‘It goes back three hundred years, lad.’

  In Tressa, the end of the year was always marked with a festival, and every year, Dan would take Holsley. Sometimes, the old bard would be selling rotgut at a small stall to the side; other times, he would take to the stage and entertain the crowds, but mostly, they would peruse the stalls together and partake in the fanciful carnival games rich in the city’s colours.

  ‘Right to the founding of the city.’ Dan would always tell him the same story. As soon as they were through that archway and into the square of the Stone Keep, he would start accompanying his words with grand gestures of his hands. ‘Before Tressa, this was once Kashiern’s Cliff. Not many folks know that. It belonged to the giant who keeps the cliff out of the ocean. There were three towns here then, and the people were woefully suspicious. After a storm blew through one night and destroyed everything, they were looking for a sign that their towns could mingle after the disaster.’

  At this point in the story, Holsley would take a bite out of whatever confectionary Dan had purchased from a nearby vendor. Sometimes, it was popcorn; other times, cotton candy, and rarely, a potato on a stick.

  ‘The leaders of each town met here, right in this square, and they discussed the future of their towns. They stood against a roaring fire, fearful of venturing inside of the keep for the damage and met with the famed Heroes of Tressa. They discussed their woes for hours but couldn’t come to an agreement. Then, just as they were about to depart, it is said that they heard the voice of Kashiern. He demanded they come together under the hero’s watch, and that’s how Tressa was founded.’

  Holsley didn’t know if the story was true or not. Honestly, he didn’t really care. All he knew was that the festival had been born from that moment, and he supposed that’s why there was always a roaring bonfire just before the doors of the Old Stone Keep.

  He would stare into it as people fed it with furniture, old toys and bits of scrap. It gave him an overwhelming sense of calm. The fire would lick the faces of the crowd, and he would feel safe in its lambent glow. Whenever he thought about the festival, he would always look forward to watching the fire and sharing the moment with the rest of Tressa.

  The Smiling Bard was not like the bonfire at the festival.

  People didn’t gather in wonderment. They didn’t sip warm drinks nor eat piping hot potatoes. Instead, they stood with their mouths agape and whispered words of horror. It elicited no feeling of warmth. In fact, Holsley felt cold when he first saw the pub alight. It sent shivers down his spine and froze him to the spot.

  He’d been gone only fifteen minutes, but already the fire was bellowing out of the windows. The inside was so bright you would have been able to make out the building from high in the sky, and if you didn’t, the black smoke would catch your attention. He’d been practicing in the balconies. It had only been fifteen minutes.

  Of course, how this had happened wasn’t the question on his mind.

  When he had seen the smoke, Holsley had raced through the alleys. He emerged beside a couple. They could have been two men, two women, two rats, pigs, or anything really. They were muttering to one another. While he couldn’t remember their faces, he could recall their words with chilling clarity.

  ‘The barman is still trapped inside.’

  Later, when he replayed this moment over and over again in his mind, for the life of him, he could not remember battling the crowds to get to the front door. He must have, though. One moment, he was at the alleyway; the next moment, he had his hand on the door. It was hot. Strangers begged him to come back, but he brushed them off.

  The door was the easy part. He got through that without much trouble, but the inside was like an oven. A wave of heat blasted him, and he had to push against every instinct in his body to overcome it. Holsley pulled his shirt up over his nose and rushed inside.

  ‘Dan!’ he called out. ‘Dan!’

  Holsley stumbled forward just as a fiery beam fell, crashing into the floor from above and blocking the door behind him. The tavern was an inferno. He could have been teleported into the very heart of Nightmare and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

  Holsley coughed at the dense smoke tearing his eyes.

  ‘Holsley.’ The weak call had come from the direction of the bar. ‘Holsley.’

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Tables burned around him. Chandeliers and rafters crashed down with haunting ease. His nostrils burned, his throat was sore, and his hair was caked with sweat in seconds. Through luck alone, he managed to navigate the dangers and manoeuvred himself towards the bar by memory.

  Dan was there.

  The old bard was trapped beneath the bar, which had been crushed with a rafter. He was stuck from his waist down and had somehow been flipped onto his back. Holsley spotted the redrose lute lying a few inches from his fingertips. It would be fine, he knew. It was magical. Everything else was not, though.

  As he got closer, he saw the charred remains of the other instruments and instantly knew what had happened. Dan had been trying to save them. That’s how he’d been crushed beneath the bar and why they were scattered everywhere.

  Without a second glance, he sprinted to Dan’s side.

  ‘I’m here,’ he said desperately, cradling his head. ‘What happened?’

  ‘C-Collapsed on me,’ Dan choked. ‘N-Need to get it off.’

  Holsley inspected the rafter. It looked like it weighed a ton. He pressed his palm against it and instantly retracted his hand. It was white hot and had left his skin sore and red. There was no way he could lift it. With his build, he’d barely be able to budge it.

  ‘I d-don’t know what to do!’ he coughed, looking down at Dan. ‘What do I do!?’

  Dan wasn’t answering. His eyes were growing listless, and his breathing had slowed to all but a halt. Tears racked Holsley’s eyes. He wiped them on his sleeve. Dan was dying. He was dying right here and now. Holsley shook his mentor, and the old bard’s eyes came back into focus.

  ‘Together,’ Dan whispered, pressing his palms against the wood and gritting his teeth.

  Holsley nodded.

  Nothing was left behind. Holsley thrust himself into the wood, pain be damned, and put everything he had into lifting it. His muscles ached, his arms groaned, and the white-hot surface of the rafter burned his hands and shoulders. It didn’t move an inch. After an agonising few seconds, they released it.

  ‘I -I don’t know what to do?’ Holsley wiped away some more tears, but it only made his vision worse. Dan was just a colourful blotch.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Holsley,’ Dan whispered it. Holsley looked at him, tears leaving tracks down his ash-covered face. ‘I don’t want you to leave. I never have. I want you to stay here with me and help run the tavern. I’ll teach you the lute, and we can play together. We’ve never done that before, have we?’

  ‘No.’ Holsley shook his head. ‘We haven’t.’

  ‘I was saving it for when you were good enough, but I suppose that dream is over now. You’re leaving a lot earlier than I had planned.’ Dan struggled for the redrose lute and thrust it into Holsley’s hands. ‘You can’t play this until you’re ready. Promise me, Holsley. Please.’

  ‘I need to go get help,’ Holsley said desperately, fighting back the stinging tears and clinging onto the lute. ‘I need—’

  ‘Holsley.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do on my own,’ he choked out the words. ‘With enough people, we might be able to—’

  ‘Stop.’ Dan uttered the word as a gentle command. ‘You were a damn fool to come into this, and now you need to leave. Leave and don’t come back in.’

  Holsley coughed violently. His lungs were on fire. ‘I…I don’t know, I don’t know what to do?’

  Another beam came down nearby, flattening the tables with an almighty crash. The fire was higher now, all around him, quickly sealing all of the exits. As much as he hated to admit it, Holsley knew it was now or never. If he didn’t leave, he would be burned alive.

  ‘Remember this, Holsley.’ Dan clutched a hold of his hand. ‘It’s not the lute that makes the bard. It’s…it’s…’

  Dan’s head rocked gently into a lull, his eyes glazed over, his mouth caught in his final words.

  ‘Dan?’ Holsley pulled at the old bard’s shirt. ‘DAN!?’

  Holsley tried to scream, but he could only cough. He thrust himself into the beam again, desperately trying to shift it. He threw himself against it, coughing to scream or shout for the damned thing to move. Holsley hit it with his fist, and it came back bloody. It was all too much, and suddenly, he couldn’t stop hacking up the smoke in his lungs. The young bard fell to his knees.

  No one was going to save him.

  ‘Leave,’ he kept telling himself. ‘Just leave.’

  Sobbing and coughing uncontrollably, Holsley found his feet and shuffled away from Dan. There was nothing he could do. Not a damn thing. Another rafter came down, crushing the stage Dan had been singing at less than an hour ago.

  Don’t leave me, Holsley. That was all he could hear as he shuffled his way through the inferno, holding his mouth and nose in the crook of his elbow. Don’t leave me, Holsley. I don’t want you to leave.

  It was hard to swallow with how swollen his throat had become, which made the sobbing painful. With a struggle, he barrelled through what was left of the Smiling Bard, dodging fire and diving under collapsing chandeliers and rafters. He had gotten lucky more than a few times.

  He didn’t dare look back once.

  Don’t leave me, Holsley.

  Finally, he managed to navigate his way towards a window. He uselessly banged his fist against it. Outside, he could see the crowd in silhouette. Not one of them moved to help him. He sunk to his knees, defeated. He had never felt so overwhelmed, so racked with pain, so sleepy. He could just lay down and sleep forever.

  The glass above him smashed, and a burly hand covered in hairy bristles pulled him out of the flames. A second later, he was being laid out on the streets, still coughing his guts up. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Daldorra hovering above him.

  ‘H-He’s trapped inside.’ Holsley begged through choke-filled cries. ‘We n-need to help him.’

  Not one member of the crowd stepped forward, not even Daldorra, who looked bashfully away.

  ‘Please,’ he coughed. ‘Th-there’s a man trapped under a beam. We need to lift it.’

  ‘Holsley,’ Daldorra said simply.

  The young bard was too weak to stand back up, too weak to do anything. His body was covered in burns, his lungs were on fire, and he could barely see through his stinging eyes. He didn’t need good sight to see the fire, though, which hungrily consumed the tavern. Everything was gone.

  Dan was gone.