Midday sun blazed down on the carcass. Air shimmered with heat and Linn was sweating. He waved a hand and his apprentice Boulder gave him a wet towel. Linn wiped first his brow on it and then his hands. He gave the blood-soaked towel back to Boulder, who took it without a moment’s hesitation. Linn looked at his hands and inspected his nails that still had blood under them.

“Well?” Fregi asked. He was standing far enough from Linn and the dead pig to not smell them.

The hog had been restless for a while. It had drooled and gagged and stumbled about and been even more angry than it usually was. It had tried to gore Marble, which was unusual. Marble had been taking care of it since it was born and it had always behaved well towards him. The pig’s stomach had looked swollen, and it had gagged and looked like it wanted to vomit.

At the end, it had seemed so pained that Marble decided to put it down. Linn was asked to find out what was wrong with the pig, and Fregi had tagged along. If there was something that would threaten the rest of the pigs in the village, he wanted to know.

“Was it the wolf? Puddings managed to eat so much of it. I just knew it would turn out to be bad for him, that goddamn mangy beast,” Marble said.

He was a sour dwarf and made sourer by the loss of his hog. It had sired many litters. If the meat couldn’t be eaten because of some disease or infection, it would be a literal bloody waste.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with the wolf,” Linn said. He had stopped investigating his fingernails and now looked at Marble in the eye. “We would have seen some signs much earlier if that had anything to do with this. When did you say Pudding started to act weird?”

“Just a couple of days ago. He was fine at the beginning of the week at least,” Marble said.

Meanwhile, Boulder had gathered the tools and towels and taken them somewhere to be cleaned. Even if he was centuries older than Linn, he was his apprentice, and that meant he was responsible for handling the cleanup.

“That was when he chased Jordan’s foreman into a tree,” Fregi said.

“All hale and hearty, yeah!” Marble said.

Linn chuckled.

No one liked Jordan’s foreman much. He was a pompous man who wasn’t even a local. He had been living in the village for just a decade or so. What was worse, he had a brother who worked in magic. Lonnek didn’t speak much of him for obvious reasons, but the word was that the brother had had some problems at work recently. That had garnered no sympathy from the villagers.

“Right, that confirms it,” Linn said, now serious again. “I wanted to be sure. The problem was that he had been eating rocks.”

“Rocks? Pigs eat rocks all the time,” Marble said.

“Yes, they chew rocks, but don’t eat them by like this. Even his teeth were all shattered. I wonder how he managed to swallow some of the larger ones.” Linn nudged his head at a pile of bloody rocks. It was no gravel. The pile included a rock that was the size of a man’s fist.

“Those all came out of him? That’s pretty grim,” Fregi said and wrinkled his nose. “Any ideas what could have caused him to do something like that?”

Linn shook his head. He ran a hand through his white hair and wiped his brow again. He then looked at his hand, but what blood there was left over had already dried. Linn still grimaced and crossed his arms over his chest. “First I hear of anything like this. Any ideas, Marble? Anything that comes to mind just before Pudding started acting up?” he asked.

Marble scrunched up his brows with his fingers. “Let’s see,” he said, while rubbing his temples. “There was that business with Lonnek. After that, he wandered off, and Basalt brought him back in the evening. Pudding had been digging around in their yard. Maybe he ate something unsuitable there that made him act funny. Made him start eating all those rocks?”

“Hmm, maybe,” Linn said. “Fregi, want to ask Flint and Basalt how it went? Maybe it was best if the questions came from you.”

“Agreed. I will,” Fregi said. He sighed and looked at the carcass. Some flies already circled it. Boulder had come back and swung the towel around to shoo them off.

“How about the meat?” Marble asked. “Good for eating?”

“Hmm, I’m sorry but I wouldn’t advice it. The rocks may have punctured... actually, maybe I don’t need to go into details,” Linn said and rubbed his fingertips together. “We would need to find out first what caused this first. If it’s some weird disease he picked up, there’s no telling if cooking the meat would make it safe to eat.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Marble kicked a rock. It flew and clattered on the pile of bloody rocks nearby. He scrunched up his face and glanced at Linn below his brows.

Fregi lowered a hand on Marble’s shoulder. “It’s a shame, but at least we’re not hurting for food at the moment. The second wheat is soon ready to be harvested. We’ll have enough to feed the whole village ten times over.”

Linn’s mouth was a straight, thin line. “We just have to be careful. We really don’t want to be cutting any people open next just because we didn’t want to waste some pork,” he said.

“Some prime pork, you mean,” Marble said. “But you’re right. I know you’re both right. It’s just such a shame, such a shame.”

Fregi patted Marble on the shoulder a couple of times. “I’ll go talk to Flint and Basalt next. I’ll buy you a drink in the evening at the bachelor club, ok?”

Marble perked up and nodded at Fregi. “Thanks. I can’t stay late, though. Marjorie asked me to be home by sundown.”

“This has got to be the silliest bachelor’s club in whole of Velonea,” Linn said.

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“Fregi! Come to lend a hand, now that everything is ready?” Flint shouted as he watched Fregi walk up the path towards his terrace.

Flint had a mug in his hand and was sitting with his legs on the low railing. He smiled and looked somehow younger than before.

“Flint, have you lost some weight? Working hard on the fields suits you better than mining ever did,” Fregi said.

“Oof,” Flint said and chuckled. “If I wasn’t feeling this good, I’d be insulted.” He took a sip from his mug and sighed deeply with his eyes closed.

“Isn’t it a bit early for that?” Fregi asked.

“You start by commenting on my weight and move on to my ways of relaxing?” Flint said and laughed out loud.

“I just envy you, that’s all,” Fregi said with a smirk. He climbed the stairs to the terrace with a groan.

It was a leftover from the earlier human farmer and the steps were high for a dwarf. Fregi sat on the rocking chair next to Flint and let his gaze rest on the golden field of wheat.

“Can’t believe all this was barley just six weeks ago,” Flint said and waved his hand at the field.

“Seems we owe Jordan a thank you for the idea. All the wheat fields are blooming,” Fregi said.

Flint blew air out of his nose and shrugged with one shoulder.

“Guess so,” he said. “Still, any reason you’re visiting? Will you stay for lunch?”

“Thanks, maybe I will. What are you cooking? It smells mouthwatering.”

The aroma wafting out from the kitchen conjured up images of a feast. Fresh bread, a mix of early summer vegetables and just the right amount of grease. Basalt hummed something in the kitchen.

“Just something basic I threw together. All the recipes seem to have come together brilliantly lately. Basalt has been baking. Even her breads finally turn out ok.”

Fregi chuckled and drew in another big gulp of the smell. Then he grunted and stopped rocking. “Wait, I actually had a reason for coming,” he said. “You remember when Marble’s hog got loose and ended up all the way here?”

“Sure, that big brute,” Flint said. “Basalt told me she had a hell of a time shooing it off our spare plot. She told it went through the plot like it was full of truffles or something, heh.”

“He got sick soon after. Died today,” Fregi said.

“Damn, Marble is going to be sulking for a week,” Flint said. He was about to take another sip, but stopped and looked at Fregi. “Wait, do you think it had something to do with its visit here?”

“I think nothing at the moment. Only thing I know is that it was nasty and that Linn was confused by the whole thing. We’re just trying to make sure that the village is safe. Nothing contagious going around.”

“Right, makes sense. But I don’t think it can be the plot. We don’t really even have anything growing there. We dumped some early left over vegetables there after ripping them all up for the wheat too,” Flint said and pointed a thumb towards the area behind the house.

“When have you last been there, darling?” Basalt asked. She had stepped outside with a splitting axe in one hand and an empty basket for firewood in the other.

“I can’t even remember. How come?” Flint asked.

“Maybe you should go take a look,” Basalt said and jumped down the stairs in one go.

Flint looked at Fregi and shrugged.

Fregi shrugged back.

----------------------------------------

The plot was impenetrable. The carrot stalks reached Fregi up to the chest. Spinach grew thick and dark green like a forest seen from high above. One corner of the plot looked like it had been tilled over by a madman and potato plants were strewn all around the ground.

“Well, I’ll be,” Flint said.

“Isn’t it way too early for carrots to be this big?” Fregi said.

“I thought this was a nearly barren plot of land. We had a plan to make it into something next year, but look at it now,” Flint said. He had raised both hands to the top of his bald head and was rubbing it in confusion.

“Maybe the pig got so excited about all this that it ate the rocks with the potatoes?” Fregi suggested and scratched his head as well.

“This field is so rocky that it might make sense,” Flint said. He knelt to lift up a potato plant. “There seems to be nothing wrong with these. I’m not the expert, though.”

“Potato expert?” Fregi asked. “Who… oh, right.”

“You can take it to Heck for inspection, if you want,” Flint said and offered the plant to Fregi.

“I think we’ll go with the explanation that Pudding just got too excited for his own good. This field looks amazing.”

“Worst one I have,” Flint said. “That was not supposed to be a boast, but it did sound like one, didn’t it?”

Fregi laughed and slapped Flint on the back. “You’re coming in the evening?”

“Absolutely,” Flint said. “It’s Basalt turn to watch the baby tonight.”

An angry scream from inside the house rattled the windows.

“Oh, it’s awake,” Flint said. “Unfortunately, it’s my turn before the evening.”

“I’ll help Basalt with the firewood,” Fregi said and slapped Flint on the shoulder. “Good luck. Take care.”

“You coward. But thanks, I’m going to need it,” Flint said and headed inside.