2025 Award Eligibility – Short Fiction
For Your Consideration
Originally published in On Spec #134 (December 2025)
5800 words
The old wizard was dead, to begin with.
Well, not dead. Not quite. Dead-ish. Dying, certainly. It wouldn’t be long, is the point.
Billy stood on an overgrown cart path as far from the wizard Warragul as his aching cloven hooves could carry him those last three days. Yet the tick-burrow stab of the familiar’s bond lodged between his shoulders meant he still felt his master over there, northwest, as if Billy were just in the next room of that built-falling-down pile of wattle and daub the wizard called his ‘manse’.
That was Billy’s first problem. Because there in that mildewed hovel, on a thin pallet, lay Warragul in a self-induced coma, surrounded by sigils drawn in black chalk and grim candles made from the rendered tallow of hanged criminals. With his last energies, the wizard was completing a three-day ritual which, at sunset, would bind their souls and, like a boat anchor, drag Billy down to the Nine Hells with him when the old wizard finally, imminently, snuffed it.
Billy’s second problem was that the old coot wouldn’t shut up about it.
“I mean, where’s the gratitude? Honestly!”
Warragul’s astral form, a blue-grey pipe smoke approximation of the man stalked circles in the crabgrass around Billy (if something as substantial as fog could be said to ‘stalk’). Warragul’s astral form resembled him in his youth—or rather, how he chose to remember himself from his youth. Billy doubted the bald, withered Warragul he knew ever had such lustrous dark locks, for instance, nor so fine a set of robes. Was that cloth-of-gold? And the squareness of his jaw was pure invention.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than nag me?” Billy demanded as he skittered to the top of a small limestone boulder.
“No, not particularly,” said Warragul, crossing his spectral arms. “My mortal coil is in the midst of shuffling off. I’d rather not be there when it happens.”
From Billy’s perch atop the boulder nothing promising was in sight. The bunchgrass overgrowing the cart path stood untrampled, not a single stem of ragweed by the roadside bent or broken. He heard no sound of horse hooves, nor wagon wheels. There was only the sharp skirl of dying cicadas on the breeze and the slow creep of shadows on what was soon to be the final afternoon of his life.
No one had come this way in ages.
“I have to say, I expected you to be there, though,” Warragul continued, floating alongside Billy as the goat hopped down from the rock and continued south along the cart ruts. “Imagine, abandoning me in my final hours! I lift you up to intelligence, to magic—I give you a soul. And this is how you treat me?”
“I never asked for any of it!” Billy bounded up and down in frustration, his hooves kicking up dust. “I hate serving you in life, and I don’t want to serve you forever in death!”
“I’m the best thing that ever happened to you,” said Warragul.
Billy brayed in dark laughter. Stealing him away from his mother so early he could barely remember what she looked like? That was the best thing?
“I mean it,” said Warragul. “Know what fate awaits lower animals after death? Know where all your little goat brothers and sisters went? Well, after they went into a lovely curry, I mean?”
Billy ground his teeth and curled back his top lip, making a point of looking in the opposite direction.
“They went…nowhere,” Warragul said in feigned whisper. “They just—” And raising his left fist to phantom lips, with a puff Warragul blew away his smoke wisp of a hand. “Because they didn’t have a soul. You do, thanks to me. Yes, you’ll still serve me in the realm of the dead. But isn’t that better than not existing at all?”
“I won’t go,” said Billy, trotting ahead again. “I’ll find a new master. A kind one.”
Warragul laughed so hard his astral form lost cohesion before his etheric tendrils pulled whole again like candle smoke drawn back to a wick. “Is that what you were trying with that farmer?”
Things had not gone well with the farmer, it was true. Billy could see, now, how a talking goat wandering out of one’s wheat field and introducing himself would be…disconcerting. What were the odds a farmer would be spellsworn, anyway?
Thankfully, Billy had been able to dodge the pitchfork. He had no idea you could throw one like a spear, or so far.
But even if he could find a spellsworn, none of them were interested in a goat familiar. Choosing a goat was just the wizard’s eccentricity.
After fleeing Warragul, Billy had sought out Grizelda, the witch who lived by the haunted pond. She’d laughed him away (“What use is a goat for a familiar? Besides, I’ve already got me cat!”). And even the necromancer—oh, what was his name? That odd, pale fellow who prowled the barrow mounds near Sidunget had turned him down flat. A man who stunk of the grave but had too much self-respect to be seen with a goat familiar? That one stung.
“Poor, Billy,” said Warragul, pulling a face. “Only a couple of hours left, now. And spellsworn will be so hard to come by here in—where are we, by the way?”
All Billy knew was that it was somewhere along the Marrugulon River (though, in truth, even ‘creek’ would have been too grand a name for that slow ribbon of muddy water trickling southward). “We’re by a bridge,” he said.
“‘Abridge’? I’ve never heard of it. Is that near Zundorath?”
Mostly hidden behind a canopy of reedy poplars and tangles of redthorn bush, a single ancient arch of river rock and bluestone spanned the shallow banks of the Marrugulon. Dried leaves and pine straw, the detritus of many seasons of disuse, clogged the bridge’s gutters. Tufts of grass shot from between the cobbles, and rafts of lichen crusted the parapets.
Over there, wherever the bridge led—were there spellsworn there? Billy prodded the cobbles with a hoof. Was that where his salvation lay? The bridge seemed sturdy enough.
“Crossing running water won’t help, you know,” offered Warragul. “I’m not a vampire.” He smiled, apparently meaning this as a joke.
But what was that smell? It was a sour, musky scent. One of the plants that choked the riverbank? The purple loosestrife, perhaps, or the cattails? Billy couldn’t place the odour.
“Go see what’s on the other side of your little bridge, if you like,” said Warragul. “Doesn’t matter. Sun will be down soon and this unpleasantness will all be behind us.”
“With any luck,” said Billy, “I’ll never see you again.”
Warragul’s laugh was mirthless this time. “Oh, you will. Remember: our bond goes both ways. No matter how far you run, I will always find you. And once the ritual is complete, we’ll never be parted again.”
The smoky form of the wizard blew away on a wind that wasn’t there.
Billy sighed. “About time you shut up.”
“D’ya mean me? That’s rude. I didn’t say anything,” came a voice echoing from under the bridge.
Billy reared up on his hind hooves in reflexive ancestral horror. Teeth bared and lips curled back, he bleated “Troll! Troll! Troll!”
The troll crawled from under the arch and stood. Thick grey hide like granite. Fists like boulders and knobby toes like river stones tipped with flaking nails of mica. A long, flat face like a slab of slate featured tiny, close-pinched black eyes, a high, piggy snout, and a wide mouth full of gravelly teeth. A mane of green hair fringed his sloping head and ran down his back like thick moss on ancient stone.
Billy kept screaming, rearing up and down, shaking his head so the troll got a good look at his two sharp horns. It was the stench of troll he couldn’t place. Of course! There was a reason goats instinctively distrusted bridges, after all. If he’d grown up with his mother and not Warragul that fear would have been better instilled in him. Stupid, stupid goat!
The troll covered his pebble-like ears. “Can you knock off that terrible racket, please!”
That…wasn’t the response Billy expected. He thought he’d be eaten by now.
Surprised into silence, Billy stood as tall as he could for as long as he could on his back hooves (though with the troll four times his height, Billy wasn’t sure how intimidating he might actually look).
The troll gingerly released one ear, and then the other. “Thank you,” he said.
“W-what do you want, troll!” Billy kept rearing up and down, again and again so long (and without being eaten) that a profound self-consciousness overcame him. He dropped to all fours and stood still.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” said the troll, extending a craggy hand. “I’m Slaag.”
“Are—are you going to…eat me?” Billy asked, his hooves skittering back and forth, wanting to run away on their own. The troll was only one massive stride away. He could reach out and snatch Billy up in an instant.
Boulder fists landed on hips with a thud and the troll stood with arms akimbo. “You know, that’s a very hurtful stereotype!” he said. “Not all trolls eat goats, alright? I’m a vegetarian, I’ll have you know. Yes, I will eat fish from time to time, if they happen by. Once, I had a frog jump right in me mouth. I ate him, too. What was I supposed to do, spit him out? But other than that, just veg. And I’ve certainly never eaten a goat.”
Billy stood stalk still, blinking and confused. Even this troll was too good to have a goat.
The troll lowered his voice. “Look, it’s not personal. You smell like a barn. I bet you taste like one, too. No offence. Let’s try this again. I’m Slaag, and you are…?”
After another stunned moment, Billy managed to say his own name.
“Right. Nice to meet you, Billy. Don’t get many travellers down this way. Like I said, didn’t mean to spook you. But I heard voices and I’m trying to suss out if it was me or the other fellow you were talking to.”
“No, it was the—wait—the other guy? You could hear him?”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, if that’s what you think,” said the troll, crossing his arms. “I heard you two arguing coming down the road.”
Was he really so desperate that this was going to be his way out? Billy looked to where the sun sat ready to slip below the treetops on the western horizon.
Yes. He was that desperate.
“You know,” said Billy, trying to act casual even though his hooves (so anxious to escape moments earlier) now started an excited dance unbidden, “I’m actually glad I ran into you.”
The troll cocked one mossy eyebrow. “You thought I was going to eat you.”
“Yes, well, you startled me is all. I overreacted. Lucky I didn’t freeze up and fall over!” Billy laughed but the troll looked confused. “We, uh—goats do that sometimes.”
“Look, are you here to use the bridge, or…?”
“Oh, no, actually,” said Billy, as the troll started walking back into the thicket around the bridge. “Umm. I know we just met and that this is going to sound odd, but would you by any chance be interested in taking on a familiar?”
Only a spellsworn would have heard the voice of an astral projection, and only a spellsworn could bind a familiar. And maybe trolls were just magical enough by nature.
Slaag cast a quizzical eye over Billy. “You’re a strange one. Know a lot of trolls with familiars, do you?”
“Sure!” said Billy. “Think of all…”
“…All those famous troll-goat duos you hear so much about in the troubadour’s songs?”
The troll was right. Even to Billy it was grasping.
“You’re welcome to use the bridge,” said Slaag, and began crawling back where he’d come from.
“Wait. Please!”
The desperation in Billy’s voice was palpable and turned the troll back.
“Please,” said Billy, trying to mask in his voice the urgency he felt in every bone of his body. “I need your help.”
Billy explained about Warragul, and the familiar’s bond, and the ritual the wizard was completing at this very moment that would usher Billy’s soul to its untimely end.
“If I can bond with another spellsworn before sunset,” Billy said, “then I break the bond with Warragul and I don’t have to die today. Will you help me?”
“Family trouble, eh?” said Slaag. “I can relate.” The troll took two of his giant strides and sat down on a limestone boulder. “I’ve got twelve older brothers and sisters. They all have their own bridges up north. Big ones. Lots of traffic. Ever see them long merchant caravans with all the men-at-arms protecting them? That’s because of my family. They love to torment the unsuspecting. Sometimes they only want a bit of fun. Other times, a bribe. And sometimes…” Slaag looked north. “You wouldn’t like my family. They’d eat you.”
Billy shivered despite the day’s warmth.
“Me mum gave me this bridge so I could make something of meself,” Slaag continued. “But I can’t be arsed to harass anybody. Never been interested. Besides, they kept all the good bridges. Nobody comes this far south to cross the river. The bridge is too narrow for much traffic anyway. Carts can only cross one at a time. Can’t be much of a troll if I can’t even make a go of a single bridge, can I?”
“Well, maybe it’s time you stood up to your family,” Billy said, trying to salvage the situation. “How many of them can say that they have their own familiar?”
Slaag looked skeptical. “What’s involved?”
Billy explained the incantation and what Slaag would need to say to offer a bond for the taking. “But the most important part,” said Billy, “is for me to taste your blood to seal the pact.”
“Cor!” Slaag’s face soured. “Count me out! Can’t stand the sight of blood. I’m a vegetarian, remember?”
“But—”
“Besides,” said Slaag, “there really isn’t much for a familiar to do around here. It’s just me and the bridge. Not sure you’d be much use.” Slaag stood and headed for the bridge.
“Look, this familiar thing isn’t one way. I can—” Billy sought for something to offer. “I can—I can teach you magic! That’ll show your family!”
Slaag paused. “Magic? You—you think I could do magic?”
“Of course!” said Billy, his heart dancing in anticipation. “You already have some innate magical ability. That’s how you could hear the, uh, other guy.”
“My family never told me I could do magic… Before I agree to anything, what sort of stuff could I do?”
Billy trotted around Slaag. “Do you want to smite any of your family? What about a hex? Ooo! Maybe some nice oozing boils?”
Slaag wrinkled his nose. “Cor—that’s dark! Why would I want to do any of that?”
That was the kind of thing Warragul did with his magic. After so many years of curses and bewitchments, that was all that leapt to mind.
“I don’t like my family, but I don’t want them dead. Is that all magic is good for?”
“Well…no,” Billy said. In thrall to Warragul, Billy had never had much call for other uses of his magical powers. “What would you like to use magic for?”
Slaag scratched his chin and cast his gaze toward the river. “I have always wanted to spiff up that bridge,” he said. “Clean it up, widen it some. Maybe set up a troll booth.”
“A…troll booth?”
“Yeah,” said Slaag. “Where travellers and merchants can pay a small fee for crossing the bridge in peace.”
Billy started to correct him, but Slaag went on. “If the bridge were wide enough for more cart traffic, I bet merchants would make the detour to get across the river without being menaced or extorted by my family up north.” Slaag cast a sly glance at Billy. “Or eaten,” he said, with a gravelly grin.
Billy brayed a laugh. “One improved bridge, coming up.”
#
With Slaag’s help, inside of fifteen minutes Billy had gathered all the elements needed for the spell. Piled stones ready for absorption stood on the roadway of the bridge while bonfires roared at either end, adding necessary heat to the magical reaction. Pairs of guiding sigils drawn in limestone now adorned each corner of the bridge.
“Once we’re bonded, you’ll be able to channel more power,” said Billy, “but for now, I can amplify the magical ability you do have.”
Slaag nodded, but the look of comprehension he attempted was less than convincing. “All right. What do I do?”
“First, grab my horns,” said Billy.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Familiars are like dowsing rods for finding and channeling magical energies. So take hold and don’t let go until I say.”
Slaag mumbled something to himself but took Billy’s horns daintily between his huge forefingers and thumbs.
“Good, good,” said Billy. “I can already feel your power added to mine. Now, focus on the bridge. Imagine the energy of all the elements we’ve put in place flowing into the bridge and then flowing out through the sigils.”
Billy snuck a glance up at Slaag’s face. The troll’s eyes shut tight and his face scrunched, sweat beaded his brow.
“Now,” said Billy, pitching his voice calm and measured, “just will the pairs of sigils to move—slowly!—in opposite directions.”
A low tremor shook the ground. The poplars and redthorn bushes on the riverbank began to sway. Birds leapt from their perches in the trees as the rumbling grew.
Billy couldn’t tell—was the bridge widening? It was definitely vibrating. The tremor should have stopped, but it continued to grow. Was that a crack forming in the masonry?
“Let go, let go!” said Billy, shaking his horns free of Slaag’s fingers.
The earth roiled underfoot like a swelling sea and Billy struggled to stay on his hooves. Something was wrong. The quaking should have stopped the instant he broke the connection with Slaag. And that was definitely a yawning crack in the outer wall.
“What’s happening?” yelled Slaag over the groaning earth and the hiss of quivering tree canopies. He dropped to one knee and slammed his palm to the ground to steady himself. “Make it stop!”
The violent roiling halted the same instant the outer walls of the bridge gave way, sending the bluestone decking tumbling into the muddy river below with a tremendous blocky crash. Both ends of the ruined bridge disgorged their rubbly fill down the shallow riverbank like spilled salt.
There was utter silence. No bird sang. No insect buzzed. Nature herself held her breath.
Slaag dashed forward to the smashed abutment. The moment stretched into an infinity, Slaag rubbing his hands through his green mane, trying for words but only sputtering.
“I don’t—I don’t—” Billy managed, not doing much better.
“My…bridge,” said Slaag at last, softly, as if far away.
“Tha-That shouldn’t have happened,” said Billy.
Slaag whirled to face the goat like a mountain turning ‘round. “Oh, shouldn’t have happened? D’ya think?” The troll’s gaze was sharp flint.
Now it was Billy’s turn to sputter.
“What am I supposed to do?” Slaag asked, as much to the universe as to Billy. “All I had was this lousy bridge; now, I don’t even have that.” He stalked toward Billy. “What if my family happens by? How do I explain this? ‘Yes, well, there was this magical goat who said he could improve my bridge. How was I to know anything would go wrong?!’ They already think me an idiot. Thanks for confirming it!”
Slaag looming over him, panting his wretched troll breath, Billy’s knees begin to lock. He was going to freeze up and fall over.
“Just … go,” said Slaag, straightening up.
“But I—”
Slaag reared around, roaring like an avalanche. With that, over Billy went, rolling onto his back with all four legs rigid in the air. His tongue lolled slack from his mouth and a black tunnel closed around his vision.
“You stupid goat, go away!” His shoulders slumping, Slaag walked back to his shattered bridge.
#
After a time (he wasn’t sure how long) Billy’s body, deciding the danger had passed, relaxed. He stood and slunk into the underbrush on the other side of a cedar thicket. There, he scuffed the fescue with a hoof revealing the cool loam beneath, fluffing his bed before laying down to wait for sunset and death.
It had all gone so wrong.
“Well, of course it did. Can’t have you go casting spells willy-nilly without me, can I?” said the unwelcome voice of Warragul. The tick bite of the familiar’s connection flared white-hot again between Billy’s shoulders.
“That was you?” Billy looked around, still not seeing him.
“I felt the moment you started the ritual,” said Warragul. “Spiked your spell. Easiest thing in the world.”
“You destroyed that poor troll’s bridge.”
“To teach you a lesson,” Warragul said, his foggy form floating from the thicket. “You are still my familiar. You don’t do any magic without my say so.”
“That bridge was all he had.”
“Then he’s learned a lesson, too, hasn’t he? Not to take foolish goats up on their ridiculous offers. Would you really debase yourself with some troll as your master?”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Billy said. “He was my last chance. It’s too late.”
“I’d say so,” said Warragul, checking the position of the sun. “In—oh, less than an hour?—we will be making our way to the halls of the Nine Hells.”
“You know,” said Billy, “for someone going to hell you seem awfully excited.”
“If I was in your place, I’d be reluctant to go, too,” said Warragul. “What with everything that’s in store for you.”
Billy’s ears drew back against his head. “Me? I haven’t done anything. What about what’s in store for you?”
“Oh, I intend to have a grand time during my infernal eternity,” said Warragul. “Can’t say the same for you.”
That brought Billy to his hooves.
Warragul smiled a cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “None of the devils in the Nine Hells are especially picky about what soul they torment for all time so long as one is handed over for their sport when the bill comes due. One soul is as good as the next.”
Ice lanced through all four chambers of Billy’s stomach. Warragul meant for Billy to take his place.
“I think the demons will admire the last-minute double cross,” said Warragul. “And while you are enduring all the punishments they have readied for me, I’ll be working my way into some role of importance in the Lowerarchy.” Warragul let out a short giggle. “I bet I’d make a wonderful demon.”
Still snickering to himself, he wafted back through the hedgerow.
Billy collapsed to the dirt, its coolness now like the chill of his grave. Even after he hit the ground, he still felt like he was falling.
An eternity of punishment standing in for Warragul’s crimes? His future was broken now, as was he. Broken as surely as was the bridge.
Maybe it would have been better to stay a lower animal and end up in the stew pot, Billy mused. Warragul had duped him into the blood pact when he was barely weaned from his mother’s teat. He never would have agreed willingly. A soul was too terrible a burden to bear if it meant carrying the black knowledge of one’s own mortality.
And now his end rushed to meet him, ready to crush him as surely as if he had been underneath the bridge when it collapsed. Billy cried out in dread. If anyone had been nearby to hear they would have accounted it the scream of a small child who’d witnessed the gruesome murder of a parent.
How unfair mortality was! Traveling through life only briefly and only ever in one direction. Billy thought of all the hooves, and feet, and cartwheels that had trod from one side of the bridge to the other, coming and going, now never to travel back and forth across it again. The gulf between the two riverbanks was now as impassible as that between life and death. At least when the bridge had been whole one could cross the river back and forth.
Back and forth.
Wasn’t that what Warragul had said? Go both ways?
Billy’s heart now did the same tap-dance of excitement his hooves had done earlier. Was that it, then? There, lying in the fescue in the day’s failing light, was his fate his own?
He leapt to his hooves and bounded through the cedar thicket to the bridge, braying as he went, heedless of the branches whipping and scratching against him.
The low sun gave the scene long shadows as Slaag, his back to Billy, worked at picking up tumbled stones.
Billy pushed up on his hind hooves, lips curled back in excitement. “Slaag! Slaag!” he bleated, panting.
The troll cast a sidelong menace over his shoulder. “I said go away.”
“Eat me!”
Slaag spun to face Billy and took two great strides towards him. “Oh! Not bad enough to wreck my bridge, eh? Now you come back to insult me!”
“No!” said Billy. “I need you to eat me. Right now. Before sunset.” Billy shut his eyes tight and turned his head away from Slaag. “Just…make it quick.”
When nothing happened, Billy opened his eyes. Menace had turned to confusion on Slaag’s face.
“Did you hit your head when you fell over?”
“No,” said Billy, bounding up and down on all fours. “I’ve never been more clear-headed. The familiar’s pact goes both ways. Like a bridge. He needs this final ritual to make our bond eternal. But if I die before sunset, I break the bond. Then, when Warragul dies, he’ll go to the Nine Hells all by himself. So eat me. And send him to hell.”
“But…you’ll be dead too. What good is that?”
“At least I won’t have to suffer for his sins,” said Billy. “But he will. For everything he’s done. Including what he’s done to me. Death is a small price to pay for that.”
Slaag still looked confused. “But what happens to you? Where do you go?”
“I—I don’t know,” said Billy. What might be his fate? He hadn’t had a choice in becoming a familiar. Would he be held to account for his part in Warragul’s crimes? Or might he simply blink out of existence, as his mother and siblings had? “That’s a chance I have to take.”
“What chance is that?” Warragul condensed like a fog next to them.
“The chance to be free of you,” said Billy.
Warragul rolled his eyes. “Still on about this, are you? The sun’s almost down.”
“Yes,” said Billy. “And Slaag here was about to have a late afternoon snack.”
A moment’s incomprehension was replaced by a look of surprise on Warragul’s face. He was on to the plan; Billy was sure of it.
Warragul scoffed and crossed his arms. “I don’t believe you.”
“Hang on, hang on,” said Slaag. “I never agreed to eat anybody. I told you I’m a vegetarian.”
The goat took a deep breath.
“Come now, Slaag,” said Billy, trotting around behind the troll. “You said you eat fish and frogs. And everyone knows how much trolls love to eat goats. Deep down, you’ve got the taste for flesh. It’s an instinct. Give into it.”
“I’m not going to eat you,” said Slaag.
“See?” Warragul checked the position of the sun. It was low now, it’s bottom third ducking behind the pine tops. “Told you he wouldn’t do it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Billy, sighing. “After all, he’s not much of a troll, is he?”
“I beg your pardon?” said Slaag. The troll made to turn, but Billy was too quick. With one high vault Billy was on Slaag’s back. It was like climbing the narrow ledges of steep cliffs, second nature for goats.
“Oi! Get off me!”
“Won’t eat goats,” said Billy, dodging Slaag’s craggy hand reaching back to grab him. “Won’t menace travellers.” Billy dodged Slaag’s other hand. “Won’t stand up to his family.”
“Shut up, goat!” Slaag yelled, twisting and gyrating, trying to shake Billy loose.
With one hop, the goat bounded from Slaag’s back to the top of his head. All four of Billy’s cloven hooves scratched and dug through Slaag’s thick, green hair. Slaag howled.
“Get—Get down from there!” Warragul commanded, one eye on the setting sun. He paced back and forth. “The ritual isn’t complete. If you die, the shock—”
Could kill Warragul. Yes. Billy was counting on it.
“What kind of a troll can’t manage to successfully lurk under a bridge?”
With a growl like a landslide, Slaag pitched his shoulders forward and sent Billy bleating through the air. The troll caught the goat and wrapped stoney fingers tight around him.
Slaag brought Billy up eye to eye. “Shut up right now or I will eat you!”
Billy gagged on the troll’s rancid breath. Slaag’s squeezing made it hard to breathe but Billy managed a pinched, “Your…family…was right…about you.”
Slaag screamed so loud his voice cracked and he stuffed Billy’s head into his fetid maw.
As the hot stink of Slaag’s mouth surrounded him, Billy heard Warragul scream. Billy’s whole body went rigid as fire stabbed between his shoulders. Then he screamed.
Was this death? Which of the Nine Hells was this? It stank as bad as the troll’s mouth.
No. Billy was still in Slaag’s mouth, but the troll hadn’t bitten down. Perhaps the screaming had confused him?
And in that moment, Billy realized the most remarkable sensation, or rather, the absence of one. The tick bite was gone. The burrowing feeling between his shoulders where the connection with the wizard had attached all those years—now there was nothing.
Seizing on the troll’s hesitation, Billy bit hard into Slaag’s thumb. The metallic sting of troll blood filled his mouth. Slaag yelped and dropped him.
Hitting the ground hard on his back, Billy rolled over and skittered to his hooves. He was covered in blood and troll spit and matted with dirt, but despite the wobbling uncertainty of his legs, he managed to rear up and down, shaking his head to emphasize his horns, and hoped he looked intimidating.
Slaag bellowed in pain and stepped toward Billy.
“Stop!” Billy shouted.
The goat and the troll stood stone still, each panting, neither saying a word. Slaag sucked on his bitten thumb.
“I needed Warragul to believe that you might actually eat me,” said Billy, once he’d got his breath back.
“So he’d free you from the familiar bond,” said Slaag, an edge to his voice.
Billy nodded, unsure from Slaag’s tone what might happen next. The seething troll knew he’d been used.
“Very nearly did eat you.”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Billy said. He hoped he sounded conciliatory. “Well,” he added, “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t. Hurtful stereotype, after all.”
With that, Slaag resumed his normal slumped posture, the rage of a moment before dissipated. He displayed his still-bleeding thumb. “This is hurtful…as is what you said.”
“I know,” said Billy. “I didn’t mean any of it. I’m so sorry. For the bridge. For everything. But I had to be convincing.”
“Did it work?” Slaag asked, finally.
Billy’s lips pulled back to show his teeth, in the closest thing a goat could do to a grin. “It did,” he said. “I’m free.”
“And the wizard?”
Warragul’s astral form was nowhere in sight. Without the familiar’s bond, for the first time Billy could genuinely say, “I don’t know.” He bounced up and down on all fours.
Billy imagined Warragul frantically trying to cram back into his dying body and bond a new familiar in the last moments before sunset. What would his options be? A housefly, maybe. A cockroach. Billy suspected no demon would find them an equal trade for Warragul’s soul.
Or perhaps the shock of the bond breaking had simply killed Warragul.
Either way, he was no longer Billy’s problem.
“Well,” said Slaag, “I guess that’s all right then.” He made to turn back to the bridge but hesitated. “I know you’ve had a taste of my blood, but if you’re wanting a new master, mate…”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Billy. “Now that I’m free, I don’t need to be someone’s familiar anymore. And I don’t want to be.”
Slaag nodded and turned.
“Wait!” said Billy, bounding alongside the troll. “I can’t leave things like this. Even if I’m not your familiar, I still owe you a debt. Besides, I did mean one thing I said.”
Slaag raised a mossy eyebrow.
“You do need to stand up to your family. And I have an idea.”
“Look, I can’t even manage a single, lousy bridge on my own.”
“Of course not,” said Billy. “Not on your own. But your idea for a southern bridge with a…troll booth is a good one. Siphon off travellers from your family’s bridges up north. Rob them of the chance to menace and extort people. You know—hit them where it hurts. Plus, the novelty of a friendly troll and a talking goat duo running the crossing? People will come just to see that.”
“Duo?”
“One for the troubadour’s songs,” said Billy, goat-grinning. He nodded in the direction of the bridge and explained how Warragul had ruined their earlier spell.
“Help me gather up the elements we need for the ritual and we can have this bridge out of that river and bigger and better than before in a few hours. And I’ll help you run it. We’ll be partners.”
Slaag considered the offer for a moment. “Hmm, I suppose we can’t wreck the bridge any worse than we did already.” He rubbed his chin and said, “All right, we can try. But let’s wait for morning. It’s been a bear of a day.”
Billy smiled again and nodded.
“Come on,” said Slaag, heading for the bridge. “We can kip under what’s left of it.”
The sun was all but gone now. They climbed under the bridge’s broken abutment and Billy scuffed the ground with his hoof, making a bed for the night.
“I wouldn’t have eaten you, you know?” said Slaag, as he pulled dry leaves over himself for a blanket. “You still smell like a barn.”
“You’re no meadow of wildflowers, yourself,” said Billy, curling up to sleep.
Slaag snorted a laugh as the last light of day faded below the horizon.
– FIN –
Solid. I often read my work aloud but didn’t know it was that common a piece of advice. “Write with the ear, not with the eye” is a great way to sum it up. Looks like this Lewis fellow knew how to turn a phrase 😉
Had to share this glowing review of Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume One just published in Amazing Stories.