“We were to eat a relatively quick meal from the supplies we carried with us. Within an hour we would be ready to set off again, to cover an hour or three more before night.

  “That was the serjeant’s plan.

  “Very quickly it became clear that this wasn’t about to happen.

  “Sir Alnier’s two servants had lowered their packs to the floor gratefully, but were denied any hope of rest by the steward. He chivvied them up and about, assembled a collapsible stool for his master and theatrically brushed it with a cloth produced from his own bundle. Sir Alnier sat on the stool with a grateful sigh and held out his hand. Immediately, his page placed a silver goblet into the outstretched hand, before scurrying back to the packs and returning with a wineskin.

  “We watched with open mouths, our own meal forgotten, as the two servants began to construct a tent around him. The last I saw of Sir Alnier before he was obscured by a unfurling roll of blue canvas was him tasting the wine appreciatively, ignoring anything else that was going on around him.

  “As the knight vanished from view, our eyes swivelled to serjeant not-Tomlines. His fingers were tight around his spear shaft, and his face rigid. Without a word, without even glancing at the rest of us, he passed the spear to the nearest man-at-arms and stalked into the tent.

  “‘Ah, Tomlines! A good day’s work, I’d say...’ was all that we heard before the steward left the tent.

  “He clapped his hands, and gave the impression of looking around without actually meeting anybody’s eyes.

  “‘So, we need some fires going, water fetching and if you could see if you can catch a bit of anything for the pot, Sir Alnier would be very grateful.’ As he said each task, he looked in the vague direction of each group of us in turn. He was assigning work without actually giving any orders.

  “‘Um, I’m not sure how long...’ one of the trio that were unfamiliar with woods piped up, but the steward spoke over him.

  “‘There’s no time to waste! Off we all trot!’ He shot a significant look at the soldier holding the two spears and returned to the tent. The two soldiers stared after him, shared a glance, then the unencumbered one shrugged.

  “‘We’ve got our orders...’ he began hesitantly, as if trying out the reasoning to see how it sounded. By some unspoken agreement, the two of them came to a decision. The speaker looked at the rest of us.

  “‘Off you all trot, then!’

  “By the time the serjeant emerged from Sir Alnier’s tent, the three of us had been long gone. Probably wisely, considering their lack of skills, we had been sent out hunting and foraging over the group of four that the steward had looked at.

  “So it was that when we returned with handfuls of greenery, hazelnuts, elderberries and a couple of pheasants shot down by Gwilm, the camp was already in full swing. Because it was a camp. There was no pretence that we would be moving on that evening. Sir Alnier’s tent was now fully erected and two fires were lit and roaring away merrily. On one, his servants had begun to boil water in a small cauldron, while the rest of our party was clustered around the other. The four men who were treating the whole expedition as a jolly had already unwrapped their bedrolls and were munching through mouthfuls of biscuit.

  “Serjeant not-Tomlines sat rigidly on a small rock, his back turned away from the blue tent.

  “Seeing us arrive, the steward bustled up. He looked at our load, sucked in his teeth and tutted.

  “‘Well, it’ll just have to do, it’ll just have to do.’

  “He clicked his fingers, and one of the servants relieved Gwilm of the pheasants and carried them off to prepare them. The other took most of the forage I was carrying stepped before turning towards Torrea. She stared him down, and he backed off to Sir Alnier’s fire.

  “‘It’ll have to do,’ the steward repeated, before dismissing us with a wave. ‘You can have the rest for your own supper.’

  “I remember feeling as if I ought to be grateful for this. There was just something in the man’s tone. But Gwilm growled under his breath and Torrea spat on the ground where the steward had stood moments before.

  “The smells of Sir Alnier’s supper made my mouth water. They were strangely spiced, like nothing I had ever smelled in my life up to that point. It made the pottage we shared with the others around our fire seem a little boring, even if it was much better than the cold meal we would have been eating if all had gone to not-Tomlines’ plan.

  “It turned out that the group of four had been sent down from Seffick, a small town we had passed through on our journey to the assembly fields. They were dressed in clothes that were finely made: a little too finely for the hunt. From their talk, it sounded as if they were enjoying this adventure, but they frequently harked back to the comforts of home (particularly the produce of a certain pie shop which I was to visit later: it wasn’t as great as they claimed). They fussed and fidgeted in the woodland and it was clear that they had little experience staying outside the town for long, and were now more than ready to return.

  “The other group of three were more similar to ourselves. They came from a rural village on the great grasslands that stretched to the northwest of Lord Gerrint’s lands. Their clothes were not finely made, but they wore sturdy cowhide jerkins over their undershirts and each had a sheepskin cloak that I knew I would be envious of if it were winter. As it was high summer, the cloaks merely served as a comfortable bedroll for them to sleep on. The three of them, Galad, Dorcae and Shev, got on well with us that evening, although I heard them often remark how strange they found the woods. ‘An enclosed horizon, half as if we were in a house and not outdoors at all!’ commented Dorcae, and she laughed. She laughed a lot, very pleasantly too, and I did find myself wondering if I could persuade her to come back to our village, or I visit hers, although the name of the village is lost to me now.

  “The remainder of those around our campfire were all from Sir Alnier’s lands, in or around the manor of Appleford. I have forgotten some of their names, although I know one of the woodsmen was called Alric and one of the men-at-arms Jerrol. All four of them were more relaxed than their serjeant.

  “That evening, not-Tomlines would frequently get up and go to ‘walk the perimeter.’ We would watch him stalk off into the trees, and then a few moments later hear the thumping of wood against wood before the serjeant walked back, some of his anger burned away. In one of those periods, Jerrol mentioned to me, Dorcae and Torrea that the serjeant had served the previous knight during the War of the Three Twins. Both had survived, but the knight had been wounded in such a way that he was unable to have children. On his death, Appleford and its lands had passed to Sir Alnier, a man who was more inclined to enjoy the privileges his position than to carry out its duties, whether martial or otherwise. Serjeant not-Tomlines had spent most of the past three years taking up some of those responsibilities. This had kept him apart from Sir Alnier, and he was not enjoying the proximity brought about by the hunt.

  “This last part was said in a diminishing whisper as the serjeant was returning. He sat heavily on his pack.

  “‘Time to get our heads down. We can start early tomorrow.’ The serjeant spoke confidently, but as we looked doubtfully at Sir Alnier’s tent, the page bringing in a fresh wineskin, the servants showing no sign of bedding down, it was a confidence we did not share. Nevertheless we dutifully settled down for the night.

  “The activity in and around Sir Alnier’s tent went on late into the night, so I couldn’t say how much rest anybody else had managed. I know I awoke to a deep tiredness in my limbs, unused to having done so little the day before. There was a rattle of mail as the men-at-arms armoured each other, undercut by the loud snores coming from the direction of Sir Alnier’s tent.

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  “‘There’s no way we’re moving before noon,’ Torrea stated with satisfaction as she took her turn frying a little flour, oil and vegetables for our breakfast. We all watched serjeant not-Tomlines reporting in to the blue tent with a complacency that we would not be going anywhere for some time.

  “Not-Tomlines had seemed to be purposefully making a huge racket in his movements as he approached the tent, and we all could hear his voice indistinctly through the tent walls. The snoring stopped, and there was more muffled words. Eventually, the serjeant left the tent, a grim smile on his face. Torrea swore.

  “‘To cover more ground,’ he announced to us triumphantly, ‘we will be dividing our party in two. Sir Alnier will lead local sweeps of the area from a base in this position, while I will be taking half the party with me to continue with Lord Gerrint’s plan.’

  “We kept our faces as still as possible while not-Tomlines split the group. The three of us, the trio from the grasslands and the two woodsmen would head out with him and Jerrol. He would be leaving the four townsmen and other man-at-arms with Sir Alnier and his servants. From then on, it seemed only a matter of minutes before the serjeant’s group were being marched out of the night’s rest-stop, some of us still swallowing down our hasty breakfast. One of the four townsmen waved us off in a manner that set my teeth on edge, but Sir Alnier’s page was watching us leave enviously.

  “The serjeant kept us at a quick pace for a couple of hours. I don’t know if he wanted to make up the distance lost from the day before, or if he just wanted to get as far as possible from Sir Alnier. Either way, that first stretch was taxing for us. For the three from the grasslands, it was even worse. Between them, they seemed to be trying to trip over every other tree root in the Copperwood. Gwilm, Torrea and I became their personal guides, and I helped Dorcae keep her feet and avoid two dozen hazards before the first halt was called. The three of them sank to their knees, panting.

  “The serjeant was not blind, or stupid, or just plain evil. Indeed, although never becoming friendly, the aura of bottled rage that had surrounded him previously seemed to vanish. He slowed the pace from then on, sending one of the two woodmen ahead of us to help clear a path. We had regular rests, sometimes while not-Tomlines and Alric would climb some rocky crag to get a lay of the land.

  “We travelled for two days in this manner. As I’d said, it seemed to me a very haphazard way of finding any creature in a forest this size, no matter how monstrous the boar was. But that just showed how little I’d understood what we were pursuing.

  “In the early afternoon of that second day we had forded a small forest river. Most of us rested on the bank, trying to dry out before slipping our hose and boots back onto our legs. I was trying not to stare at Dorcae’s bare calves, and trying not to make it obvious how annoyed I was getting that Jerrol appeared to be openly ogling them. The serjeant had clambered up the side of a series of low waterfalls near our crossing place.

  “‘Jerrol!’ he shouted down, and I remember being happy the soldier was being reprimanded for his actions. Then he called down again, and to the two woodsmen besides, beckoning them all up to him. As they began to scale the slopes, Dorcae looked at me.

  “‘Shall we go see what it is?’ I agreed without thinking. I think I’d have said yes to whatever she’d asked of me.

  “So it was that we reached the top of the waterfalls at about the same time as not-Tomlines was pointing downstream. I turned and looked.

  “Between the elevation of the land where we stood, and the gaps in the trees caused by the river, it was possible to see quite far over the Copperwood’s canopy. The treetops looked like hummocky grasses, blowing gently in the wind, stretching as far into the distance as I could make out. But there was a line of smoke and blackness cutting through the trees a couple of miles away. It became obvious why we didn’t need clever stratagems or woodcraft in our hunt. The track of the Incandescent Boar was blazed through the forest.

  “It seemed finding the beast would not be the hard part.

  “As we approached the Boar’s path, the scent of burning filled our nostrils. Had the wind been blowing towards, us we would surely have smelled the destruction long before we climbed the hill.

  “The scar through the forest stretched maybe fifty feet in width, although its length reached further than we could see. Very quickly the vegetation switched from green summer growth, to curled and shrivelled leaves, scorched bark and dead moss on the trees. Then, within a few paces, the forest stopped.

  “The greens and browns of summer were replaced by shades of grey ranging from ash-white to charcoal black. Near the edges of the scar, the occasional tree trunk still stood, black pillars devoid of life. Everything seemed unnaturally still. Towards the centre, the ground flattened and hardened. We crept closer, cloaks and hoods wrapped around our mouths and noses despite the heat that still radiated from the ground. To look at, the ash had already settled, but we could taste it even through the fabric of our clothes. Our every movement set up a new puff of the ashes, and in moments it was dusting us like snow.

  “At the very middle of this pathway, we came across the imprints of enormous trotters in the soil. Each could fit one of our feet in easily, not that any of us tried it. Jerrol poked one hoofprint with the butt of his spear. Beneath the layer of ash, the ground where the boar had trampled reflected the day’s light like glass.

  “Wordlessly, we returned to the forest. Only once we were back under the trees did anyone feel they could speak.

  “‘How do we stop something like this? Apart from by praying for rain?’ Shev was even younger than I was at the time, barely more than a boy. We’d doubted his abilities when we’d set off, but he’d adapted to the woods quicker than Galad or Dorcae and had demonstrated impressive skill with the sling. He seemed understandably shaken by what we faced.

  “The serjeant barely acknowledged him.

  “‘It’s hard to be sure, but the beast appears to be heading to the northeast.’ He looked around, receiving nods from the two foresters and Gwilm. I had been far too shocked by what I had seen to even think about that. The serjeant had been thinking ahead, though.

  “‘That’s the direction of Appleford. If we intend to head it off, Maiden’s Mere might be our best bet. If we can herd it into the water...’ He trailed off, looking grim. There had been a noticeable tightening of the faces amongst Sir Alnier’s retainers: Appleford was their home.

  “Alric spoke up.”

  “‘There’s no way of knowing how long it has been since the Boar passed this way. Less than a day, I’d hope. But we need to move quickly.’

  “Sir Alnier’s four men started off there and then. Gwilm followed quickly behind, Galad shrugging as he set off after them. Shev looked at the rest of us desperately.

  “‘This is madness, right? We can’t fight this thing!’

  “Torrea clasped him on the shoulder.

  “‘Sometimes... sometimes to save other people you have no choice but to do things, give up things that you can’t imagine beforehand. Imagine if it was your village. You’d need to stop this beast.’ She smiled at him, sadly, and turned to leave.

  “‘What things!?’

  “Torrea paused with her back to us, shrugged, and carried on.

  “The pace set by the men of Appleford was as fast as those two hours when we first left Sir Alnier, but this time there was no suggestion that the pace would let up. We walked at the very edge of the woods. The ground was clear where the fires had burned, but walking there was unnerving, the land powdery underfoot, and it saved little time.

  “Three hours without a rest and we were flagging. It was getting close to the time when we would stop for the night: the sun had dipped below the treeline behind us, although the sky remained light. It came as a relief when we came to a wider area of devastation and the serjeant called a halt. Most of us fell gratefully to the floor, reaching for our waterskins and for some of the salted meat we carried. The serjeant and Alric stalked out into the devastation. Torrea remained standing, but watched them warily.

  “This wider clearing was irregular, lines of destruction shooting off into the trees. On the far side, downwind, embers still smouldered. We were lucky that the weather was not in a dry spell, or the whole woods might have caught. Not for the first time, I wondered how we were to fight this monster.

  “Something caught Torrea’s eye, and she moved a little way into the destruction. Wrapping the edge of her cloak with her hand, she reached down and pulled out something from the ashes. It was distorted and battered, but similar in size and shape to a large bowl and seemed to gleam dully. She held it out wordlessly to the serjeant.

  “‘This is good.’ He stated, in a voice which brooked no argument. Nevertheless, Torrea raised an eyebrow.

  “‘Good? In what way?’

  “‘It shows we can affect the beast, distract it, taunt it. We have a chance of forcing it into Maiden’s Mere.’

  “The serjeant turned to the rest of us and raised his voice. He didn’t see the look that passed from Torrea to Alric, or the shake of Alric’s head.

  “‘We have half an hour here,’ the serjeant was saying, ‘and then we push on. We have to get ahead of the beast and get it into the water.’

  “Torrea’s head dropped, the metal bowl raising a puff of ash as it fell back to the floor. I asked her about it when she returned.

  “‘Why would there be a bowl in the middle of the forest?’

  “‘A bowl? It wasn’t a bowl, Ulthunc. It was a helmet. We weren’t the first party to find the Boar.’

  “We travelled onwards into the dusk. There remained a faint light in the sky at our backs from the vanishing daylight. A second light was also visible in the skies ahead of us, the flickering orange a mockery of a dawn coming ever nearer.

  “Torrea’s words had made me realise how much I had been hoping for one of the other groups to have found and dealt with the Boar before we came across it. We had made up ground, yet they had still begun with almost a full day’s head start. There was an uneven weight in my belly, and the taste of the ash in the air made me want to retch.

  “Night fell, but the light ahead grew brighter. More and more we could see isolated embers still glowing along the Boar’s tracks and small fires still burned in places. There was also a sound from up ahead. It was quiet at first, barely heard above the movement of our feet, the jingle of mail, the sound of my breath on the cloth across my face. But it grew into a rumbling thunder.

  “The blazes at the edges of the destroyed forest were now becoming more frequent and we were forced deeper into the woods away from the heat and light. Even so, we could feel the fires becoming stronger and stronger, and then, through the trees I glimpsed a great mass of light, bright as daylight.

  “The Incandescent Boar.”