Chapter 12: Fire of the Foolish
The road to Grimthorn Hollow uncoiled ahead like a sleeping serpent — dust-lined, sun-dappled, and for now, quiet.
It had taken three days to rejoin it after the shortcut through the woods, where whispers moved on the wind and the trees sometimes bent the wrong way. The air was cooler now, dusk hanging on their shoulders as the three travelers crested a gentle ridge.
Kalo’s broom had returned, flitting from the sky like a silent sentinel. It spun once above the campfire and hovered before him, pulsing faintly.
Evoker Kalo, his red coat dust-stained and travel-worn, pressed his golden rune-ringed hand to the handle. His eyes shimmered briefly with golden threads — the rune on his palm glowing.
He saw.
The vision flickered into his mind: the broom had hovered high above Grimthorn Hollow, its sight sweeping in silence. The town was still… but encircled.
Among the treeline, among the hedgerows and ditches, small figures moved. Dark children of the forest — stoats, ferrets, skunks, and worse. Patient. Creeping. Watching.
Surrounding.
Kalo whispered a word of thanks in the old Koopling tongue. The broom dipped respectfully and fell inert.
He turned to the others.
“We ride hard tomorrow,” he said.
Red had been watching. Always watching.
Not the road — not the trees — but Kalo.
The way his hands moved through spellwork. The symbols in his grimoire. The calm calculation in his voice when he conjured. Red’s tail twitched with interest.
That night, as they camped beneath the stars, Lukan Otterpaw took his usual post: instructing Red with relentless rigor.
“Track this,” he snapped, throwing down a scrap of fox-fur. “Snare that.” “Balance here.” “Fall again, and I’ll make you carry my boots.”
Red was quick with his feet but slow with his fingers. His traps snapped too early or too late. He’d start fires with soaked kindling or forget which berries were deadly.
“Warriors don’t just fight,” Lukan barked. “They live in the wild. If the forest swallows you, you're no knight. You’re compost.”
Red groaned, but tried. He liked Lukan, even if he was harsh. The otter taught with scars, not stories.
Still, his heart was with the magic.
When night fell and Lukan dozed, and Kalo sat by firelight murmuring softly to his ancient grimoire, Red stayed awake. He held a scrap of crumpled paper in one paw. With charcoal from the fire, he copied what he’d seen.
Two spells. Just the edges. Just the names.
He scrawled the symbols as best he could, mimicking the looping, ancient Koopling tongue:
- Fiar Ov Kooplynge
- Vizhun ov the Broome
He whispered the sounds, mispronounced and broken, until the paper was smudged and his fingers blackened. He could almost feel something at the edges of his mind, fizzing like frost on glass.
Two nights later, they camped in a beautiful glade — moonlight drifting through birch trees, the ground padded with moss and sweetgrass.
They were not alone.
The stoats had tracked them. Dark-furred, eyes like thorns, padded claws that made no sound. Three of them emerged from the underbrush just after the fire had been lit.
“DOWN!” Lukan barked.
One stoat lunged. The old otter met it mid-air, rolling into a grapple, knife flashing.
Another darted toward Kalo.
With a snarl, the Evoker lifted his hand — the golden rune flared, and his broom screamed from the air above, shifting into the Heatherblade mid-fall. It plunged into the stoat’s chest with a hiss of magic and a flash of blue light, splitting the creature cleanly in two.
The third attacker rushed Red.
Red threw his daggers. One missed. The other bounced off a branch.
“AHHHH—!”
The stoat was fast — on him before he could draw another breath. Red scrambled back through moss and root, ducking behind a stone, but the stoat leapt.
In desperation, Red pulled the charcoal-smudged spell paper from his coat, raised it high with trembling paws, and shouted the words he had copied:
“FIAHR… OFF… KOOP-LYNNNN!”
A hiss.
A spark.
Then, he exploded.
A burst of blue flame engulfed him — a roar of untrained magic. Red’s fur caught, his tail singed, face scorched in soot. The heat flung him backwards across the glade.
The stoat, startled but unharmed, stepped forward — one paw drawing a garrote from its belt.
Red groaned. Tried to lift his dagger.
Too late.
Then — a sound like steel through silk.
The Heatherblade, summoned by Kalo again, screamed through the air and pierced the stoat’s chest from behind.
It fell without a sound, collapsing in a heap over the unconscious squirrel.
Later, beneath the stars, Kalo and Lukan Otterpaw stood over Red, who lay on his back, wheezing and covered in soot, with his tail still smoldering.
Kalo raised one brow.
“That,” he said dryly, “is what happens when you mess with magic.”
Lukan shook his head, amused despite himself.
“Let’s rest. We’ve only two days walk to Grimthorn Hollow.”
Kalo looked toward the horizon, where faintly, in the far distance, a flicker of violet pulsed behind the treeline.
“And we need to be there… now.”
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
Chapter 13 — The Cross in the Field
The sun rose over Grimthorn Hollow.
Dew clung to the blades of grass, and a soft morning chill drifted low across the far fields. A thin haze shimmered above the soil, fading slowly as the sun climbed higher into the sky.
Out beyond the last stone wall—where wild heath lapped against the edge of civilization—something new stood among the crop rows.
It looked, at first glance, like a scarecrow.
But it wasn’t.
Nailed to a tall wooden cross, arms stretched wide and dangling, hung the body of Veln, the gnome scholar of Ingeniare. His coat was torn, his boots muddy. Two black ravens perched on either arm, pecking lazily at the sockets where his eyes had been. A strange violet ribbon, pinned with uncanny care to his lapel, fluttered faintly in the breeze.
It was Mr. Cottonbritches—a simple farmer—who found him. The field was his, and he’d come with his old basket to pull up early carrots. He was humming a tune older than his memory when he looked up, the rising sun just behind the figure on the cross.
The silhouette was too still. Too heavy.
Then he saw the blood.
The basket fell. So did Cottonbritches. He fainted on the spot.
By late morning, the news had spread.
A small crowd of townsfolk followed the dazed old hare back to the field once he’d regained his senses, helped along by a young mole and a flask of strongroot brandy.
When they saw Veln’s limp body being lowered from the cross, a hush fell over them. A few wept. Some turned away. Others simply stared.
If Veln—who always watched the woods, who checked the lantern posts, who muttered warnings about old magic and darker days—was dead… then no one in Grimthorn Hollow was safe.
“Saints protect us,” whispered the hedge-mouse baker.
“They won’t,” growled the badger blacksmith. “Not now. Veln warned us. This… this is the Drow’s work.”
Silence followed. Even the wind seemed to still.
Then, from the edge of the crowd, a new voice emerged—measured, warm, and full of practiced sorrow.
“Ohhh,” said Mr. Merrit, stepping forward, hat in paw. “How horrid.”
The Marten’s fur was immaculate, his eyes shimmering with a convincing gloss of grief.
“I knew him only a short time,” he said, “but what a kind soul he was. Quiet. Brilliant. Always generous with his thoughts. A light in the dark.”
A few nodded. A few sniffled.
Merrit’s voice lifted like birdsong. “We must honor him. Veln deserves that much. May I—humbly—suggest a service in the hall? A memorial. I’d be proud to organize it… to speak on behalf of our dear friend.”
There was hesitation, but only for a moment.
Grief is heavy, and sometimes it seeks a voice to carry it.
Heads nodded.
The badger muttered, “He should be burned. Old ways. Salt and fire. No grave.”
“We’ll do both,” Merrit said gently. “A proper farewell… and protection too.”
He smiled. Just enough.
No one noticed how long his shadow stretched across the ground—or how the violet ribbon, now pinned to his own coat, shimmered faintly in the sun.
They laid Veln’s body in the cold cellar beneath the Town Hall, atop a bier of dry heather and alderwood. The scent of root and soil mingled with the sharper tang of iron. His face was covered with a linen cloth, but the violet ribbon had not been removed.
No one dared touch it.
Mr. Merrit moved like a kindly ghost—soft-spoken, ever-helpful. He gave the miller’s wife the duty of arranging flowers. The twins, Bofkin and Flopkin, were entrusted with candles. The old owl was tasked with reading the names of the lost.
“A tradition,” Merrit explained smoothly, “from my travels beyond the Hollow. In towns like ours, remembrance is the strongest magic.”
No one questioned him. It was easier not to.
Outside, the weather held strangely warm for the season. A cloying heat clung to the fields like a breath held too long. The skies refused to break. The scarecrows stood silent and still.
The Whisper Beneath the Floorboards
That night, long after the others had gone, Merrit stood alone in the cellar. He placed both paws on the edge of the bier and stared down at the body.
The ribbon glowed faintly in the candlelight.
He leaned close and whispered:
“One death to open. One drink to bind. One light to turn the door behind.”
In the hidden room beneath his tavern, a crystal bowl pulsed with glowing violet liquid. The twins stood behind it and ladled the draught into small goblets, their paws precise. A dread hung heavy in the air. The ceremony had begun.
Kalo, Red, and Lukan — The Road Narrows
Far away, three travelers made their way along the winding road.
Kalo, Red, and Lukan moved slowly, a worn rope linking them in a chain as a violet fog thickened around them. It had appeared without warning, drifting from the direction of Grimthorn Hollow.
The deeper they walked, the more disoriented they became. The fog tasted of iron and ruin.
They tightened their grip on the rope and pressed forward—blind, but still moving.
The Night of the Service
The townsfolk gathered in the hall beneath a timbered roof older than memory. Candles burned in rows. Sprigs of rosemary and rowan lined the walls.
At the center, the bier stood beneath a circle of flickering light.
Mr. Merrit took his place, scroll in paw, voice calm and solemn.
“We gather not to mourn,” he said, “but to remember what must never be forgotten. Veln lived for knowledge. Let us honor him with memory.”
The crowd murmured agreement.
Behind the scenes, the twins lit the final ring of candles. Around the bier, a faint violet shimmer pulsed, just beyond sight. Most thought it a trick of tired eyes… or magic lingering from Veln’s strange tools.
Only the badger frowned. “Something smells wrong,” he muttered.
But Merrit was already raising a silver goblet.
“Let us drink,” he said, “as Veln would have. One sip for his mind. One for his heart. One for the Hollow.”
The crowd lifted their cups.
In the shadows, the crack beneath the bier split a little wider.
The Hollow Dies
The air was still—heavy with rosemary, wax, and something older.
Candles flickered. Violet ribbons gleamed.
They drank.
And Grimthorn Hollow died.
It began quietly: a trembling paw, a sudden gasp, a cup falling from numb fingers.
Then—chaos.
Some townsfolk crumpled like discarded dolls, their souls fleeing all at once. Others burst into violet flame, flaring to ash mid-sip, their cups clattering to the floor. Still more melted—fur and flesh sloughing from their bones, collapsing into twitching heaps as violet smoke rose in ghostly tendrils.
The hare who’d warned, “We’re doomed,” spasmed once—then fell, face twisted in a final grimace of irony.
Only Mr. Merrit remained standing.
And the twins.
The marten’s fur slid away like a shed skin, revealing gray flesh beneath—thin, stretched, and ancient. His eyes burned like twin bruised stars. His teeth were long, jagged, unapologetically cruel.
The Drow stepped forward.
He surveyed the dead and dying with satisfaction.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” he said, voice like rust over broken glass. “Your memories are so short.”
He turned toward the bier. “You thought me destroyed but here I am and there you are.
Then to the hall—flames rising, smoke curling like a crown above his head.
“I swore revenge,” he said.
He smiled.
“And here it is.”
Behind him, the twins began to hum—an old, bone-deep melody. Violet smoke twined through the rafters, dancing to their tune.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
