Chronicles of a So-called Fire God (Abridged)

13. Attacked

I woke with a start when the door to my room exploded. Someone used magic to shatter the wood, the bang almost deafened me.

Feeling obviously disorientated it took me a second or two to take it all in, I didn't even know my own name. Instinct took over and I fired a couple of spells of my own at the two men in head to toe brown robes now entering my room amidst the cloud of wood shards falling around the doorway.

My first spell, weak and unprepared, hit the tallest of the men square in the chest and fizzled. The dark look in his eyes had a touch of humour, he clearly thought I was not worthy to be classed as opposition to someone such as him. 

My second spell caught both men off guard. A small, solid ball of fire rolled from my fingertips towards the men. Concentrating, I commanded my Flame-ball over to them and as it quickly travelled the short distance the ball increased in size. When it reached them, it was easily as tall, from the floor, as the waist of an adult man. I used the Flame-ball to chase the men from my room, into the waiting arms of my companions.

Torq took one swing at the shorter man with his axe, who then ended up a whole head shorter again. Lestergrad then pinned the other man to the floor with his staff; I heard several bones in his foot crack with the impact. He fell to the ground clutching his foot. Lestergrad whipped his staff around in a wide arc bringing it to bear on the side of the man's head. Instantly the scream of pain from the man on the floor, that I'd not realised I was hearing, ceased.

I stopped concentrating on my Flame-ball spell and then it vanished. The few items that had been caught in its wake and now catching flame were quickly extinguished with a few judicious stamps of feet.

"Friends of yours?" asked Torq.

"They weren't very friendly," I said.

"No. They came for me and Lestergrad too, but I was downstairs when I saw around ten men in these robes enter the inn."

"Ten?" I started to look out of the door to see where the others were.

"They looked a little out of place to me, looking around as if they were looking for someone specific. Then they headed straight for the stairs without speaking to anyone. I followed."

"They took us by surprise," said Lestergrad.

"And some of them have got away unfortunately," said Grox, the innkeeper, as he came in to my room. 

"What did they want?" I asked.

"The Herald," said Lestergrad. "I was unable to stop them, three came into my room. I managed to deal with two of them but the third ran with the Herald clutched to his chest. I couldn't catch him."

I looked at the bodies on the floor of my room, each wore a dull brown robe like the men with scary Sister Ava from the caravan. They even had the same wooden block on a leather cord hanging around their necks. I don't believe in coincidences.

"I think we need to have a word with Sister Ava and her brothers," I said and I snatched up one of the wooden block necklaces; the cord snapped as I pulled. 

"They look like they would be from the House of Porthon, the Goddess of the Dead Keepers," said Grox.

My face looked as blank as both Torq's and Lestergrad's as we all looked at the old dwarf. 

"They bury the dead that no one else cares to. You'll find their temple in the town square and their proponents yelling 'Bring out your dead' in the streets around there most days."

"What would they want with the Herald?" I was still very confused. A memory sparked of men outside a temple asking, pleading for dead to be brought forward.