Chapter 346: Fighting Fire with Fire

“Those Ravener-creatures were dedicated,” the little fae said when they returned to the clearing. “I’ve never seen anything put up such a fight after their side’s been licked. It’s said that the Crimson Head Brigadiers don’t give up easily either, but these beasts just kept throwing their lives away like they meant nothing.”

“Well…I guess that makes them deadicated,” Alex thought, caught between irritation and amusement.

He bit back dark laughter, then caught Gwyllain staring up at him.

“What?” Alex asked.

“Uh…deadicated?” the asrai asked. “You put so much emphasis on the ‘dead’ part it sounds like you were making a pun.”

“What? Wait, you can read my mind?” Alex gasped.

“No…you said it out loud.”

“O-oh,” he muttered. It’d been a while since his mouth had gone renegade. Great. As if Gwyllain wasn’t frightened enough, now he was looking at Alex like he was afraid he was completely unhinged.

Pointedly ignoring the fae’s gaze, he called out in a tongue of elemental earth: “Earth elementals? Did you find a dungeon? Come back up since you’ll be going home soon.”

Soil shimmered and the rocky creatures emerged, relaying what they’d seen. Alex took it all in with a mixture of relief and frustration.

They had found chambers deep beneath the windmill…but they’d been empty of Ravener-spawn and all other forms of monstrous life. No spheres. No dungeon. When the elementals vanished back to their home plane, Alex was left with Gwyllain, Claygon and a small number of his rapidly decreasing army.

“Right,” he said. “Looks like the danger’s passed, so let’s get this rope off of you.”

“Thank the fae lords,” Gwyllain said with relief, watching Alex’s Wizard’s Hands undo a series of knots. “I think the rope bit into me as much as that hag wanted to.”

“Well, rope burns are nasty, but a lot better than hag teeth, I bet.” Alex’s magic Hands finished untying the rope.

The little asrai plopped to the ground—his flight potion having faded—and rubbed his chest and arms. “I can’t believe I’m alive.”

“Ya, it was touch and go, but we’re both alive,” the young wizard watched the mill blaze. Heat came off of it in waves, some of the rafters had long collapsed to the ground. The structure now formed the perfect chimney, channelling heat up and out through the upper windows.

Sparks drifted like fireflies, floating into the wind.

It was like watching the world’s tallest hearth.

“I have to try and put that out, we can’t just let it burn.” Alex put his hands on his hips. “The clearing’s pretty wide, otherwise the sparks might’ve already spread to the forest. It’s probably burning through a lot of its fuel. …Traveller’s blessing that there’s no dungeon around, or we'd have fire to deal with, and be overrun by another horde of nasty monsters.”

‘The Ravener-spawn must’ve been brought here from elsewhere. Probably by the clawed one,’ Alex thought. ‘That’s something else to consider and discuss back at camp. …and speaking of things to bring up.’

He looked at the asrai faerie watching the windmill burn. His head was shaking back and forth, but he was otherwise motionless.

“Hey, Gwyllain?”

“Huh, wha?” the asrai jumped, double-taking on Alex. “Erm, yes?”

The fae shifted his weight back and forth, looking ready to bolt. It was obvious he wanted to be away from here.

“Did you ever notice anyone following you? Or watching you?” Alex asked.

“Well, no…” Gwyllain said. “And I was keeping an eye open in case that hag was out some night looking to turn me into a meal or two.” He looked angry, then his expression shifted, becoming puzzled. “Then again…I did notice there were an awful lot of birds in Greymoor in recent times. Look at how they gathered and attacked us…Birds behaving like that isn’t natural. I guess they must’ve been watching us for a while.”

The birds.

There’d been birds around camp for months, lots of them. No one had paid them any mind—just thinking it was a normal sight in Greymoor. After all, the expedition was a large group with lots of food scraps that would attract crows and other hungry birds. According to the bestiaries, birds were one of the most common forms of animal life in the moors: the Generasians had no reason to give them a second thought.

“Baelin and Professor Jules aren’t going to like this…” Alex murmured. “Looks like the blue annis hags were spying on us for a long time.”

Gwyllain shuddered. “The thought makes me feel all creepy inside. I’m glad they’re dead now. And all those Ravener-creatures too. Small wonder there’s been so few animals coming around.”

“Well, I think there’ll probably be more birds soon,” Alex said. “Lots of carrion lying around. They’ll probably flock to this place like someone rang the dinner bell. How are you doing? …you seem kinda uncomfortable. You wanna get going?”

“Well…in a bit,” Gwyllain said, glancing over his shoulder. The green-golden light of the aeld tree—back in the treeline—reflected off his eyes. “There’s a few things you’ll need to know about planting an aeld. The poor thing’s at least half as panicked as I’ve been—and I’m sure those hags didn’t exactly treat its roots well. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.”

The asrai tapped his chin, deep in thought. “I’ve got a friend,—Jack’s his name—he came into a lot of leasú-todhar dust last winter.”

Alex’s eyebrows rose: Salinger had talked about that stuff in a lecture last summer, and it was also popular in old tales about talking trees. “Isn’t that the stuff fae folk use to feed their magic plants and make their beanstalks grow taller than trees?”

“Aye, some of the best fertiliser in the whole wide world,” Gwyllain said, almost visibly swelling with pride. “A pinch of that mixed with the right amount of water should have those roots growing and healing in no time. I’ll go fetch some from Jack, he lives not too far from me in a toadstool cottage at the edge of the willow wood.”

“Uh, that’s good of you.” Alex scratched the back of his head. “But—I don’t mean to be rude—why, though? You said you’d find me an aeld tree, a nice young one I might be able to convince to let me transplant it where our castle is. You’ve already done what you said you’d do.”

“Aye.” Gwyllain nodded. “But it wouldn’t be in the spirit of things if I let you have it while it’s half-panicked and maybe sick. You’ll have an easier time convincing it if you care for it properly. But, I still have to fetch something from my home for you: Remember I said I’d talk to the bluecaps and see if they’d show you good spots where you could find proper building stone and metals where you wouldn’t be bothering other fae? Well, I did have a talk with them and they agreed, so long as you wizards didn’t give them any trouble. I have a map at my home that’ll show you where they said you could find good stone, some pretty shinies, and other things. So, I’ll go fetch that too.

“Yeah, that sounds great. We’ve already been harvesting stone, it’ll be good if we found some metals too. The earth mages will be glad for that, and I’ll tell them that they have to be respectful to the bluecaps.”

“Good, good,” Gwyllain said. “And while I’m gone, try and talk to the tree a bit. Let it get to know you. You already saved it from nasty monsters, so that’s a good start, but it won’t know if you’re planning to plant and protect it, or if you’re planning to chop it up for firewood. So, be nice and gentle…not like how you were with those monsters. No disrespect intended.”

“None taken,” Alex laughed.

“Good, I’ll be back soon. Night’s getting on, and I want to be tucked in my bed before the sun’s out. I'll see you shortly!”

Gwyllain flitted into the woods and disappeared.

Alex re-summoned his earth elementals.

“Right, welcome back,” he said. “I need you to go into the forest and get me a special tree that’s in there. You can’t miss it. It’s the glowing one.”

The elementals made a grinding sound and slipped beneath the earth. He felt their mana approaching the aeld tree, then returning.

The sapling came toward Alex, smoothly sliding into the clearing.

It didn’t look damaged, no stripped bark, or broken branches, or anything visible, yet fear and confusion were still flowing from it in waves.

“Hello there,” Alex said gently, approaching slowly. “I don’t know how much of any language you understand, so I’m just going to say that I mean you no harm.”

The little tree shuddered in the low wind as the wizard stepped into its green-golden light. Waves of panic spiked, it grew more frightened with each passing heartbeat. Its leaves shook.

“Hold on…hold on…” Alex said, trying to keep his tone smooth, calm and soothing, remembering what Gwyllain said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The tree’s panic only increased, no matter what he said, or how he said it.

“Well, I guess after everything you’ve been through it’s only natural that you’d be afraid of….me? Wait a minute...” He slowly turned toward the inferno that was the windmill.

Fire was still raging through the structure; a pretty terrifying sight for a tree, no doubt.

“Right…maybe I should’ve tried calming that fire down a bit first…shouldn’t I?” Alex said sheepishly. He spoke to the earth elementals. “Sorry to send you back, but I need you to hurry and get this guy back into the forest about a hundred yards or so.”

The elementals slipped beneath the soil, ferrying the tree back to safety.

Alex spoke to the water elementals, “We need to douse this fire, so I want you to spray as much water on it as you can.”

As the water elementals bubbled and rolled toward the windmill, the young wizard winced as he ran Hsekiu’s technique through his mana pool. His fibres were definitely stressed: after this round, he’d be done with mana for the night, but for now, he needed more to summon another pack of air elementals. He gave them a quick order: “Three of you, find cracks in the mill and pull the air out through them: we’re going to starve that fire. You other three, go up to the windmill blades and pull out all the air you can from the flame up there. Let’s get to it: we’ve gotta calm this down before the blades collapse.”

With a whoosh, the air elementals took off.

Alex drank another flight potion, picked up Bubbles and floated toward the windmill. “I’ll be right back, Claygon,” he said to his golem.

He and the elementals moved from place to place, putting out as much of the fire as they could. The work was hot and difficult, and the heat wafting from it threatened to roast him if he went too close. He stayed to the side of the blades, letting Bubbles aim streams of water at them.

Bit by bit, the flames decreased.

But, not enough to extinguish the blazing mill.

Then, Alex had an idea.

Floating to the ground, he cast Summon Small Fire Elemental twice, speaking to the spirits in one of the tongues of elemental flame: “Hey guys, welcome back. Thanks for answering so quickly. I need you to go into that burning building and absorb all the flame you can. Just feast on it.”

The fire elementals crackled with excitement.

Then, he sent a mental call to Claygon. ‘I have a ‘creative’—some might even call it dumb—plan, buddy, and I need your help. When in doubt, fight with fire, so power up your fire-beams.’

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Claygon thundered toward the mill, powering up his fire-beams as he ran. While the fire elementals happily burned as much wood and monster matter as they could, Claygon repeatedly shot all three beams through the archway again and again. The flames grew higher and hotter until the mill became too hot for most living things to be near. Alex stayed back and called the air and water elementals, leaving the fire elementals to enjoy the intense blaze.

It was a good thing Gwyllain wasn’t there. What Alex was doing would have convinced him that the wizard had gone absolutely mad and was trying to turn the tower into molten lava. But with a few minutes of concentrated blasting and scorching, the opposite of what one might expect happened.

The flames began dying.

Solid fuel that would have burned for hours, was turned to ash in mere minutes thanks to the fire magic. Alex had built the inferno up in the short term, to starve it in the long term. He sent air elementals scouting the area around the windmill, blowing any errant sparks back into the fire, keeping it from spreading.

Eventually…

Crack!

The beam supporting the windmill’s blades began giving way.

“Alright,” Alex said. “Air elementals, I need you to move fast, blow the sparks back into the windmill when that support beam collapses. Claygon, I want you to blast the hell out of that building.”