Fire

content:

note to self: revise this later!

Every fire has a soul.

So thought Cadoc as he watched the cottage burn.

The warm campfires of the night watch were lofty and proud; the fireplaces of Orriental barracks were timid and cold; and he thought back to the cozy embrace of his own hearth, in his family’s country house by the coast.

He closed his eyes for just a moment, if only to recall the tears in his daughter’s eyes as she cried.

“When will you come back?” she’d blubbed.

“Soon, Tessa, love,” he had whispered into her hair. “Just a year or two.” But his glance to his dear wife had been one of stern worry.

He’d tried to explain to Tessa why - because the Orriental States was an empire confined to a single island too small for its liking, and because of the complicated politics of invading the kingdom of Durgor on the eastern mainland. But Tessa could not - would not - understand. It was a tearful, rainy night when he’d left, full of fearful unknowns.

Of course, that was before he’d been assigned to guard duty. As a guard serving on-island he would likely not see any battle at all until the war was long over. Last year he’d even been able to steal a visit home for Christmas. All in all, he’d scored some rather bountiful luck.

He’d smile to himself, but the recent murder had left him unsurprisingly glum. He readjusted his grip on the boy’s left arm. Cadoc was among 3 ordered to restrain him. As if that were needed - the runt was paying his captors no heed; he stared only into the flames of his home, taking it all in.

If there could be any proof that fires had souls, this was it. It swallowed up the straw roofing and sent it collapsing into its sizzling maw. It growled with an insatiable hunger, stamping its pronged limbs into the air and across the browning grass all about the house. Its jaws frothed with smoke that choked the sky. And as the wooden planks of the walls caved in, a final blast of air - the home’s last breath - tumbled through the troop of soldiers. The fire whimpered and withdrew.

Cadoc turned away from the terrible stench of burnt toast, glad he wasn’t so close to its source. A sudden memory came to him - of his dear daughter dropping a slice of bread into the fireplace because she thought it was hungry - and it had smelled just the same. A tidal wave of shame washed over him as he looked back down at the kid at his feet.

The runt’s head was bowed, and as Cadoc leaned in to try give some word of comfort, he could see his eyes were shut tight and shivering.

Poor kid. Barely older than Tessa, and yet his entire life has been upended. Poor, poor kid.

Cadoc hadn’t seen the killing, only the commotion that followed. Being a bystander of sudden death put him at unease. But Cadoc tried to picture this boy carrying out that terrible deed and just couldn’t.

How could you have done something like that?

“What’s the kid up to, Cadoc?” asked the red-haired guard gripping the boy’s right shoulder.

Cadoc couldn’t remember the guard’s name. Hell, he didn’t know half these people’s names anymore. Many of these soldiers and guardsmen had completed their training merely a couple days ago, fresh out of the army machine. Aside from the General, Cadoc was perhaps the most senior of them. The older folks had all been sent across the sea to fight on the eastern mainland.

Some bountiful luck indeed. He intended it to stay that way.

Cadoc straightened. “He’s tired. He’s had a tough day.” A second wave of shame hit him, but he swallowed it as best he could.

The third guard, holding fistfuls of the boy’s hair, gave it a yank, and the boy grimaced as his eyes snapped open. “As he well should’ve. What do ye have to say for y’self? Julio owed me money, ye knicker. What use is he to me dead?”

The red-haired guard sighed. “Killian, cut it out.”

Cadoc did his best to tune out of Killian’s rant. The army was full of increasingly peculiar men. Cadoc couldn’t tell if he was just a rebellious teen or an older, blackout drunk - with his pale, warty complexion he could pass for either. Nevertheless, his various views on life, particularly morality, were certainly not things he’d want Tessa around to hear.

Killian was going round and round, nagging at the kid, until the redhead bumped his shoulder. “I said cut it. This isn’t a joke.”

“You’re right, this isn’t a joke!” Killian stamped his feet. “Ah, who am I kidding. Little goblin’s done what we’ve all been thinking.” He leaned over to give Cadoc a sly leer. “Ye know what I’m saying?”

Cadoc leaned away. “No, I don’t.”

Cadoc took a glance at the sun - late afternoon, so just about supper time for Tessa before bed. And it was almost time to head back to camp. The cottage was just about completely burned to the ground, and a few soldiers were now rifling through the ruins for goodies. Julio’s body was being wrapped in a shroud, and the boy’s parents were being forced into the back of one of the carts. With the fire all but spent, the chaos on the Wheat Fields was tamed somewhat, leaving only an empty feeling in Cadoc’s stomach. Perhaps he needed some food in him.

Cadoc wondered what on earth they were going to do with the parents. If they were lucky, they’d be put in one of the town house rooms in the capital. But if they were unlucky… A third wave of shame hit Cadoc, and he mourned for the boy’s wellbeing. The boy himself was going to go through an ordeal and them some. The Empire’s lust for more soldiers would spare him from execution, but should the boy not fare well? People like Killian would eat him alive.

“…but no one deserves death!” the redhead was saying. “And Julio least of all. He was a good man. He had a family. Did you even get to know him?”

Killian threw back his head. “Everyone deserves death one way or another. Everyone’s done something another man’ll kill him over.”

The redhead sombrely shook his head. “You, sir, are drunk again. And before the sun has set, no less.”

“And we masquerade under the light, like the good devils we are.” Killian stooped down to the boy, who was now absentmindedly watching the grass, one hand fidgeting in a pocket. “I understand the little goblin. Deep inside, none of us wanna be here. Deep inside we all just wanna stab each other and-”

Killian stopped. And then he shrieked like a banshee, hands zipping to his stomach as his whole body spasmed.

Cadoc grabbed his shoulders, “What, what is it?!”

“No- the kid!” cried the redhead.

Cadoc took it all in in a hair of a second: the way Killian clutched his stomach; the blood that spilled through his shoddy brigandine; the glittering dagger at his feet; and the kid - who was now making a beeline for the forest.

“The kid! The kid stabbed him!” the redhead cried again, motioning to the soldiers but otherwise being thoroughly unhelpful.

“I told you!” Killian cackled, laughing through the pain. “The little goblin can’t stop himself now!”

But Cadoc paid neither of them heed as he rushed in pursuit.

The kid was a dart - his head start would be unsurmountable. Cadoc took note of where he was going: a break in the trees near the river, his gateway to safety. Once in the undergrowth of the forest he’d be gone forever.

The General barked and the stamping of boots on mud began to sound behind Cadoc. The grizzled soldiers of The Orrient were quicker than a child could ever be, but Cadoc could tell that they’d barely reach him before he’d disappear into the forest.

But he could make it. Just a stone’s throw away now, heart and legs pounding. The kid’s capture lay solely on Cadoc’s shoulders.

The boy snuck a peek behind himself, eyes widening at how close Cadoc was. A mistake - a massive log loomed into his path, and the kid tripped and fell.

Cadoc landed almost atop the child as he restrained him, grabbing both his arms.

“Got you,” Cadoc huffed. “Just, just hold still and…”

Cadoc looked into the boy’s wet, fearful eyes. The boy wasn’t fighting anymore, not with the full weight of a grown man on him. But his eyes burned - burned with a great desire, a yearning.

Cadoc realised that the cottage fire had not gone out after all. For here Cadoc could see in the boy’s eyes that same fire that had burned down his home. While Killian had been talking nonsense about devils, and while Cadoc had been thinking of his dear Tessa, this kid had kindled a fire in himself and let it grow to fill his entire being.

If there could be any proof that fires had souls, this was it. And the kid’s capture lay solely on Cadoc’s shoulders.

At once, the kid kicked him in the chest. Cadoc let it take the wind out of him. The boy wrestled free of his grip, and in an instant he was off. Cadoc didn’t try to stop him.

Am I weak? he thought. Too weak to condemn a child to suffer in war, by my own hand? Too blind to see the murder he has committed?

But this time, there was no tidal wave of shame. This time, Cadoc could smile.

Perhaps the boy would smile too, in time, as he ran as a raging flame into the forest, ready to burn it down in his broiling passion.

Based on a story I wrote on 5 July 2021, but I have now rewritten it completely from a completely original one-off character’s perspective. As such, this only the first draft and I will be returning at a later date to further revise it.