“So… Just so you know, I’m pretty weak. And I cry easily if I get hurt, and I’m also scared of the dark,” Cat said worriedly as we stared at the wall of fire in the distance.

Glancing at the human, I wondered what she thought I was about to make her do. Run through the fires? And did she bring up the dark because it was about to be nightfall, and we’d not made camp yet?

The hooded woman shifted at my look, and gave me a worried smile. “Just letting you know,” she added softly.

“Luckily for you, I need to meet your saint. So until I do so, I can’t let you get hurt or lost since you’re my way of meeting her,” I said.

She made an odd noise as she nodded reluctantly.

Cat was not happy with the fact that I wanted to meet her saint. In all likelihood, she was probably planning to run away from me or lead me astray. But I was both expecting it, and didn’t worry about it.

It’d not be long until she let slip her village’s location. Or the name of a nearby city, or its country or province, to give me a general idea of where it was. Plus if I needed to, I could always just place her in front of the Chronicler. I’d like to avoid such extreme measures, but in this matter I had no choice.

If a monarch really was the cause of these fires, then I needed to deal with it as soon as possible.

Looking out over the plains to the distant wall of fire and smoke, past scattered hills and large swaths of flatland, I sighed at myself.

The monarch was likely the source of that strange circle of undamaged grass back at the bison family’s farm. A monarch’s powers were weird sometimes, maybe the fires it created expelled outward in a circle around it or something. I had seen monarchs summon elements from a distance before. They did not just spew water from their mouths or flames from their eyes but also from thin air a few feet nearby their bodies. Their damned abilities broke the laws of nature.

I didn’t sense the monarch anywhere nearby. Odds are it was a weak one. Too weak for me to sense from a distance. It would explain the fires too. If it was a weaker monarch, it causing such great fires was a byproduct of its weakness.

A truly powerful monarch, capable of greater heat or flames… like Miss Beak, wouldn’t have left a fire at all. All of the forests around here, and all the life, would have simply melted away. Upon using its abilities it would have taken only a few hours to turn this whole area into a wasteland of slag.

It told me that if these fires were truly a monarch’s doing, and then the monarch was indeed weak. At least in the grand scale of things.

I tried to ignore the fact that Cat’s comments about the prophecy that told how they could kill it if they found it as it was being born. That they’d only be able to stop the fires if they found it fast enough.

Such a thing only further enforced the idea of the monarch being weak.

It was still coming into its own. Still growing. Still learning what it was capable of.

Taking a deep breath of hot, smoky air I sighed again.

I had no choice but to admit and accept the fact that something odd was happening. Even if I didn’t want to allow the reality before me to exist, like always it kept just slapping me in the face until I gave up and bent the knee.

“So… what are we doing then?” Cat asked, seemingly tired of standing here on this hill.

“I have comrades in Hornslo. We’re going to round the fires if we can. If we find Hornslo has been burnt down we’ll be heading to Telmik,” I said with a point to our east. The fires were raging this way, but we’d be able to round them well enough. The fact this whole area were meadows and plains and not forests, with scattered rivers, made the fires have difficulty spreading this way. They likely would, eventually, but might also not.

“This a bad time to let you know I’m starving?” Cat asked.

“No,” I said as I reached around to grab my bag. The one that I usually had dried foods and stuff in for Renn… and then realized I didn’t have it on me.

Right. I left all the bags with them.

Cat gave me an odd look, but I ignored it since I knew I had likely just made a fool of myself. I had genuinely reached for a bag that hadn’t existed.

“I’ll get you something to eat. You’re a cat, so you like fish I assume,” I said as stepped forward, to descend the hill.

“I don’t mind fish, but I’ll be honest I’d much rather head away from those fires than towards them. There’s a monster in them,” Cat said as she hurried to join me.

Even if she genuinely sounded worried, she still followed me dutifully. Maybe I didn’t need to worry over her running off.

“There’s no monster in those fires. They’re natural now,” I said.

“Natural…? There’s a wall of flame over there. As tall as the trees themselves,” Cat argued.

I frowned at her. Why was she so snarky? Maybe she was still scared a little, and it was her way of staying strong. “I can sense monsters. There’s none there. And that wall of fire is far taller than the trees, by the way,” I said, correcting her. That wall of flames was likely several dozens of feet high from the looks of it.

Cat groaned as we reached the bottom of the hill and crossed over a dirt road.

Beyond the next few hills would be a smaller river. Not big enough for a ship, but definitely large enough for fish. I’ll catch some food and let her rest a bit, since I could hear her exhaustion.

She’d been up all night and day, after all.

I had helped her bury her fellows in the forest we had just left. She had wept, but had also calmly given them their last rites with a prayer. And after the deed was done she was willing to walk with me through the forest, answering my questions.

I had no doubt she firmly believed she served a saint. To her it was as real a fact as the sun in the sky and the darkness in the night.

If I believed this supposed saint was real, however, I was less sure. Some of the prophecies and stories she had shared with me had led me to doubt it. But I knew better than to think this young woman had seen and known the whole story. Odds are most of it was second-hand gossip. She had been chosen to hunt this supposed monarch because she was replaceable. Expendable. She had no family. She was just one of the several doctors in her village. Someone like her who had been basically sacrificed had likely not been very close with the saint in the first place.

Yet…

My gut told me to believe it all. That these fires were indeed unnatural, or at least their source wasn’t. That she did indeed serve a saint, if even a weak one.

Klamma and her family would have to survive on their own. For now. I’d spent almost a week searching for them and hadn’t been able to track them down. If they were still alive… They were either holed up somewhere, or quick footing it to somewhere they considered safe. Society destination or no.

For now my goal shall be to reunite with Renn and the rest. Then, after escorting them safely to Telmik, have this woman lead me to her saint. To hear more of this prophecy. Of this calamity.

Hopefully this saint was only dreaming the prophecies, and had dubbed it a calamity from those dreams and her own understanding of them… if her prophecies came elsewhere…

“How are we going to catch fish?” Cat asked as we neared the river.

“Aren’t you a cat?” I asked.

“If you think I haven’t heard such jokes my whole life and aren’t tired of them by now, I have bad news for you,” she said.

Hmph. Renn would have smirked at me, at least.

Stepping up to the bank of the river, I studied the oddly murky waters.

It was too murky. This wasn’t just from the ash in the air from the fires. This river likely went through the forests.

Yet as polluted as it was, I still saw the fish. They were swimming low, as close to the bottom of the river as possible.

Kneeling down next to the edge of the river, I raised my hand upward.

“What are…?” Cat started to ask, but didn’t get to finish. I slapped the surface of the river, causing a loud sound to deafen the world for a moment.

The whole river resonated alongside my slap. Water splashed outward either direction, but not towards me or the woman. The slap caused a wicked wave to slosh all along the river’s surface, which I knew would eventually make lots of little whirlpools and splash water around for a few minutes thanks to the force of my slap being diverted everywhere through the water. A tiny yelp drew my attention away from the now turbulent river, and I turned my head to find that Cat had fallen backward in shock.

She was now sitting on the ground, staring at me with wide eyes.

Woops. Should have warned her.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Sorry,” I apologized to the startled woman, and then heard the results of my slap.

Alongside the splashing of water, there were little plops like giant raindrops. I looked back at the river and found several large fish now floating on the surface.

Some were dazed and some were dead.

They weren’t the biggest, and they were the type that really didn’t taste the best but they’d do.

Thanks to the turbulent waters from my slap, the fish that were now floating on the surface were being flung around all over the surface. It didn’t take long for me to gather up several that were pushed up against the river’s embankment.

“You have to be kidding me…!” Cat shouted at me as I nodded at her while showing her the fish.

“Don’t want them?” I asked as I stepped away, to go start a fire.

The woman made wordless groans and grunts as I quickly started a small campfire. The small sticks I gathered for kindling would not allow the fire to burn for long, but it’d be enough to cook the fish and feed the human enough to keep her from starving to death.

Cat watched as I laid the fish down and realized I’d screwed up again.

I had no knife.

“No knife…? You can slap the river with that much force but you can’t cut with a finger?” Cat asked as she stepped forward and pulled out a small hand-sized blade. It was curved a little. A typical hunter’s tool.

Accepting the blade, I smiled at the woman who was leering at me. “Thanks,” I said.

She huffed at me as she turned around to stare at the nearby river. I had stepped a distance away, but we were still close enough for her to be amazed at the sight of it. I could still hear the waters splashing from all the chaos. Its current must not be very strong.

As I prepared the fish for the woman, she looked around for something to sit on. She didn’t find anything usable before I finished, so she ended up just kneeling on the ground.

She did have a large bowl on her though, so hadn’t needed to eat the fish off the rocks I’d cooked them on.

The river had calmed down about midway through the woman’s meal… but it had also grown dark. I had gathered up more fuel for the fire, since she ate slowly and I didn’t want the woman to have to try and eat in darkness.

But as the darkness grew deeper, and the woman began to show sluggish signs of utter exhaustion… I knew I had to make a choice.

Either let her sleep or carry her.

“Cat,” I stepped over to the woman, who startled and dropped the very last piece of cooked fish. It landed on her lap, but she ignored it as she stared up at me.

“Y-yes?” she asked worriedly. She had almost just fallen asleep.

“I’m going to carry you. On my back. You can sleep as I do,” I said.

“You’re kidding me,” she whispered.

I shook my head. “You’re exhausted and scared. A few hours of sleep won’t be enough for you. And I don’t even have those few hours to waste. If it’s any consolation, I’m rather good at carrying damsels in times of crisis,” I said.

“I knew it… this is all a dream…” Cat mumbled up at me.

Great. She was already half asleep.

Putting the fire out, I brushed aside the last piece of fish that had landed on her lap which she had completely forgotten about and simply lifted her up.

She let out a strange groan as I helped her onto my back, and I felt her wrap her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. A few of her bags were poking me in certain spots, which told me she was carrying more than just simple cloths and travel supplies… but also that they were likely poking her too. So I did my best to move a few of her bags to her sides as to keep her from getting hurt. I wasn’t concerned over anything prodding me as I hurried, but a young woman like her could actually get hurt by something like that.

Once all was set I wrapped my arms behind my back, under her as to hold her. If she really did fall asleep, as I expected her to, then if I didn’t hold her she’d simply fall off. Humans rarely could sleep while exerting any force, she might be fine clinging to me right now but once she fell asleep she’d just slip off.

“This is very weird,” Cat mumbled in my ear as I stepped away from the tiny temporary camp.

Yes. It was. But this wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d done. Far from it.

I carried Cat to the nearby road. The dirt one that led along the river. I didn’t need the flat road in the dark to keep from tripping or anything, but I knew it’d be more comfortable for the woman as I ran for me to do so on flat ground and not the rolling hills and grassy plains.

The woman stayed awake for longer than I figured she would have. The world had gone truly dark by the time I felt her arms and legs soften their grip, and her head become heavier upon my shoulder.

I was running, but only lightly. Although I was indeed in a hurry, I knew better than to risk the woman’s health over it. If she ended up biting her tongue off, and either drowned in her own blood or actually bled to death before I noticed was a genuine worry. Humans were that frail of creatures. Particularly the young female kind.

It was hard to tell how heavy she was, thanks to my strength, but she genuinely felt too light. Was she lighter than Renn…? Surely not. She seemed taller.

Crossing over a wooden bridge, I compared the woman’s width to Renn’s. It was a little hard to tell, thanks to all the little bags and her thick robe, but it seemed her shoulders were wider than Renn’s were.

Wider and taller yet lighter… Surely not.

Were her legs and thighs not as thick?

I realized what I was doing and scoffed at myself.

“Stupid,” I said as I glanced to the horizon.

The fires were a little closer than they were when I first started running, but I didn’t think it was because they were actually drawing closer. It was instead because I was drawing nearer to them.

We were nearing the larger river of this area. I couldn’t see the mountain’s outline, thanks to the thick haze in the air from the fires, but I knew in front of us was the mountain range near Hornslo. And just in front of it should be the river, and about half a day’s distance from here should be the city itself.

That is… if those fires weren’t there instead.

As I ran, and got closer and closer to Hornslo, the placement of the fires began to make me more and more worried.

Had the fires survived the rivers and plains…? It was starting to look like it. They had left the forests and were now spreading throughout the meadows and plains, devouring the hills and rivers.

I wasn’t too worried about Renn and the others, of course. They weren’t stupid. Renn particularly. They’d not foolishly sit and wait for the fires to reach them.

But…

If these fires were indeed from a monarch…

Picking up my pace, I ignored the tiny groan of discomfort from the woman. She had half-woken up based on the way she suddenly started clinging to me tighter.

I’d not apologize for the rough handling.

If I found Renn and the rest hurt, or worse, after running off and not even saving or finding the bison family I swear I’ll destroy this whole world.

“Vim…!” Cat shouted at me, and I felt her fingers dig into my shoulders.

I slowed, and immediately relaxed my arms a little. I had likely squeezed Cat a little tightly in my rush.

“Sorry…” I apologized as I felt her legs wiggle around me. As she pushed on my shoulders with her hands. She was trying to wiggle out of my grip, likely to get off my back.

“Were you trying to break my legs?” she complained with a whine. The kind of whine that was unmistakable.

I had hurt her.

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I asked as I came to a stop and slowly let her down.

She clambered off me with a huff and actually limped bad enough as she stepped away that I had to reach out and grab her arm to keep her upright.

“Uh oh,” she whined as her left leg curled inward a little.

Rather… she wasn’t curling it intentionally. It looked rotated too, as if…

Wonderful. I’d broken something.

“I’m so sorry,” I said as I tried to remember where I’d been holding her. Her upper thighs, right? Had I actually broken one of her femurs?

In this era such an injury could result in a limp for the rest of her life. I may have just maimed the poor girl.

What the hell was wrong with me lately?

“Uh… it’s not broken I think. I think my hip is…” Cat spoke quickly as she grabbed my arm, and then flinched with a yelp. “Yep! Hip!” she shouted in pain as she dug her nails into my forearm.

Taking a deep breath, I flinched myself.

Broken hip. Or dislocated.

Wonderful.

“Okay. Alright. Um…!” Cat began to panic as she started to cry. Either from the pain or the shock.

“Deep breath. I’m going to lay you down on the grass,” I said.

“Wait!” she wanted to complain, but there was no point. She couldn’t just stand there on one leg for the rest of her life, clinging to my arm.

Picking her up carefully, she let out a tiny wail of pain and actually hit me in the face. I ignored the blow, and the nails that dug into my cheek and neck as she clung to me as I stepped of the dirt road and laid her on the ground in the grass.

It was as flat as the road, so it would do.

Cat cried out in pain as she tried to sit up, but I pushed her down onto her back.

“Lay down,” I ordered as I grabbed her left leg under her knee.

“Don’t touch it!” she shouted angrily, but I ignored her since I could feel it just by lifting her leg.

Yes. Dislocated hip. Strangely it had dislocated inward, not outward behind her. Must have been the way I had been holding her on my back, what with her legs spread the way they had been around my waist.

I’ll need to set it. And I’ll need to do so gently. I may have already damaged ligaments and who knows what else as it was, didn’t need to make it worse.

“You…!” she groaned in pain as I felt moved her leg into position. I curled my arm around her left leg, to angle it properly and make it so I could adjust her leg with my other hand if necessary. Although I’ve set countless hips over the years, they were trickier than the other joints. It sometimes took a little trial and error for a hip.

“Take a very deep breath,” I said as I reached out to push down on her pelvis. Just enough to keep her from raising it when I did what I had to do. Didn’t need her popping it back out from jolting in pain.

“You’re not really going to! Wait! Not yet!” she shouted at me, and then I remembered what she had told me before. About her occupation.

Right. A doctor.

“I’m going to set it,” I said.

“Wait! Wait! It’s going to hurt!” she shouted at me as she leaned up on an elbow and raised her other hand to grab her own hair.

“It’ll hurt more if I don’t,” I said.

“Wait…! I… I have something I can… I…” she began to panic, and I smiled at her. What was she going to say? That she had a magical herb to fix a dislocated joint or something?

After a few moments of heavy breathing, Cat finally leaned back down and nodded. “Okay,” she said.

Ah. So she had just been gathering her nerve.

“You know how it works?” I asked her.

“You’re going to move it until it goes back in. Yes. It’ll make me scream,” she said.

Good. So she did.

“You’ll likely pee yourself. Want anything to bite on?” I asked.

“Right. Teeth,” Cat groaned and then lifted her robe. She rolled it up a little and while taking deep breaths put it in her mouth.

Good. Okay. “Ready?” I asked

Cat took the robe out of her mouth for a moment.

“I’m telling your wife all about this,” she threatened me, and then put the robe back into her mouth.

My eye twitched and I immediately turned her leg and popped her hip back into place.