Page 51 of Into the West

There is no such thing as too much information. “Yes, please,” he said, and listened as she described in detail the trees, the unnatural warmth beneath them, the presence of the dragonflies, and the sense of simmering rage.

It was the last that tickled some distant memory, but not enough that he recognized it, only that it seemed familiar. But he was not given a chance to probe his own memory, because the next thing that Rose said, in sharper tones than before, was, “Kordas, you are needed ahead. There is a problem.”

“How far ahead?” he asked. He was already on Arial with Rose hanging on behind him. He gave Arial a touch of his heel and a loose rein so she would know she needed to make speed and that she could pick her own path through the mingled herd of sheep and goats just in front of him. They didn’t like being shouldered aside, voicing their objection quite loudly. But Arial was used to this, and frankly didn’t care anymore; those she couldn’t move aside, she often leapt over.

“Near to the front of the convoy,” Rose replied in his ear as she clung to his waist with her mitten-like hands. “The Old Men are on their way from the front.”

“Something magic?” he asked.

“It is a boar.” That was all she told him, and he was forced to try to imagine why a wild boar would be a threat that would call for his attention. Was it like that bear the scouts had encountered? But Arial saw a clear path ahead, somehow, and leapt from a standing start into a run worthy of a horseback hunt through the forest, causing sheep to baa in alarm and pigs to bumble out of her way as she powered her way through and over them. Rose hung on for dear life, and he didn’t have the concentration or breath to try to talk to her and ride at the same time.

Then she vaulted right into the middle of a herd of churning swine, and he saw what the problem was.

A wild boar.

A wild boar that was roughly the size of a shed. It was easily a match in height, weight, and girth for a man mounted on a Tow-Beast. A normal-sized wild boar could easily kill a man on horseback; this thing could probably take him and Arial out without a second thought.

The rational part of his mind knew immediately what had happened. Pigs were social creatures; this one had smelled more of his kind and had come for them, probably attracted by the scent of the sows, though how on earth something that size would be able to mate with a normal-sized pig—

The rest of him knew that there was only one way this could end if he didn’t want the thing to turn its wrath on people. He threw up his hand, barked two words, and looked away to save his vision as light exploded from his hand. Looking back up while Arial wisely backed away from the thing, he saw he’d accomplished what he needed to do; he’d blinded and stunned it momentarily. As it stood there blinking its tiny eyes, he caught up his crossbow, slapped a bolt into the slot, cocked it, and shot into its eye, just as he heard the dull phut of a Spitter and watched a ring of fire spring up around the thing.

He hadn’t expected to do more than annoy it, but either his shot, or whoever had shot the Spitter, got lucky. The enormous monster squealed in rage and pain, reared up on its hind legs, scattering pigs in all directions, and then fell straight down on its side, stone dead.

The ring of fire went out.

The swineherds scattered with their dogs to corral their charges. He coaxed a snorting Arial closer to the thing, as Ponu and Beltran approached it from the other side.

“Is it dead?” the Herald asked, cautiously.

Kordas dismounted, and made sure that there was no sign of life at all. “Dead as the Emperor,” he said. Beltran winced, but approached on the other side.

“You mean that was it? Just that and it’s dead?” Ponu blurted. “Its skull has to be a foot thick, but the Spitter shot went through the eye into the brain? You’re using up all your luck, Beltran.”

“Hey, I got it in the other eye,” Kordas added. “Maybe my bolt pierced its brain.”

“Maybe the shots met in the brain and kissed. I don’t know, but the thing’s quit the hard work of living all the same. I’m going to take the lucky victory,” Ponu declared.

“Change-creature?” the Baron asked Ponu. The mage narrowed his eyes, drew a couple of sigils in the air, and shook his head.

“No, but magic had a hand in making it that big,” Ponu replied. “Maybe a touch of a Change-Circle but only enough that it didn’t just stop growing when it should have. Nothing else unnatural about it but its size.”

Beltran poked at a tusk with his toe. “Well, the important part. Is it safe to eat?”

“I’m not Sai. Ask a butcher?” Ponu said with utter indifference. “All I care about is that we killed it.”

“I’m not leaving that much meat to spoil if it’s useable.” Kordas turned to Rose. “Get me a crew of butchers and hunters here, please? And a squad each of archer and foot to protect them. Beltran, if it is safe to eat, see that the bits are distributed equally up and down the line. Tonight, we eat pork!” Everyone nearby made at least a token cheer, because “Tonight, we eat pork!” sounded like a memorable thing for their Lord to say.

“Baron Valdemar’s Rallying Cry for Bacon for All,” historians will recall it as. My finest hour.

He was already gone by the time the crew descended on the giant carcass, but the good thing about calling a dozen people to render the beast into component parts was that they were able to take it to bits before the convoy stopped for the night. The verdict of the butchers was that it was perfectly safe to eat as long as it was cooked well, and Beltran’s solution to “equable distribution” was to call for cooks from the common kitchens to show up with a large washbasin each, nearest first. That was fine with Kordas; he didn’t care how the sausage was made as long as it ended up in the larder, so to speak.

And of course, thanks to the edict of “waste nothing,” bones were going to get sawn up for soups, innards would be cooked up into dog food, and that hide would almost certainly end up in pieces to be scraped and stretched and eventually tanned.

Surely that hide is going to be tougher than a bull’s. They were going to get a lot of shoe soles out of that beast. As he headed toward the middle of the expedition and his own barge, an icy wind sprang up, and he pitied those poor butchers.

There was no further disturbance, and by the time he reached his own barges, the giant boar was nothing more than a swiftly spreading rumor.

“Kordas,” Rose told him, as the barge came in sight. “People want to know if there are more of those giant pigs.”