“I hurried away from Maiden’s Mere. Away from the hulking body of the Boar which loomed from the waters. Away from Gwilm making the first move to set up camp for a few days by the water’s edge. Away from Dorcae, absorbed as she was in Jerrol’s recovery.

  “I moved as if in a trance. My mind had been freed of the need to plan ahead: I had the simple task of heading back along the Boar’s path for a day and a half to see if I could find any sign of help. The only thing I needed to remember to do was to pick up my belongings from where they had been left, although if I’m honest I did almost pass the old oak tree by. But travelling without any supplies seemed foolhardy, and I managed to drag myself away from the Boar’s blackened trail long enough to collect my things.

  “After that, I fell into an easy rhythm. Before, we had avoided travelling in the burnt areas of the Copperwood because of the ash and dust left behind by the Boar’s destruction, and later because of the heat and fires that were still burning as we closed in on the beast. Luckily for me, the wind that had scoured the Mist from the surface of the Mere seemed also to have dragged up all cinders, ashes and dust, and my path resembled walking on a metalled road. The only difference was that the soles of my shoes were quickly stained black.

  “The remnant of that wind remained at my back, hurrying and chivvying me along, impatient with my progress, but no longer so forceful that it swept me from my feet. I let it blow me along, paying scant attention to my path as my mind reflected on the events of the last day and night. The first sight of the scar of the Boar’s passing, the deformed helmet found by Torrea at the sight of the first battle, the determination of the men of Appleford to reach the Boar before it reached their homes. The faces of my fellows seemed to float before me: grim Torrea; Gwilm with his desire for fame waging against his prudence; Shev’s frightened face; Dorcae first on the islet with mist surrounding her, then fretting over the burned and disfigured Jerrol. Ulric, panicked, fleeing from the Boar as it passed through the trees.

  “Ever and again the Boar crashed through my thoughts. Though it was a creature grown and changed beyond all measure from the boars that seemed familiar to me, and though I knew it to be dead, yet it seemed more real and immediate even than the faces of Gwilm and Dorcae. I seemed to see it at once both raging and fiery, calm and waiting for death, and my mind marvelled at this duality even as my legs carried me heedlessly onwards.

  “‘Hey, you!’

  “A voice called out of the light of the day’s end and brought me to my senses. It was near dark, and I found myself facing about a score of armed men. The man who had spoken stood directly in front of me holding a bow. He wore a sturdy looking jerkin with a dark green badge on his breast, and the setting sun threw the lines on his face, both natural and scarred, into even sharper relief. He squinted at me.

  “‘I know you, don’t I? You were in one of the other groups...’ he frowned as if trying to summon up the memory from sheer effort, ‘Sir Alnier’s, I’m pretty sure. One from that last village to arrive.’

  “I nodded dumbly, still adjusting myself to interacting with the real world again. Slowly, I registered that many of the hunters and men-at-arms behind this man bore the yellow bear of Lord Gerrint on their clothes. One man who didn’t was stalking out towards me, his dark green tunic half-obscured by a thick black beard. He loomed over both me and the man questioning me.

  “‘What’s happened to the rest of you, then?’

  “The large bearded man leaned forward and asked his own question at the same time. His voice was deep but clear, and impossible not to answer.

  “‘You came across the Boar did you not?’

  “I nodded again, but my head was still moving when I found myself being bundled along in a burst of energy by the huntmaster.

  “‘Come, my Lord Gerrint shall hear of it himself, and I trust you will find your tongue for him.’

  “This filtered through to me. Lord Gerrint? I’d spoken with nobody higher up than Sir Alnier’s serjeant or steward before now, and the second of those was more being spoken to than with. A thin blade of panic cut through my daze and finally brought me back to myself. How did one speak to a lord? My mouth suddenly seemed extremely dry: when had I last drank anything? Would I be able to explain everything that had happened? Would I be able to explain any of it? To my mounting terror, I believed I had forgotten how to speak at all!

  “In too little time I found myself stopped in front of a slight man with grey eyes and a neat beard. The boar stitched onto his black doublet was not yellow, but glittered red-gold in the last of the sun’s rays. I noticed him looking at me in turn and quickly dropped my gaze to his boots, which alone must have been worth more than my father’s house and all its contents.

  “His words, when he spoke, were pronounced in much the same way a craftsman might handle his tools.

  “‘So, I am told you have come across the Boar.’

  “‘Yes, my lordship, sir.’

  “‘When and whereabouts was this?’

  “‘Last night, my lordship, sir, at Maiden’s Mere.’

  “There was a pause at this, and a snort from the huntmaster by my side.

  “‘Maiden’s Mere? You must have been running flat out for the rest of the night and all day besides to have made it here for this time!’ The huntmaster’s voice had a hint of incredulity. I knew that my path had been fairly clear and I had moved quickly, but it didn’t seem wise to correct him.

  “‘And how many of your party survived?’

  “To give Lord Gerrint his due, he didn’t immediately ask the status of the Boar, but the status of the hunting party.

  “‘I’m not sure, my lordship, sir. Three of us hale and well, one greatly hurt and in need of help. One other sent ahead to warn Appleford, although there is no need now, one we think escaped, wounded, but we cannot find him. The rest, we do not know, my lordship, sir, but we fear the worst.’

  “‘Tell me, is Sir Alnier among the survivors?’

  “‘Oh, no, my lordship, sir! Sir Alnier wasn’t with us, he...’ it was at that point that it occurred to me that it might not have been wise to explain how our party had split up. All at once, my mind froze over, assailed by numerous thoughts and memories that I hadn’t the wit to speak aloud, especially not to a baron. We were surely all meant to be together, yet I could not be held to account for the splitting, although I was the only one in front of Lord Gerrint if he didn’t approve. What if I got in trouble for killing the Boar? Serjeant not-Tomlines had been very clear on that: we weren’t expected to land the final blow. My hand squeezed and gripped at the scorched and warped wood of my spear-shaft.

  “It was this last that caught the attention of the huntmaster. He gently took the spear from my clenched grip and examined both damaged haft and deformed blade.

  “‘What happened to your spear? Was this the Boar’s doing?’

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “‘I think it may be best if you took a breath, a mouthful of water, and then tell huntmaster Cellin and myself exactly what happened last night in your own words.’

  “They set up a small campstool for Lord Gerrint, whilst I tried to compose myself. I ended up having to look further down to avoid looking him in the eyes, although from what I heard of the man later on he would not have taken massive offence. Indeed, in hindsight, I believe he was treating me with a gentle amusement.

  “In any case, ringed by the majority of his retainers, I retold the events of our combat with the Boar as best as I could remember them. It was a less detailed and thought-out account than I have given to you, but accurate enough. Lord Gerrint kept his own counsel throughout, but I heard the huntmaster, Cellin, snort a few times. The rest of my audience kept absolute silence, until I came to the killing of the Boar. Then came a collective exhale like a wind, part relief and part disappointment that they had missed the fight.

  “When I had finished, Lord Gerrint asked to see the spear for himself. There were a few moments of silence for me to ponder my fate before he spoke up.

  “‘Your story is incredible. I would dearly like to meet this serjeant of Sir Alnier, if he yet lives. He seems wasted working for the good knight. If it were not for the evidence of your damaged spear, I do not believe that I would see you as anything other than a coward or fool who had fled from his group. Nevertheless, you will remain with our hunting party, until we reach Maiden’s Mere and see the truth of the matter ourselves, and hopefully tend to your fellow survivors.’

  “I had barely had time to comprehend his words before I was grasped firmly on the shoulder. I looked around to see a large man in danger of running to fat looking at me with interest. All about us, in response to some unspoken command, the assembly of watching soldiers and huntsmen broke apart and split into small groups. Lord Gerrint stood, and began to walk away in low conversation with the huntmaster. His campstool was almost immediately taken away.

  “I released a breath I hadn’t known I was keeping in.

  “There were parallels between Lord Gerrint’s camp and the ones I had been a part of the past few days. Like last night, they had moved just into the treeline to set up fires and an awning that was stretched from tree to tree for Lord Gerrint. This seemed more for privacy than anything else. The rest of us lay out blankets and bedrolls to one side, mine incomplete as I had left my cloak as part of Jerrol's stretcher. A watch rotation was set up, firewood and forage gathered and I was treated to the best meal I had received since the hunt started.

  “Not that I relished it. The implicit distrust of myself by my placing in the centre of the camp, and my constant escort, rankled me. I felt a reluctance to return to the Mere, perhaps because of this.

  “Unsurprisingly, I was poor company that evening. Once finished with their chores, Lord Gerrint’s hunters and retainers crowded around me to ask about the fate of my party, and the Boar. But I had little appetite for talk and had said much of that already, so my answers were terse and distracted. Eventually, they let me be. A few grumbled, but the more experienced amongst them explained away my attitude by the experiences I had gone through and my long journey to reach them. Perhaps they were right: it would be a more pleasant explanation than my sulking. For whatever reason, when I lay down to sleep that night I did so early and quickly feigned sleep.

  “Lord Gerrint’s hunting party was not the ramshackle band that had followed Sir Alnier into the Copperwood that first night. Talk and chatter soon ceased. There was no signs of revelry from Lord Gerrint’s makeshift shelter. Instead, his followers took his lead, and soon the camp was still except for the occasional pop and crackle from the fires or the movement of the sentries.

  “It was not long before my feigned sleep quickly became the real thing.

  “Dreaming, I stood up from my place next to my escort. He remained sleeping, snores adding a persistent rhythmic backdrop to the world. Indeed, all around me men, and a few women, lay slumbering, heedless of my steps passing over and around them. In no time at all, I was through the camp, and out beyond the unseen sentries. I was filled with a sense of purpose and urgency, and I moved unerringly through the trees, not watching my path yet knowing that I would not fall.

  “In the way of dreams, I noticed that I was no longer walking through the undamaged forest, but was now travelling along the Boar’s path once again. The ground was firm beneath my feet, crunching occasionally, and I felt relief that I would be travelling faster from here on. I had to keep up.

  “No sooner did that thought cross my mind, than the person in front of me became apparent. Although it remained night time and all about me was dark, this figure was illuminated as if by daylight. It was the size of a child, although I knew it wasn’t, and dressed like the summer, if that makes any sense to you. I wanted to call out to it, but my tongue refused to answer me, instead uttering some incomprehensible beast-like noise. The figure turned its thin, ageless face towards me, laughed silently, and beckoned me onwards as it skipped through the burned wood.

  “My guide, or my quarry, passed over the ground lightly. Their feet seemed to barely touch the ground, leaving no imprint on the charred surface, nor were the soles dirtied by their steps. Nevertheless, I became aware of some change. The ground would shift and crack where they passed, but not due to weight coming down upon it from above, but as if something was pushing up from below. I imagined the ground heaving and shifting, something reborn returning after the destruction. I thought that perhaps I began to see shoots of green creeping out, breaking through the damage caused by the Boar.

  “Time passed as it does in a dream. I walked obediently, eagerly, desperately behind the figure for an unmeasurable period, hours or days having passed between one instant and the next. There was definitely new growth coming through the ground. I could see its colour around the figure, but the person I was following wasn’t giving off light. Again, it was as if these recovering plants were momentarily lit by the sun, for all that it remained night-time. Their colour soon faded, and by the time my feet had reached them they had slipped back to the greys and blacks of a moonless night.

  “The edges of the Boar’s destruction seemed also to be closing on me. The further we travelled, the less the distance between the two edges of the untouched wood. We had seen to our cost how the Boar’s heat had flared up when it became enraged, but somehow I knew that this was different. Instead, we were walking back to when the Boar’s power was weaker and still growing.

  “My sleeping mind did not follow that thought to its conclusion, but accepted it and moved on.

  “By now, the trees were all about us. The signs of the Boar’s passage were sparse and hidden away by the recovery of the trees. I knew we were still retracing its steps, still hurrying and being hurried onwards. I couldn’t tell you how I knew, just as I couldn’t tell you how I knew that the figures around me (for my guide had been joined by others like them, some beside me, some ahead or behind) were not malevolent, nor wish me ill, but they did yearn for something from me. Something I did not wish to give.

  “For the first time, I felt the stirrings of unease. But it was already far too late.

  “All of a sudden, I found myself in a clearing in the trees. The child-sized figures stopped at the edge, and flittered around the outskirts, expectant and agitated, slipping in and out of view. I paid them no attention, but stepped further into the clearing. My mind screamed at me to stop, turn back, flee in a sudden panic, but just as if it were a real dream my body moved on regardless.

  “This was not a clearing formed by burning and destruction, such as had been caused by the Boar, yet it was void of life all the same. Bare earth, more stone and dust than soil, shifted beneath my feet with every step. In the centre of the clearing, a block of crystal, perhaps half my height, pulsed with a sickly yellow glow that I did not want to go near.

  “Yet still I continued to move forwards.

  “Inside the block, hidden by the glow, seemed a shape. I couldn’t quite make it out. I know I thought it was something different each time I looked, because I remember several distinct thrills of revelation as I made out the shape. I can’t recall those shapes: every time it changed to something new I knew it had always been that object even as I thought to myself, ‘Oh, it’s a...’ I know it appeared as an animal at times, at other times food, because I have the memory of thinking about it in a general sense, but I can’t remember what specific animal or food. All I can remember is its last form.

  “A sword. It had always been a sword, ever since moments before.

  “I was close to the crystal now. Closer than I wanted to be. The light made me feel nauseous. I wanted to vomit. I really wanted to wake up, but I think I was beginning to realise that my mind was indeed waking up, that this was happening in reality as if in a dream. I no longer accepted what was happening, for all the good it did me. I still couldn’t control my body.

  “I couldn’t stop my hand from reaching out.

  “I desperately, viscerally didn’t want to touch the crystal.

  “It turned out, I didn’t. My hand passed through the crystal in the same way that it might pass through honey. I felt it, it felt wrong, but there was very little resistance. I reached in, deeper into the crystal than the crystal was wide or long or deep. I felt my hand grasp the hilt of the sword.

  “It felt like a burn, that sudden sharp sensation that makes you pull back in pain. It wasn’t a pain felt in my hand, but something that seemed to touch me within my chest. I stumbled backwards, the sword still clenched in my hand, impossibly larger than the crystal out of which it had come, and I fell back onto the dead ground.”