In lieu of, literally, any better idea, I set out in the opposite direction from the retreating army. I’d initially hoped that Drynwyn might have some sense of the surrounding countryside, but apart from having a vague idea there was a brothel over yonder, it was light on helpful details.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I want to stress how utterly desolate this part of the world is. The ruin of Voltigern’s castle dominated the skyline, but there was nothing in any direction to indicate where there might be other humans. I guess, given a choice, you probably wouldn’t seek to settle anywhere near a fire-breathing dragon. But even so: bleak, bleak, bleak.

Ultimately, I fell into following something I was choosing to believe was a makeshift road. It curled from near the gatehouse up and around the hills and woods and disappeared into the distance. My thinking was that the castle must have had some sort of local trade route going on, as there were no apparent farms nearby to feed its population.

Speaking of which...

“I’m absolutely starving.”

Drynwyn was sulking a bit, so I didn’t get any immediate answer.

“I mean, absolutely famished. I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since I’ve been here,” I paused for a moment, “I don’t think I’ve drunk anything either. That’s not normal, is it?”

Cultivator.

“I told you to dial it back a bit; I didn’t ask you to take a vow of silence. Until Merlin comes back,” he was definitely coming back, right? “you are the closest thing I’ve got to a wise mentor. So, suck it up, buttercup, and get with doling out the exposition.”

Cultivators don’t need to eat and drink like ordinary people. Rhyddrech Hael once went a whole week sustained by nothing more than drinking ...

“Nope. Do not complete that sentence.” I walked silently for a few minutes, trying to get that particular image out of my head. “So, why am I so hungry if I don’t need to eat and drink that much?”

Your Qi usually sustains your body. All the things that food and drink did for you, your Qi now does. But, as you used it all up to hide like a plate of beets when Twrch Trwyth calls, you need regular sustenance again. Probably more than usual as you’re pretty shit at this.

I thought about that for a while. “Twrch Trwyth is?”

Fucking huge wild boar.

“And it liked beets?

Infamously.

“I could eat a wild boar right now.”

Probably hundreds of them in those woods.

“Really? Do you reckon I could catch one?”

You? Fuck no.

“Could you catch one?”

Sure.

“Really?”

Yeah. First, I’d dig a pit and maybe stick some sharpened stakes down there. Then I’d lure one away from others, possibly weaken it by firing arrows into it. Eventually, I’d enrage it enough so it would charge me, and then I’d trick it into the trap. Then I’d wait until it died or maybe finish it off with some rocks.

“Seriously, you could do that?”

Of course not, you fucking moron. I’m a sword.

*

Turns out, without having access to any Qi, digging a pit is really, really hard work. And doing so whilst starving hungry was not hitting the spot at all.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“What do you think? Deep enough?” My whole body was drenched with sweat, and my long red hair was utterly matted with all sorts of woodland filth. I’d tried to tie it up and out of the way with some random twine I’d looted, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the resulting pigtails made me look like a waifu from nasty anime porn.

Sure. Absolutely deep enough.

I looked sceptically at what my efforts had produced. “You’re sure? This is deep enough to catch a wild boar?”

A boar? Fuck no. I thought you were making somewhere to shit.

This wasn’t going to work. And I was beyond hungry. In frustration, I threw the shield I had taken from my inventory to use as a makeshift shovel away into the trees.

This had a couple of unexpected and, ultimately, unwelcome effects. First and foremost, it caused an ungodly screeching noise to emerge from the woods. This did little for my fragile mental state, Secondly, and I probably should have led with this, to be honest, it caused the emergence of a giant, tusked and furious pig.

Well, this is going to be interesting ...

It was at this moment that I became the unwitting star of an impromptu play entitled: “The Scampering Idiot and the Charging Boar.”

A hulking mass of bristly fur and sharp tusks burst forth from the foliage, charging straight at me with a fervour like I’d said something about its sister. Or thrown a shield at it when it was sleeping. One of the two. Probably both, to be honest.

At that moment, I did what any sensible person would do when confronted with a charging boar: I screamed like I was karaokeing the opening moments of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.

My legs, seemingly possessed by the spirit of a particularly motivated hare, took me bounding backwards, at which stage I stepped into my pit, turned my ankle, slipped and fell.

As I collapsed to the ground, my mind raced even faster than my limbs, concocting elaborate plans involving feats of acrobatics that even the most daring circus performer would hesitate to attempt. But as I crumpled into a heap on the floor and the boar’s snorts grew louder, and its thudding hooves seemed to echo through the very earth itself, I realised that my repertoire of spectacular gymnastic techniques was relatively sparse. Anything more complex than a gamboll was well beyond me, in truth.

In that unfortunate moment, with a triumphant snort and a last defiant charge, the wild boar crashed headlong into the pit on top of me.

In the ensuing chaos, there was a blur of flailing limbs, flying dandelion puffs, and a symphony of oinks and groans that would’ve done justice to a porcine opera.

And then, bizarrely, it was over as quickly as it had all begun. I lay there, panting and dishevelled, with the wild boar sprawled out between my legs in a most undignified manner that doubtless would continue to increase the popularity of my graphic novel in some parts of the world.

There I was, nose to snout, with a rather dead and somewhat shocked-looking boar. And I didn’t think I’d done anything that could have possibly caused it.

I think you embarrassed it to death. Seriously, I think it felt so fucking bad for you, it just up and died out of empathetic shame.

I was struggling to get my breath. “You’re not being especially helpful here. Seriously, what do you think killed it?”

Two theories. Well, three, if we’re going to continue to entertain it being a particularly sympathetic hog. No? Okay, well, you may have broken its neck when you collided with it.

Looking at the size of the thing, this seemed unlikely. It was built mainly to charge long streaks of piss like me. “Or?”

Or the guy over there with the bow and arrow took it out.

I swung around to meet the somewhat startled gaze of the woodsman from every version of Snow White you’ve ever seen. Especially the ones on the internet you needed passwords to watch. And a locked room. And lotion. Seriously, the only reason he wasn’t wearing a lumberjack shirt was that it would have distracted from his insanely overdeveloped muscles. And that would just have been a waste of good beefcake.

“Are you okay? I’d been stalking it when I saw it charge at you. I was so worried it would hurt you. I fired as fast as I could.” The hottest man in all of the dark ages leant down over me and reached out to take my hand. “Are you sure you are okay?”

I stared into the eyes of the most ridiculously attractive human I had ever seen, not just in the dark ages but in any part of the multiverse. It wasn’t just the muscles - well, not wholly - but in a realm where I had only ever encountered hostility, lust and anger, the sheer compassion on his face utterly stole my heart.

I suddenly felt things would be okay for the first time in a very long time. It was always darkest before the dawn, and this gloriously buff man was very much my dawn. I smiled, rubbed my thumb against the back of his hand and then opened my mouth to answer.

You fucking want some?

Drynwyn flew, unbidden, from its scabbard at my back and neatly chopped off the woodsman’s head. His angle was such, bending down over me to help me out of the shallow pit, that the blood utterly fountained down on top of me for a good few seconds before his heart realised there was now a lack of brainpower and it could stop pumping.

But not to worry, for his corpse immediately fell down on top of me, wedging tightly between me, Mr Pig and the blood soaked ground. And to keep the hits coming, my erstwhile boar trap quickly filled up with the gore of the most desirable man in the world who’d just terminally lost a foot in height,

No matter how resilient, everyone has a tipping point.

It turns out mine was being starving hungry, having narrowly avoided being murdered by a boar and then seeing the most beautiful man in the world lose his head the second you fell in love with him.

I lay trapped, covered in mud, blood and viscera and sobbed.