent a
nd wanted to take a swipe at his brother. The sergeant, however, only shrugged.

  “You already know I was a career mercenary. Well, I only rose to the rank of sergeant within a merc company. Most sergeants, given their reputations, end up with nicknames. Mine suited me, so I kept it even after I went…freelance.” Sergeant Warthog’s explanation was simple enough. Drill sergeants were the ones who spent all their time screaming at the ranks, so it stood to reason they’d be the ones with questionable nicknames. Trust Sergeant Warthog to make it her own, though.

  “Freelance? You mean when you went into intelligence-gathering.” It was like Esset was begging for a reprimand, but Sergeant Warthog seemed to be in an amiable mood.

  “More or less,” the sergeant replied. She was what she was, and she looked it. Her garb was rough but practical, as was the sword across her back. She was past her prime, with a few grey threads in her brown hair, but she was still fit. She simply relied on her cunning and experience instead of brute strength. One eye was covered by a worn eye-patch, the string of which helped keep her hair out of her face. She may have been a battered ex-merc, but she was a live battered ex-merc, and a woman to boot. That counted for something, and it was only the case because she was smart.

  She’d gotten out of the sell-sword business before she got too old to do it, and instead she’d built an intelligence network. She was a link between the people who needed jobs done and the people looking for those jobs—typically jobs that involved swinging swords, casting magic, or tracking down people or things. It was how she’d met Toman and Esset.

  “Well, it’s good you got out when you did. When you get old, you can’t stay ahead of swords and arrows anymore,” Esset said.

  Past her prime or not, Sergeant Warthog could still deliver a lightning-quick cuff on the back of Esset’s head before he could dodge it.

  “You’re living proof of how we ‘old folk’ are able to get the young and stupid to be our meatshields,” the sergeant growled. “You don’t think before you act any more than you think before you speak.” Toman grinned—there was the admonishment he’d been expecting. “Now, how about we get back to the task at hand? What sort of plan have you two geniuses come up with?”

  “It’s tough to say without knowing the exact nature of the threat,” Toman replied while Esset rubbed the back of his head ruefully. “This trip through the graveyard will have the statues fighting for us if there is a necromancer—or anything else. Dealing with undead doesn’t typically take finesse. We’ll wait outside the graveyard until one of the statues sees something—that sentry will light a torch and we’ll come running. Esset can summon up a few horses to get us here fast. Then we fight whatever’s here. Fire and stone are pretty effective at making undead problems go away.”

  “And I’ll be standing out of the way, letting my meatshields do their work.” Sergeant Warthog’s grin was a tad wolfish. Esset was deliberately walking slightly out of her range now. They passed another statue and Toman once again moved closer to it so he could brush his fingers along the base.

  Sergeant Warthog glanced at the setting sun to check the time; the shadows were lengthening further, but they still had plenty of daylight to work their way through the graveyard and make it a safe distance away by nightfall. In the meantime, the sky had become streaked with reds and oranges, promising fair weather the following day. All good, since they would likely be traveling again in the morning.

  Toman stopped at another statue, drawing the sergeant’s attention back to the graveyard. They’d actually lost Esset a few headstones back—he was reading the inscription, a lengthy one, by the looks of it—and Toman had already noticed his brother was too immersed in reading to notice anything else.

  Both young men had magical abilities that Sergeant Warthog had never encountered personally before meeting them. In fact, she’d never even heard of an animator at all, and while summoners like Esset were far from unheard of, they weren’t common. She’d also rarely seen two people as comfortable with their abilities as these two. Especially to use those abilities so casually.

  Unable to resist his brother’s complete inattention, Toman’s eyes flicked to one of the statues he’d touched earlier. Slowly and silently, the statue bent down and picked up a very small pebble. Sergeant Warthog watched in amusement as the statue gently flicked the pebble and straightened. The rock bounced off Esset’s back, eliciting a startled and amusingly high-pitched yelp. Esset looked back, and Toman had the statue wave mockingly at him. Esset immediately leveled a dirty look at Toman, the true culprit. Toman smirked and deliberately turned his back and continued on. Moments later, a different projectile thudded softly against Toman’s back and bounced off again.

  A tiny, supernatural bat fluttered in the air for a moment, then dive-bombed Toman from a different angle. Toman was laughing so hard he could barely shield his head. He flailed a bit, but the bat bounced off him twice more before zipping back to Esset, who had caught up. Esset held out his hand and the bat landed in it. Esset patted it on the head.

  It was far from an ordinary bat. It was black and ashy, leaving sooty smudges on everything it touched. Close inspection would reveal that there were fine lines of molten red in its coal-like body, and its eyes were pinpricks of fiery light, small though they were. Too far away to hear, Esset had uttered a short incantation to summon it, but it took less than that to banish it, leaving nothing behind but air and the smudge on his hand.

  They didn’t even bother to banter after that, although plenty of smirks and grins were traded between them—they had evened out the score. Sergeant Warthog could only shake her head at the whole display. The potential lack of maturity might have bothered her, but she’d seen the other side to these two, and their track record spoke for itself.

  Still, she was cautious. It remained to be seen what nightfall would bring.

  Several hours later, the dark sky held only the barest sliver of a moon. Esset squinted up at it, then looked around, trying to decide if there was enough light to read by. Finally he pulled the book out—it was an ancient-looking thing, for it was ancient. At the same time, it was in far better condition than it should have been, given its age, the frequency with which it was read, and how it was stored and treated in general. Thank Hyrishal for magic books.

  Esset opened the tome and tilted it towards the moonlight, trying to catch enough light on the pages to make out the runes. Unfortunately, although the book was magic, that fact didn’t make it readable in the dark. With a sigh, Esset stuffed it away again. His actions elicited a comment, but in a quiet murmur—they were far enough from the graveyard, but it was a reasonable precaution nonetheless.

  “Really? Reading in the dark?” Sergeant Warthog asked. “I actually feel inclined to agree with your brother and all his teasing about how much reading you do.”

  “See?” Toman whispered.

  Esset’s glare at his brother was unmistakable, even in the dark.

  “It’s how I learn more summons,” Esset said defensively, nonetheless keeping his voice low. “The more I read, the more likely I’ll learn a new one. I mean, yeah, sometimes summons come to me at other times—like the horses. They came to me way back when I was thinking about how Toman and I had to travel—but that still wouldn’t have happened unless I’d been reading my tome, and—”

  “Torch!” Toman interrupted with a loud whisper; sure enough, a freshly-lit torch flickered in the distant cemetery. Rebuttal forgotten, the next words out of Esset’s mouth were inhuman as he chanted three incantations to summon their mounts.

  Three fiery horses materialized into existence before them with a brief roar of flames and the powerful smell of fresh-lit tinder. Nothing could run like these summoned horses, and Toman, Esset, and Sergeant Warthog wanted to be in the cemetery now. They swung up on the horses’ warm backs of cracked coal, each barely mounted before the steeds took off, flickering tails of flame streaming behind them and leaving a faint scent of ash in their wake. In a flash, they were past th
e outer bounds of the cemetery and streaking towards the elaborate tomb where the torch had been lit.

  An even quicker flash intercepted them before they reached the torchlight. Esset barely caught a glimpse of his attacker before he was hit like a battering ram from one side. As his mount streaked away, uncontrolled, his head cracked painfully against the ground, stunning him and making his vision spin. Toman and the sergeant were carried swiftly past, their mounts flaring with excess heat as Esset lost control of them.

  Something was atop of Esset; even as his vision spun, he could feel a weight on his torso. Cold hands closed around his neck, cutting off his ability to speak, but he struggled against his assailant. He struggled on two fronts to break free: first to physically dislodge his attacker, and second to clearly think a summoning incantation to call supernatural aid. He stumbled over the strange syllables in his head, making it a little further each time, but each time he made a mental mistake he had to start anew.

  A moment later, he felt a rush of air as his assailant was bashed away from him. There was an inhuman screech and crunches of stone while Esset gasped for air, reflexively curling in on himself to try to recover as quickly as possible.

  There. There was the incantation, the thoughts in his head as clear and precise as they would have been spoken. There was a flash of flames, then heat and the glow of embers next to him. At once eerie and fierce in the darkness, a creature of fire stood next to him.

  The lupine beast had a hide like cracked coals, blackened and ashy, but crimson light glowed in the small cracks and crevices upon its body. Its claws were red-hot, and when it opened its maw, there was a flare of light; its insides were molten, its teeth white-hot. Its eyes too were ablaze, the light trailing slightly as the creature moved. And it wasn’t still for long. A bare moment after appearing, it lunged away to find Esset’s attacker.