Calling On Fire (Book 1) (6 page)

"Too tired," Esset said, but his tone said "too preoccupied." Silence curled around them, but neither one could fall asleep.

"So, do you think she'll help us with Moloch?" Toman asked.

"I don't know. Helping us is a big risk, especially if she's not confident we could win. If we failed, and he discovered we had help, he'd go after her too. At least waiting will give us a chance to get stronger yet."

For a moment, Toman’s eyes were angry, an anger directed at Esset, before he looked aside in frustration. Why did Esset always have to be so aggravatingly
reasonable
? "I know. It’s just… Every moment he’s alive is a moment when he’s inflicting suffering."

"I know..." was all Esset could say.

Toman suddenly plowed his fist into a hay bale. "I just wish there was something I could do. All this power, these gloves give me…" He shook his hands in the air. "All this power. I could make armies—I
have
made armies, but I know that against Moloch, that won’t be enough. We’ve planned and trained, but we both know we could easily just die before we could even get to him. Sometimes I just wish that there were some simple way to kill him. I would give my own life in a heartbeat if I could guarantee that Moloch would die in the same instant in exchange."

Esset just stared at Toman. "Don’t say that—"

Toman cut him off. "Seriously? You signed up for this too—you know that one or both of us could die trying to stop him, whether we succeed or not. How could you tell me not to say that? A trade like that? To save everyone between then and now that he would torture, maim, or kill?"

"Yes, I can say that," Esset returned forcefully. "Because there’s a difference between fighting and dying and giving up your life, no matter what giving up will get you. We fight, Toman. Don’t you ever just give up, not for anything."

"Of course we fight," Toman replied, a bit of defeat in his tone. He’d suddenly deflated, anger gone. "There is no ‘magical’ option."

Esset looked away. "What about my life?" Esset asked quietly.

"What?"

"What about my life?" Esset repeated. "If we came face to face with Moloch right now, would you trade my life for his death?"

"Esset, you’re—" Toman began to shut the conversation down, thinking that it was a pointless distinction to argue. Why debate the impossible?

"I’m being serious, Toman." Esset raked his fingers across his scalp. "Today, when we saw what Moloch had done, a summon came to me. There’s a summon called the phoenix. And it could do...well, it could do something like that. Like a trade." Esset said.

"Phoenix? But you can already summon fire birds—"

Esset cut him off, his frustration making his speech clumsy. "Not the birds—eagles, raptors—whatever you want to call them! A phoenix. Not just a fiery bird, a
phoenix
. Summoning it would give me the power to do almost anything. Standing face-to-face with Moloch, I could kill him. But the cost of that summon is my life."

Toman stared at him, stunned. "But that’s—" He cut himself off this time, and there was a long silence. He hated himself in that moment, because a little part of him wanted to say,
"Do it,"
even though the rest of his being rebelled against the idea.

Esset broke the silence. "I will tell you my answer: no. I
fight
, Toman.
We
fight. If we die, we die, but it's not because we give up."

"I'm not suggesting we rush out to sacrifice you to kill Moloch," Toman said.

"I know," Esset said with a large exhale. "I know. But just—" Esset's jaw clenched before continuing. "We're not using this thing, okay? I'm not calling the phoenix. Not ever. If we go down fighting, so be it. But we fight. If I fight, you fight. There's no easy way out, and no giving up, right?" Esset waited until Toman nodded. "Good. Then let's get some sleep. Besides, we've got nothing to worry about, right? Good guys always win."

Toman said nothing more, but he couldn’t keep his mind from racing. "Good guys always win" was something they'd always said to each other as kids, especially after Toman would wake screaming from nightmares about Moloch. It had been something he'd clung to as a child.

But now… Sometimes it worried him to think that Esset might actually believe it.

The small group had spent the daylight traveling, and now the sun approached the horizon, illuminating both the small town on the trade road and the big city a half-day further away. The town usually bustled with trade, but with sunset approaching, it was quiet. Everyone was inside, in their own homes, or in the Staggering Tankard for the local ale and chicken pie.

"Mmm, you know, Sergeant, some might say we just come here to get jobs from you, but the truth is, I also come for the chicken pie," Toman said with relish as the steaming dish was placed before him.

"I'm just glad we can sleep in real beds tonight," Esset mumbled. However, he did perk up a little when his own pie was placed in front of him.

"You boys earned it," Sergeant Warthog said with a smirk. She didn't specify whether they'd earned the beds or the pies.

"No really, I think that the Sergeant sells her services out of this place because of the pie. It's delicious," Toman said, grinning and speaking through a full mouth.

Esset frowned his skepticism at Toman, and Sergeant Warthog arched an eyebrow.

"My business attracts customers who want a place busy enough to avoid notice and far enough away from the city to be discreet. That's why I picked this place. Not the pies," Sergeant Warthog said.

"Ah, yes. The business of buying and selling information," came an unfamiliar drawl from behind Toman and Esset. They both jumped and twisted in their seats to see who'd approached them. Esset felt a prickle of unease—dislike, even—before he even clapped eyes on the speaker. Seeing the man didn't help much.

He was a tallish man, handsome and pristinely groomed. He wore his black hair in a short, tight ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his sharp grey eyes were clever and attentive. Add the goatee, and Esset thought the man’s style was both cultured and slimy. The stranger's clothing also demonstrated his wealth; he somehow pulled off his maroon and dark grey outfit of excellent cut and extravagant embroidery.

"And connecting people who need things done with those who can do them," Sergeant Warthog added. Her tone wasn’t very welcoming. "Hello, Erizen. What do you want?"

"M’dear lady, Gretchen, you cut me!" This Erizen character drawled his words dramatically, even placing his hand over his heart. "Can I not come by and visit my oldest and dearest friend without an ulterior motive?"

"No," Sergeant Warthog said. Erizen grinned wolfishly but shrugged.

"Can't win them all, I guess. Now really, Gretchen, darling, do put your knife away. My interests and yours align right now, I do think, and such a silly bit of metal would do you no good anyways," Erizen said with a wave of his hand. Esset glanced at the sergeant, having been unaware that she’d drawn a weapon at all; one hand was under the table while the other loosely held her mug. She appeared non-threatening, but there was the soft hiss of a dagger being sheathed beneath the table.

"You haven’t changed," Sergeant Warthog remarked as the newcomer invited himself to their table by pulling up an extra chair. Toman and Esset briefly exchanged a glance—they had each independently decided that they didn’t like Erizen much.

"M’dove, did you really expect me to?" Erizen smiled charmingly, leaning back in his chair and spreading his hands. He ignored Toman and Esset completely.

"I expect nature to act on all of us," the sergeant replied. Esset had trouble reading her tone—was that bitterness? Disappointment? He couldn’t tell.

"Gretchen, my rose, you are as lovely as ever!" Erizen waxed. The sergeant snorted.

"What do you want here, Erizen?" she asked, bluntly driving the conversation back to practical matters. Esset was glad because he had no idea what kind of history these two had together. Whatever it was, it had to have been interesting; how had the sergeant not killed this guy yet? He couldn’t see her putting up with him for any length of time.

"You mentioned connecting people who can do things with those who need things done, and here I am. I happen to have something that needs doing," Erizen said. He looked down his nose at Toman and Esset.

"Do these two pups need to hang around, or can they loiter elsewhere?" he asked. The sergeant snorted.

"As if you'd approach me when they were here if you didn't already know who they were and what they were doing here," she said. "Since you did approach me, I imagine they're relevant somehow, so they stay. Now, I suppose your presence in the area at this time is completely coincidental."

"To Moloch's little massacre? Of course. Tasteless business, and dreadfully messy," Erizen said. Toman stiffened. Esset thought the fact that Erizen instantly knew what Sergeant Warthog was referring to was more than a little suspicious, as was the fact that the sergeant thought Erizen might be involved.

"I've heard you've been rubbing shoulders with Moloch and his ilk," the sergeant replied.

"Alliances come and go," Erizen said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Such things cannot come between old…friends such as us." The way Erizen paused and then lingered on "friends" disturbed Esset a little. He glanced at Toman, but his brother's face was a neutral mask. Erizen continued. "After all, as has been said, I have not changed."

Sergeant Warthog looked him up and down but didn’t deign to respond. Silence between them reigned. Esset suddenly realized that Erizen had lost his accent.

"You injure me again, thinking me capable of such a thing," Erizen said. Sergeant Warthog snorted in derision. Again.

"With an ego the size of yours, injuring it isn't difficult," she responded. "It probably injures your pride that the whole world doesn’t worship you as a god. Keep talking."

"Well, worship would be
nice
, but—"

"About why you’re here."

"Ah, yes. As I suspect you're aware, I've moved up in the world. I'm a lord now, as I've come into possession of one of several territories under the control of a council of dark mages, Moloch among them. Mostly we keep to ourselves, but some interaction among us is, of course, necessary, and we convene occasionally."
He’s a dark mage.
Esset flicked his brown eyes towards Sergeant Warthog for a moment before studying Erizen again.

"I don’t know that I would call joining a bunch of dark mages ‘moving up,’" the sergeant remarked. Erizen tsked.

"It’s not like I go around killing babies," he shot back, his manner dismissive.

"You still have the stink of blood magic on you," the sergeant replied.

"Mostly I glean my power elsewhere. Now, if I may continue?"

"I’ve never been able to stop you before."

"Quite. Now, as you would imagine, maintaining such relations requires something of an illusion on my part. Wanton death and destruction has never been my preference, although it sometimes has its uses. My compatriots and I disagree on that point."

"Are you going to get to the point any time soon?" the sergeant asked.

"Very well." Erizen sniffed. "I have a monster problem on one of my borders. Normally I wouldn't care overmuch, but the father of my favorite concubine happens to live in the village it's been attacking, and she's been complaining dreadfully. I could get a new concubine, but she is a favorite of mine…and highly skilled. You see, there's this most delightful thing she can do with her tongue—"

"And the monster?"

"They say it's a dragon, but I doubt it. Probably a wyvern of some kind, maybe a loose mage construct. It would be easy enough for me to dispose of, of course, but again, of course, it might then seem like I care about my subjects, and that wouldn't do at all. I'd have to go smite a village or something to even the scales, and I really couldn't be bothered. Additionally, the border it's harassing is a shared one, and I'd rather not offend the other lord. So, since I have plenty of money, simply paying someone to take care of the problem is easiest—and leaves no one else the wiser. I know you can be discreet, my dear," Erizen drawled.

"I can also pick and choose my clients," Sergeant Warthog said.

"I appreciate the bluff, dahlin', but I know that even if you wanted to turn me down, you wouldn't turn down all those poor folks getting killed by the, ah, 'dragon.'" Erizen's drawl was back.

"We'll do it," Toman cut in. Erizen turned his condescending grey eyes on Toman.

"Who asked you?" he asked.

"You, essentially," Toman said dryly. "We'd have to be morons to miss that, and we're not."

"My mistake," Erizen said in his most pleasant tone. Esset bristled and bit his tongue.

"Boys, why don't you go see if the barkeep has any local news from while we were gone and let me haggle out a price with Erizen," the sergeant said—it wasn't really a suggestion. Both of them silently regarded Erizen for a moment before picking up their meals and going to the bar.