[Great Hunt] The Pyre of the North

After another half an hour of travel, Arianwyn finally caught up with the Pyre of the North.

The travel had not been fast. For all of her resolve that she catch up to the monster as soon as possible and begin to fight in earnest, the wide flaming path the blazing skeleton cut through the wilds of Ivras did not make passage easy for the Silverweaver. Though she longed for a clear straightaway where she could break into a run, the tall monster cared less about the path than she did: between its long steps and willingness to burn away whatever lay in its path, it was happy to cut through thick brush or cut across dried creek beds. Arianwyn, on the other hand, had to carefully pick her away around patches of fire and ichor, and even left the path a few times when the flames were simply too thick to pass. The whole time, she longed to stop and extinguish the fires—she passed many burning thickets which would doubtless spread into a greater fire if left untended. She just had to hope and pray to whatever Patron might be listening that the winds would not whip the smoldering brush into a full-blown forest fire. There were too many farms and towns around; she did not want to see more tended fields burned, nor any villages lost to the Pyre.

Knowing she would do more good fighting the monster than cleaning up its mess, Arianwyn pressed on until she could finally see the scorched skeleton through the forests. The taller trees in the area seemed to have slowed it some; though its wings beat in what the Silverweaver interpreted as frustration, it did not seem capable of taking to the sky. Instead, it seemed confined to the ground—on one hand, a blessing, given Arianwyn couldn't imagine trying to chase the tusked beast through the sky. On the other hand, there would have been a lot less risk of disaster was it not walking the earth, catching more dry brush alight with each step of its blackened hooves. However, she watched in horror as the beating of fiery wings summoned a burst of flame that devoured the forest before it the way a wave crashes into the beach: ancient trees were knocked down with the ease of matchsticks, burning to a crisp before they even hit the ground. The earth seemed to oxidize in a moment. All organic material in range of the wave of fire was simply gone, as though it had never even existed. Arianwyn's breath hitched in her throat at the sight. One flap of those wings and she would be killed, felled before she got a chance to run. One flap would destroy a village; one flap could end so many lives. The sickness of this corrupted mage's magic, burst at the seams and devouring both host and land, was enough to make her nauseous. Whoever that mage had been was gone; reduced to ash. This beast, this pure corruption and destruction made manifest, was enough to chill her to the bone. Malice radiated off of it in waves.

However, worse than the sickening malice that the Pyre exuded was the pure heat. Arianwyn had used forages briefly when she was first exploring her magic, as the way of a blacksmith had seemed an easy extension of her work. She had found the pure, radiating heat to be simply unbearable. Being in the same room as a working forage made her skin itch with the heat, her eyes tearing up at the sensation. Though she appreciated a warm hearth to aid her poor circulation, the blacksmith shop had been too much, making her blood feel as though it was boiling in her veins. She had lasted mere days before she concluded that she was never going to be a true smith. Approaching this monster was like walking into a forage the size of the sun. It was painful even just to get near. Within seconds, she felt the sweat beginning to drip off her fur. Even breathing was difficult when the air was this hot.

Still, she trudged on; nearing the monster with a fierce conviction. The destruction it was wreaking would not be tolerated; its reign of destruction would not last forever. Even if was just her fighting this great beast, she would fell the beast. Eyes blazing in a determination to match the flames of the Pyre, she began shaping her silver in daggers, her favored weapons for felling monsters. "Halt!" she ordered, her voice brave despite her lingering fear. "Not a step further. You will not destroy another inch of Ivras's land."

At the echoing of her voice across the land, the Pyre of the North turned in her direction with a deadly sweep of its great tusks.