The air hung thick with the stench of burning metal and ozone, as well as some panicked smells from Ledo that don’t merit an additional paragraph of description. Denor watched, his heart a frantic drum solo against his ribs, as a molten hammer glowing and hissing with unimaginable heat continued to descend from the air toward his prone form.

Unfortunately, the whole scenario required some degree of thought on the boy’s part, and this decision would have serious consequences in the father figure department.

Ledo still lay sprawled on the workshop table, his bruised face dull with blood and sweat from the beatings. Okay, so these were also the cause of the smells spoken about earlier.

Energy shackles, remnants of their captors, still bit into his wrists, rendering him as defenseless as his son’s mind when attacked by a bout of algebra.

Denor, unlike his father, wasn't bound by energies. He wasn't bound by much of anything, really. What with the whole incapable of dying permanently thing.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t feel pain though. This was going to hurt, and it was going to hurt so badly that it enhanced the boy’s powers of procrastination to legendary levels.

A primal fear, cold and sharp, snaked its way through him and took up residence, happily terrorising him without paying any rent. He held steady, arms out as if to embrace the hammer as it lowered, trying to ignore the waves of heat that the nerves in his hands were screaming about. But fear, Denor had learned, was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not when his father needed him.

He had placed himself between the hammer and his father. It was now or never. His arms screamed in protest as he grasped the molten head of the weapon and took the full impact intended for the man below him.

The world went white for a moment, then a wave of searing pain crashed over him. He gritted his teeth, the metallic tang of blood filling his mouth. He couldn't see, his vision obscured by a curtain of tears and the shock as his hands and arms were consumed by the dark energies empowering the hammer’s molten-hot touch.

The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of searing pain. Denor felt his arms and chest sear, the breath leave his lungs in a ragged gasp. Through blurry vision, he saw the hammer consume his arms and chest.

As any particularly clumsy person will tell you, if you grasp something superheated, the nerves of your body consult their local union and go on strike. For this reason, the pain had stopped altogether. He couldn’t feel anything, his system so stunned by the immense agony of what he had attempted.

Then, blessed darkness.

***

Ledo broke through the manacles moments later, as the now-ordinary hammer dropped to the floor and fire started to engulf the room. He scrambled over, his calloused hands shaking as he cradled Denor's face. "Denor? Denor, wake up!" His voice was choked with panic that he desperately didn’t want anyone to hear. But Denor lay silent, his charred body limp in his father's arms.

“Foolish boy!” he chastised, fear clawing at his throat. He couldn't leave Denor here, as tempting as the prospect might have been before. Not after he had come so far and was on the cusp of something special. With a surge of adrenaline, he hoisted what was left of the boy onto his broad shoulders, the weight a mere feather compared to the terror gripping him as his world was consumed by flames entirely indifferent to his plight. He had to get Denor north, and hope that the invaders were content with their piece of the mask and didn’t want further spoils.

The journey was a blur of pain and exhaustion. Ledo had been battered and severely wounded, but pushed himself further than he thought possible, fueled by a desperate need to get clear of the village. He navigated the treacherous, frost-covered landscape, the ever-present smoke from the destruction stinging his eyes as the wind blew it north. Hunger gnawed at his belly, but it was a dull ache compared to the agony of his wounds. All in all, he wasn’t in good shape at all.

Minutes seemed like hours, the unforgiving elements a relentless tormentor to his open wounds, as if they were unconvinced that the man had got his full quota of suffering for the month. Now he played taxi service for his son’s corpse, willing himself on without anyone amusing to talk to or witty analogies to compare things with. It was just a white hell of pain and misery, and that’s very hard to crack wise about.

As the bruised sky bled into a canvas of fiery oranges and pinks, signalling the oncoming darkness, Ledo stumbled upon a small patrol. Hope, a fragile thing, flickered to life in his chest. These were scouts from the village ahead. Tycho’s village. He had made it, but it had all seemed like a hasty blur. Not a single encounter with a random vicious animal, or a mysterious being tempting him with visions.

Okay, perhaps he was delirious at this point. Even his brain didn’t seem to be making sense, his inner monologue getting diverted by a proverbial track change into the fantastical but definitely not real suppositions. The sort a man makes on the cusp of death, which wasn’t a great sign if he was being entirely honest with himself.

He sank to his knees before the weathered leader, a woman with eyes constantly alert and shifting about, as if she expected a snowflake to attempt an assassination.

His voice, raw with emotion, spilled out the tale of the molten hammer, and his son's sacrifice. The woman listened, her face unreadable. Then, with a nod, she gestured towards a specific tent. "Take him home. He may yet live, but time is of the essence. Bury the boy."

“No, don’t bury my son. Take him with me! Trust me on this, the result may shock you!”

The woman shrugged, her mission was complete as far as she was concerned. Scout out village. Village in flames. Find survivors. Go home. She was the pragmatic sort, and if this made the man come with them faster then so be it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Relief washed over Ledo, so intense it almost knocked him off his feet. He cradled Denor closer, his heart thundering with a newfound rhythm – hope. It still played in the same 4/4 time signature as the misery he had suffered from before, but it was much more upbeat.

He would see his son breathe again. He would see that stupid smile return to Denor's face. He would get asked endless irritating questions once more.

This damn fool boy would be the death of him yet, and this horrifying interlude of being the principal lead again would be over.

***

Denor awoke with a start. He couldn't feel his hands, which isn’t the ideal start to the day. He pulled them out from under the heavy aurox hide that almost suffocated him. They had grown as big as hams, or at least the cloth that covered them had. He tasted it experimentally, and was somewhat disappointed at the lack of flavour.

When he tried to flex his fingers, he could barely move them. Something within the cloth squeezed and a foul smell emanated from it. This was also not an ideal start to the day, but in a startling display of obvious character growth, Denor made no attempt to taste whatever the foul-smelling stuff was.

A stick clattered against the foot of the bed. "Boy, if you open those wrappings again, I'll let your hands rot."

He looked and could only see a silhouette moving through the dim interior of the hut. Still, the raspy voice that could smooth jagged cliffs with a single syllable was unmistakable. "Grandfather?" Denor wanted to ask the question forcefully, as befits a warrior, but it sounded like a croak, and a weak one. In addition to being a trademark stupid question that people belaboured with Denor’s presence had come to begrudgingly accept.

"No other fool would take you, Denor." The old man kicked the portable heater like it owed him money, and then spat on the ground in disgust. Leaning heavily on his stick, he went to the bed and looked down at the boy, laying a hand on his forehead. "So what that damn fool son of mine said was true then. You’ve been upgraded from corpse to mildly living, and it looks like your fever has broken too."

"I’m thirsty," Denor supplied as a response, clearly not in any shape for a prolonged conversation.

The old man hobbled over to his sink and returned with a battered canteen that was probably the same age as him. He didn't let the boy drink too much, and he didn't drink it quickly. With his bandaged hands he wouldn't have been able to hold the cup anyway. When he was finished, he nodded, and got a face full of the liquid for good measure from Tycho’s gnarled hands.

"How long?"

"You joined the living a few hours after the arrival of your body. The fever though? That was a nasty one. It's been a week, and this is the first time you've been clear-headed." Tycho shook his head. "Not that you make a lick of sense at the best of times, so it was difficult to tell whether you were lucid or not."

Denor stared at his hands, which lay like largely lifeless lumps in his lap. "A week?"

“The patrols found your father, he came crashing through the bushes with a wild look in his eyes and a face that spelled the trouble clearly. You were doing a good impression of an overcooked dinner in his arms.”

"Did Ledo survive?" he asked, fear gripping his heart.

"Of course he did, he’s made from the same stuff as me,” Tycho grinned, patting his own shoulders in mock admiration. “Gone out scouting with the rest to make sure none of the invasion force outstayed their welcome or thought about coming up here. Then he’s planning on rousing the countryside and getting them to push back against the Trunians."

Denor's eyes widened. "Did anyone else..."

"Survive?" the old man frowned. "There were a few that turned yellow, and some of the elders made it out with the women and children. The rest stood and fought until the bitter end as a true Andronian man should."

Denor closed his eyes. "I didn’t run, grandfather. My body was carried away."

Tycho's face became serious and he clouted the boy on the ear. "I know you didn't run away, boy. Can’t say the same for your heroic father though, or that boy that came back to life after the Temrit got him."

"He was no coward, grandfather. But..." Denor's throat tightened, and his brain helpfully informed him that Charan and Gella were probably still alive.

Tycho poured more water. Denor drank to ease the lump in his throat, the burning sensation made him realise it wasn’t water his grandfather was offering him. He fell into silence now that the canteen was pulled away from him. His injuries didn’t hurt as much, whatever was in the magic potion Tycho had brewed up must have helped.

Denor was still desperately naive at the best of times.

The old man nodded slowly. "I've seen a lot of people die. Many of them were friends. I've held more than one in my arms, just talking to them and easing their transition. Never an easy thing, and not something you want to make a habit out of."

Denor shook his head, not knowing what to say. Given Tycho’s mood that was probably his best option.

"Was there anything left of the village?"

“I don’t know,” Denor replied. He hadn’t got a look at the place before the hammer had barbecued him.

"From what your father says, there wasn’t. I don’t begrudge him for leaving when there was nothing left to stay for."

Denor nodded, having spent enough time with both Hevath and his grandfather to know when an old man wasn’t done talking. He quietly hoped Hevath had made it out of the blaze too.

"If it was beyond saving and there was a chance to save you instead, he did the right thing." Tycho scratched his neck. "Better that you regroup here before we make them pay for what they have done."

"I killed several of them, grandfather." Denor remembered the last attacker. "The Trunians were there, but other types of people too from other planets. I have never seen them, they were just like the ones in your stories."

Tycho's eyes narrowed. "Easy now, lad. You need to rest up, otherwise that fever might come back." He leaned in, peering intently at Denor. "So were the ones that looked different after anything in particular?"

"They wanted something. A piece of a mask. Antillia, I think. Is there such a place?"

Tycho settled onto the stool next to the bed with an involuntary sound that any adult over the age of forty can sympathise with. "Not Antillia. It’s a real place, or it was, but that’s not what you’re thinking of. Vernia, perhaps, but that's ancient history. Long gone. Thousands of years."

"They found it. They found what they wanted."

"Who?"

Denor scrunched up his face with maximum concentration levels. "Some weird man. He has a daughter, and there was a rock monster and a guy with tattoos and an acolyte and a Trunian with them."

Tycho chuckled. "That really doesn’t narrow it down. Have you any idea how many insane sorcerers there are out there in deep space?"

“The Trunian doesn’t have a nose..”

“How does he smell?” Tycho grinned at Denor.

The boy stared at him blankly.

His comedy routine thwarted, the old man waved at him to continue.

"I took off his nose. I just cut it off. I think he can probably still smell without it." He tried to raise one of his bandaged hands to his chin in thought, then stopped. “Actually I don’t know, maybe he can’t smell.”

Tycho shook his head. "Can’t tell if the boy’s feverish or not. Good job saving your father, the dead Trunians and Temrit are a bonus."

Denor managed a smile but then remembered the horror of that day and shuddered, sinking back into the bed.

Tycho brushed a strand of blonde hair from Denor’s forehead in a gesture that was dangerously close to being affectionate. "You've told me enough for now. Tell me the rest later. We'll find out their names from Ledo, and we’ll avenge the destruction of the village in due course."

"Good." Denor stared at his steadily-healing hands. "If we do this, I will kill them all."

“That’s the spirit, boy.”

Tycho watched as the young Andronian drifted off, scowling and taking a pull from his battered old canteen. “Mask of Vernia,” he muttered to himself. “Damn fool is going to get us all killed if a Trunian ascends.”