“...One last inhalation, a rattle in the throat, and it was dead.”

  The corpse of Ulthunc intoned those words in much the same way as it had been speaking for the rest of his tale. He had stared sightlessly forwards, not looking at Professor Astridottar, Alberic or Konstans, nor glancing at the carved depictions of the events taking place, even when he had commented on their inaccuracies. Instead, those void-black eyes seemed to stare into the past. The story of the ogre had Ulthunc recounting events in a way that showed an amusement at the person he had been, even if it was clear that he had not relished either the confrontation, nor the death of the ogre.

  The hunting of the Incandescent Boar had absorbed Ulthunc more in the telling. He had become more caught up in the events of all those centuries ago. The narrative of the journey to the Copperwood and the hunt through it, had been drawn out in a way that reminded Konstans of somebody trying to put off the less pleasant section of their tale. Neither the Professor nor Alberic had said anything, both listening attentively. For his part, although rapt by the first hand account of Ulthunc’s deeds, of the depictions which he had come to know intimately over his years visiting Ulthunc’s tomb, the back of Konstans’ mind was very aware of the time passing. He had no idea when the doors would begin to close, and had again taken up a seat on his pack between the two slabs of rock, alert to any movement.

  The two academics didn’t seem to be paying attention to the doors. But then, Konstans supposed, that was what he was here for.

  When Ulthunc had begun to speak, the two of them had hurriedly pulled notebooks and stones from their packs, or in Alberic’s case his long over-vest. These seemed to have been prepared in advance and only seemed to need a touch or whispered word to activate. Konstans assumed these were to record Ulthunc’s words: he had seen other researchers use similar items. He wasn’t sure how these would fit into Ulthunc’s desire for secrecy, but the dead hero hadn’t commented on them. The academics were also making their own notes, scribbling furiously in another notebook pulled from the vest in Alberic’s case, or the occasional jotting in a small pad by Professor Astridottar.

  But when he reached the point of the Boar’s death, Ulthunc paused. The spell of his words remained over Konstans, but as Alberic’s frantic scribbling drew to a close, the young man looked quizzically around. First at Ulthunc, who remained sitting in his sarcophagus, then at his Professor who had perched herself on one of the lower steps of the dais. Alberic opened his mouth to speak, but Professor Astridottar gently shook her head and mouthed the word ‘Wait.’

  After a few seconds more of silence, Ulthunc spoke again. His voice was quieter as he took up the threads of the tale.

  “For a moment, I was alone in the mist. Then, from nowhere, a wind rose up, blowing southwest back along the Boar’s path. The mist was torn away from the Mere, while the water was whipped up into waves that buffeted me towards the shore. Had I been standing closer to the body of the Boar, I would have sheltered behind its bulk, but as it was I had to struggle to keep upright from the gusts and the water.

  “It was an odd wind. Not only was it blowing me along, but I felt it tugging at me as well so that I was both pushed and pulled to the land. Unsurprisingly, I fell, and more than once. It would have been yet more if I hadn’t kept my spear to support myself. By the time I reached the shore I was exhausted. If the Copperwood had been its normal self, I would have found a tree or a hollow to shelter in, but the Boar had rendered this area of it into cinder and ash. The only shelter lay many yards off to each side. I made my way off to my left, occasionally being bowled over by the wind. It didn’t take me long to swallow my pride and save my bruises by crawling along on hands and knees. By the time I managed to reach the treeline I was blackened from head to foot by the charcoal residue. Luckily, much of the finer loose ash had already been blown away by the time I had reached land, otherwise I’m sure it would have suffocated me.

  “I crawled several yards into the dark wood until the effect of the wind had lessened, although I could still hear it plucking at the tree-tops. Finding the largest tree-trunk possible, I sat myself down in its lee and waited out the wind.

  “For perhaps half an hour I sat like that, long enough that the excitement of the hunt began to wear off. A great lassitude settled over my body, and I yearned to sleep away the rest of the night. I fought to keep my eyes open, however. There were still things to do.

  “Eventually, I judged that the wind had died down enough that I could make my way back to Dorcae. That, and I felt the danger of falling asleep alone in the woods. Once reunited, we could plan out our next moves. Did we search for our fellows, either around the Mere or in the Copperwood, or did we return to our packs? Or was there something else we should do? I felt sure I was missing something.

  “Limbs protesting, I pulled myself to my feet and limped cautiously back to the burned path of the Boar, and thence to the water’s edge. The ground had cooled significantly, and without the glow of the Boar to light up the night-time, I was moving solely by starlight. It was lucky that the conflagration had burnt away some of the hazards that might otherwise have tripped me, but I leaned into the wind (still a strong breeze), leaned on my spear, and pressed onwards.

  “It was only once I reached the shore of the Mere that I realised my situation. There was enough light to move around, but there was no moon. Even if I made my way to Dorcae by the shore, the way I had left her, there was always the possibility that she would head out onto the Mere, and we would miss one another.

  “After a few moments of indecision, Dorcae herself solved the issue.

  “‘Ulthunc!’ I heard her calling across the water, and my heart rose at the sound of my name on her lips. ‘Shev! Gwilm! Alric!’

  “‘Here! I’m here!’ I responded, and then immediately scolded myself for sounding like an overeager child.

  “‘Ulthunc! You’re alive! Where are you? What happened to the Boar?’

  “‘It’s dead! I’m where it came out of the woods! Are you still where I left you? Should I come to you?’

  “‘No, stay there!’

  “Shouting across a dark marsh in the dark is not the best form of conversation, but I was pleased to hear her relief at my survival.

  “While waiting for Dorcae’s arrival, I noticed a spark of light coming along the lake shore through the trees to my left. My eyes were torn between looking for any sign of Dorcae’s approach from my right and watching the light bob and weave through the trees towards me. Perhaps I should have hidden, or drawn my knife, but I was exhausted and just stood there ready to accept whatever fate might bring. It soon became clear that fate was bringing a makeshift torch, which was welcome, held aloft by a human male, who was very welcome. The last thirty feet were burned clear of undergrowth, and I could clearly see Gwilm’s face lit up by unusual shadows that seemed to age him a decade. His clothes were sodden, and hung limply from him. The quiver at his side bore just a handful of arrows, their fletchings drooping with damp. His bow was unstrung and carried in his left hand.

  “‘Ulthunc. It’s good to see you. Are you whole? It’s hard to tell under all that soot.’ It was a poor joke, but I was so relieved to see him that I burst into laughter. He smiled at me tiredly, and clapped me on the shoulder, his hand coming away black. It reminded me of the men congratulating me after the death of the ogre, but this one I didn’t mind so much. Gwilm and I had both fought the Boar together: I might have struck the fatal blow but I felt that the credit must surely be shared between us, and between the others as well.

  “‘Whole enough in body, and a bit more in spirit since seeing you. Only because you’ve brought a torch, of course.’ That got a little chuckle. ‘Dorcae is coming from over there. She might be glad of some light to guide her feet.’

  “As it turned out, the two of us and the torch had barely reached the unburned trees before Dorcae could be seen, wet, bedraggled, and grinning widely at the sight of us. She gave each of us a relieved hug, resulting in my becoming much wetter and her becoming much dirtier. Gwilm led us up onto firmer ground, and we exchanged stories as we gathered wood and lit a roaring fire.

  “It seems that as we had all turned to run from the Boar, Dorcae and I had become separated from Gwilm and Shev. This had proved to be exceptionally lucky for the two of us, as the Boar had been fixated on Shev, constantly charging in his direction. Most of the screaming we had heard, it seemed, had come from Shev as he moved from side to side trying to evade the Boar’s charges. On land, it surely wouldn’t have worked, the Boar being much too large and fast, but in the waters of the Mere both of them were slowed down, and both were constantly tripping and falling. Gwilm had tried to help as best he could, calling the Boar whatever foul names had come to mind at the time and loosing arrows at the beast. But the arrows were burning before reaching the creature, and the names were nothing to the beast compared to the insult of Shev’s slingshot to the eye, so the Boar ignored Gwilm and kept after the young slinger instead. Gwilm lost sight of the two of them as the mist rose up, but by that time all three had moved into deep water and his bow was unusable.

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  “The hunter seemed both disgusted at himself and worried that his bow had been damaged by the water.

  “‘Can Shev swim?’ He asked Dorcae.

  “‘No. Maybe? I don’t think so. There aren’t many places to swim near our village.’

  “There was a moment of quiet before Gwilm spoke again, gruffly.

  “‘Well, for all his screaming and falling over, we’d never have managed to get the Boar in the water without him. Let’s build up the fire so he knows where to find us, even if he didn’t hear you two hollering away at each other.’

  “We nodded, and I volunteered to go further into the trees to find some more deadwood. Thinking back on the Boar towards its end, there was a bit of me that wondered if getting into the water was what the beast had wanted all along.

  “When I returned to the campfire, arms laden with wood, Dorcae was aleady fast asleep. Gwilm nodded to me.

  “‘You’ve done well, Ulthunc. Get some rest, and I’ll wake you when I can no longer keep my own eyes open.’

  “I gratefully sank down onto the dry earth, and sleep claimed me quickly, but not before I was overcome by the feeling thatthere was somewhere else I ought to be.

  “It felt like I had barely closed my eyes before Gwilm was shaking me awake. Yet I could see the fire had shifted and matured, and the sky was lightening before dawn.

  “Yawning, he apologised for not giving me longer, but this was his only chance to get any rest before daybreak proper. I nodded and struggled upright. I hadn’t made it to my feet before I heard Gwilm’s snores begin.

  “I shook my arms, my legs, rolled my neck, jumped up and down: anything I could do to try to convince my body that it was awake and moving. Walking in circles around the campfire and my fellow sleepers, it was hard to remember that the night before hadn’t been a dream. On every rotation, the sight of the black and burned waste just ten feet from where we camped served as a reminder.

  “The lack of our fellows was a reminder too. It seemed I had grown used to travelling in a group, and the absence of so many felt raw. None had arrived while I slept, although that didn’t surprise me as moving around on a moonless night had not been easy. Nevertheless, the sun was now rising, and I hoped that others would find us.

  “I felt weirdly alert, constantly feeling that there was somebody approaching from the landward side of our camp. Time and again I felt myself unconsciously drifting further in that direction. I would catch myself as I passed a tree or bush between myself and my sleeping fellows and force myself back to them, but every time I found myself further and further to the southwest. I stopped, listening, unable to convince myself one way or another that the sounds I heard were caused by the wind in the trees or by Torrea or somebody else coming to find us. I wanted to call out, but if they were so close they surely knew where we were and I was very aware of Dorcae and Gwilm sleeping behind me. Nevertheless, I whispered hellos and names out into the woodland.

  “‘Ulthunc?’

  “Dorcae’s voice from behind startled me. I turned and saw her propping herself up with one arm, further away than I had expected as I had been drawn away again. Her hair was knotty and untangled, her eyes slow to focus and the front of her clothes was covered in black smudges from where she had hugged me yesterday. Nevertheless, she was smiling at me in amusement, and I bounded quickly over to her.

  “‘Is there anything to eat?’

  “‘Not yet. We could probably find a few things, but it would be easier just to return to our packs.’

  “‘Although before that you might want to take a dip in the Mere and try and wash some of that grime away!’ She looked down at herself. ‘I might need to go first.’

  “Dorcae slipped away to the water and out of sight. I worried momentarily for her safety, but then I heard her calling out for Shev, Alric, Jerrol, Galad and realised she was not so far away.

  “Gwilm woke not long after, looking as if he hadn’t slept at all. He headed off into the wood and came back a few minutes later with a rabbit. Apparently, he had set a few snares the night before. Only one had caught anything, but Gwilm seemed pleased with the result given that he had set them in the dark. It was cleaned and skinned before Dorcae returned, so she was given the job of cooking it whilst the Gwilm and I went to try to clean up.

  “In daylight, the carcass of the Boar seemed less comprehensible. If I took my attention away from it, I found that I began to think of it as an island, bulging out of Maiden’s Mere. I received a small jolt of surprise when I looked directly at it again. Perhaps it was smaller than it had seemed last night, and less-panic inducing, and yet there was still a small kernel of terror deep within me that was fed by its size and sheer wrongness.

  “Gwilm noticed me looking at it.

  “‘No, we can’t have it for breakfast. There’s no way I’m eating any monster-meat. Who knows what it’d do to you? Besides, I doubt we could even manage to cook it properly.’

  “‘I suppose not. We’re not going to make a fire even hotter than it was last night, are we? But then, what do we do with it?’

  “‘Do with it? Well, I might try and take a tusk as a trophy, but I think I’d break my back trying to carry one of those things back home.’ Gwilm sucked in his teeth. ‘Best just leave it for the lordships and knightships to sort out. Not like the three of us could get it out of the water anyway.’

  “That was that, more or less. I worried about whatever was in the Boar fouling the water, but like Gwilm said there really wasn’t much we could do about it.

  “The three of us talked about what happened next over our portion of rabbit. There’d been nobody coming forward despite all our shouting and the night-time fire. Gwilm suggested we make for the packs. If anybody had been fit to do so, it would surely be where they head that morning. On our way, we could check the fringes of the burnt wood for any traces of our companions. Dorcae strongly agreed with him, and it seemed to me like the right way to go as well.

  “We spread out, Dorcae and I on the right of the Boar’s trail, Gwilm on the left. Twice we stopped to call out before we reached the place where the Boar had been ambushed. The only response we received was the angry chattering of birds as they flew away.

  “The site of the serjeant and others attack on the Boar was disturbingly familiar to where we believed it had fought against an earlier party. The sides of the burn caused by the Boar, which were usually fairly regular, instead bulged outwards, as if the beast had been moving from side to side, its fire blazing up with its wrath. We stood in silence at the scene of devastation. Gwilm walked forwards and looked down at a solid lump of metal. Or metals, for it seemed like there were swirls of iron in different layers of purity cooled into the whole. It seemed roughly the amount of iron one would find in a mail byrnie.

  “‘We still have to try, right?’ Dorcae had tears streaming down her face. We nodded, but could not meet each others’ eyes as her broken voice called out the names of the lost. We knew there was no chance that anybody had survived.

  “Not for the last time in my life, I was wrong.

  “Aside from the startled birds, we heard a croaking gasp and then a cry from the treeline on our left. Dorcae sprinted over, changing direction slightly as she spotted something, someone, and plunged to her knees just as the burnt carbon gave way to the thin line of scorched branches and shrivelled leaves.

  “What we saw there was a man slumped on his side at the foot of a tree, skin red and blistered, his mail shirt half melted into his body. His eyes flickered weakly against the light, but he seemed unable to move. Dorcae cried Jerrol’s name over and over, pressing her waterskin to his lips, hands fluttering over his body unknowing where to touch him. Involuntarily, I felt my gorge rise as my stomach dropped.

  “‘Jerrol! Jerrol! What do we do?’ She turned to us, imploring, and for all my previous dislike for the man, I knew we had to help him.

  “‘We should get him into the Mere,’ I said after a few moments had passed. I spoke with a certainty that was completely unfounded. But nobody had come up with any options, and something had to be done: I was sure the water would be good for the burns. ‘I’ll run to the packs, get some cloaks or something that we can use to make a stretcher. Gwilm, see if you can find something we could use for poles. There’s my spear, but I don’t know how strong it will be after last night.’

  “Gwilm nodded, determinedly, and began to stride away. I was almost surprised: I felt sure he would have come up with a better idea. I hovered there for a second or two, second guessing myself, before turning and running for the large oak under which we had put our belongings the night before.

  “It seemed oddly freeing to be running in that direction after the more slow and methodical travel up from the Mere. If I’m to be perfectly honest, I was running from the strange feelings I’d felt on seeing Jerrol’s burned body and Dorcae’s reaction to it. I almost ran straight past the oak, which I had arrived at sooner than expected.

  “I grabbed my cloak for the stretcher, but left the rest of my belongings there. Burdened with the packs of Gwilm, Dorcae and Jerrol, I couldn’t have managed any more. None of our things had been moved since the night before, a fact which sat heavy in my heart during my slower return.

  “Gwilm managed to lash up a decent stretcher. Moving Jerrol across and onto it took much longer: even the lightest touch made him moan and writhe. Eventually, we had him safely onto his cloak, and hoisted him up. The journey back to the Mere, and then along to an area where the water seemed clear of the detritus kicked up by the battle with the Boar, was painfully slow. I had taken up the back of the stretcher and tried to look anywhere but Jerrol’s blistered and oozing skin, or Dorcae’s nervous attentiveness to him.

  “When we finally lowered the stretcher and its occupant into a shallow but clean part of the Mere, he gave out a hiss that stretched out into a sigh. Dorcae knelt down beside him, cupping cool water in her hands and pouring it over the uncovered parts of his body. Gwilm drew me back to the shore.

  “‘We can’t move him far like this. Not with just three of us. But I can’t imagine he will last long without better care than we can give here.’

  “I shook my head. ‘Nobody else had collected their packs,’ I offered, ‘but maybe we could meet one of the other groups. If they’ve come across the Boar’s path, they’ll surely be following it just as we did. I know there was a healer with Lord Gerrint’s party, I could head that way and find them. I need to gather up my pack in any case.’ My suggestion was not entirely altruistic. My desire to head away from here had picked up once again.

  “‘There’s no way of knowing how near Appleford is, or how to get there quickly even without a stretcher. Looking for the others is probably the best plan, but shouldn’t I be the one to go?’

  “I wanted to scream ‘No!’ and start running off into the Copperwood, but instead I shook my head in what I thought was a thoughtful manner. ‘You’re better in woods and with wounds than me, and you’ll be able to catch more food than I ever could.’

  “Gwilm, I think, saw straight through my words, but went along with them anyway. Although they weren’t the reasons that I wanted to be the one to go into the woods, they were good arguments nonetheless.

  “‘I’ll go around the Mere while you’re gone. There must be some sign of Alric or Shev. But don’t be gone too long. It’s midday now, start heading back on the second morning. By the time you return, we should be able to move. One way or another.’ He looked down at the injured man grimly, then quickly explained to Dorcae what I would do.

  “She must have heard, because she started telling Jerrol that help was being fetched. Gwilm gave me a grim smile, and I began to set off on my way, a light wind pulling me along once again.

  “I called farewell to Dorcae, but she didn’t react at all.”