He’d never tasted Fire Imp before.

  But he knew better than to think of them as meat.

  Well, they did have meat, but it wasn’t meat. Not really. There was no muscle to cut. No fat to render. What passed for flesh on their bones was closer to woven magic than sinew or skin. Hot to the touch. Waxy. Brittle when cooled. It didn’t bleed. It hissed. Smelled of coal and sulfur and something else—something not meant for kitchens.

  You couldn’t cook a Fire Imp. Not in any traditional sense. You couldn’t braise or roast or cure it. The body didn’t take to heat. It was heat. Put one on a skillet and you’d end up with black ash and the stink of burned iron. Nothing more.

  But the alchemists had found a use for them.

  Once slain and properly cooled, their bodies could be crushed—bone and wing and hide all ground down into a fine, red powder known as Fire Salt. It was a reagent, not a spice. Sold in tiny glass vials. Stored away from moisture and light. Used to strengthen potions, amplify spells, bind flames to stone or steel. The stuff burned when touched to the tongue. Bit like acid. Clung to the roof of the mouth.

  And yet—

  Syras had tasted it once. Just a pinch. Back in Valgard. Culinary school. Some instructor with a cruel streak and a locked cabinet full of forbidden ingredients. A test of nerve, more than skill.

  It hit like smoke. Rich and bitter. Deeper than char. There was body in it, like the flavor of coal that had cooked meat to the bone. Lingering. Complex. At the time, he’d imagined mixing it into sausage—just a touch. Enough to flavor the fat. Enough to make a man stop chewing and wonder what he'd just eaten.

  He remembered that flavor now as he watched them dance.

  They were laughing still, stomping their strange feet in circles around the flame. Their small bodies flickered like candlelight. He counted thirteen. Maybe more.

  He adjusted his grip on the rock ledge.

  Not edible.

  But not useless.

  He had to warn the others.

  He was not equipped for this—not properly. Not for elementals.

  You could kill a Fire Imp. They bled when cut. Broke when struck hard enough. They could be brought down like anything else, if you were fast, if you were precise, if you were willing to burn a little doing it.

  But it was the how that mattered.

  Bludgeoning worked. Steel did too. But unless you caught them unaware or crippled them in the first strike, they fought back. And that’s when it got worse. They weren’t strong. Not individually. But they moved fast and they struck without hesitation. Their wings let them twist in the air, dart through stone arches and alcoves like bats in a belfry. And their mouths—those sharp, flickering mouths—could loose flame in short, brutal bursts. Tongues of fire spat from between their teeth, hot enough to cook meat in seconds, to blind, to burn out eyes and take the breath from lungs.

  There were at least ten down there. Probably more.

  He crouched lower on the ledge. Looked again at the chamber below. Wide space. High ceiling. The stone was clean and dry. Nothing in the air to catch a spark, but plenty of room for flight. That made it worse.

  He knew their recorded weaknesses. Fire Imps had poor vision in their periphery. Sensitive to cold. Vulnerable to bludgeoning weapons and anything that could disrupt their internal heat. Holy enchantments worked too, but those came at a price, and no one in the group carried the kind of relics that could banish an elemental with a word.

  But knowledge didn’t mean much against numbers. Not in a space like this. Not in the dark. They needed a plan. Something controlled. Something quick.

  He stepped back from the ledge, one hand pressed to the stone. The laughter behind him continued, shrill and echoing, bouncing off the chamber walls.

  He turned and began the walk back.

  Silent steps. No light. The sound of his own movement drowned beneath the steady breathing of the stone. He moved with the walls close at his sides, one hand brushing them now and then to keep his bearings. The firelight behind him shrank and then disappeared altogether, leaving only the faint glimmer of the lantern stones far down the hall.

  He reached them after some minutes.

  Orlen spotted him first. The man straightened from where he crouched near the wall, one hand resting easy on the hilt of his sword. The others stood nearby, still and waiting, their shapes half-formed in the blue mage-light.

  “There you are, Mister Syras,” Orlen said, his voice low. A small smile at the edge of his mouth. “What did you see? Is it safe?”

  Syras shook his head once.

  “Fire Imps, at least ten of them, but there could be more,” he said. “Fire Stones too. Plenty of both.”

  He came closer and knelt by the others, speaking in a voice just loud enough to carry.

  “Open chamber. Narrow path afterward. Couldn’t see what lies beyond it. Fire Imps were gathered around the stones. Dancing. Laughing. No sign they knew we’re here yet. But I couldn’t risk going further.”

  Orlen nodded, grim.

  “Fire Imps have heat vision,” he said. “Stealth only gets you so far when you’re practically glowing to their eyes.”

  He turned toward the rest of the group.

  “Alright,” he said. “Looks like we’re seeing combat after all. Get ready.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Vanya tightened the strap of her quiver. Kidu reached for the heavier stones tucked in his belt pouch. Thrane knelt and ran a hand along the haft of his short spear.

  Orlen continued.

  “Fire Imps aren’t hard to kill. They’re small. Light. And they like to fly around. Their bones snap easy. But they’re nasty little buggers. They’ll spit fire in your face if you’re not careful. They’ll swarm if you get sloppy. Keep your wits. Stick close. We’ve dealt with their kind before. Don’t get overconfident now.”

  The group moved with quiet efficiency. No shouting. No hurry. Just the soft click of weapons drawn free.

  Syras watched them a moment longer, then checked the strap on his cleaver. He would not need subtlety now.

  Only speed.

  And precision.

  They moved as one, silent but swift, the sound of their steps swallowed by the stone and dust. The faint hum of the lantern stones was extinguished now, tied off and tucked away. Only the darkness and the distant flicker of fire lit the way ahead.

  When they reached the chamber, the scene was unchanged.

  The Fire Imps still danced.

  Around the mound of burning Fire Stones they capered, their thin red bodies casting long, wild shadows that jittered and leapt against the walls. Their laughter rose and fell, shrill and hollow, carrying far into the black. The flames shifted in color with every gust of movement—yellow, orange, white—cracking and snapping at the imps’ small, flitting bodies.

  The group found cover behind a jagged boulder near the entrance.

  Rough-hewn and tall enough to conceal even Thrane, it sat like an old sentinel at the edge of the chamber. They pressed close, their bodies tight against the stone. Syras kept low, one hand resting on the hilt of his cleaver.

  The Fire Imps hadn’t seen them yet.

  They weren’t blind, far from it. Their thermal vision could pick out a warm body from across a battlefield. But they were inattentive. Careless. Goblins were much the same. Kobolds too. Creatures that lived only for the moment, that celebrated without caution and fought without discipline. Their own noise drowned out everything else.

  Orlen caught Vanya’s eye and gave a sharp nod.

  The Elf moved without sound.

  She reached up and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. The shift was immediate. Her outline shimmered, blurred, like heat distortion above a desert plain. Not invisibility, no. Syras could still see her if he focused. A faint ripple in the air where her body bent the light. Some kind of cloaking—magical, surely, but not perfect.

  Would it fool thermal sight?

  He didn’t know.

  But they did. They had fought Fire Imps before. They would know the strengths of their tools. The limits of their tricks. Vanya didn’t hesitate.

  She stepped out from the boulder, the shimmer of her form moving swift and low across the floor. In her hands, she drew an arrow from her quiver. Not a standard shaft.

  The head was etched with thin blue lines. Runework. Ice-forged. Frozen-tipped.

  Meant for things like these.

  Meant for creatures whose bones burned hotter coals.

  She notched the arrow and drew the bowstring back in one smooth motion, the head of the arrow glinting faintly in the fire’s reflection.

  The air grew tighter around them.

  They waited.

  Vanya loosed a single arrow.

  It slipped through the black like a blade of light, silent and sure, and struck the nearest Fire Imp dead center in the forehead. The creature jerked once, a sharp, brittle movement, then collapsed where it stood. Liquid fire spilled from the wound, hissing as it touched stone. The arrow kept its momentum, shearing past and lodging into the shoulder of another imp just beyond. That one screamed, a high, shrill note that echoed off the walls and shook the dust loose from the ceiling.

  The chamber erupted.

  They moved without a word, charging out from behind the boulder. Thrane led the way, his spear held low, boots hammering the stone. Vanya’s second arrow was already loosed before her first target fell. It punched through the chest of an imp mid-turn, the body folding inward like parchment before crumpling to the ground. Her third arrow took another through the side of the skull, snapping it sideways with a wet, cracking sound.

  Kidu remained behind the boulder, kneeling low, one hand ready on the lantern stones. His task was not to fight. His task was to hold the line if they failed.

  Thrane reached the Fire Imps first.

  He drove the spear forward with a single brutal thrust. The point passed clean through the belly of an imp and burst out its back in a spray of sputtering fire and smoke. He kicked the corpse off the shaft without pausing, already moving toward the next.

  Orlen came next, a blur of steel and battered shield. He brought his sword down in a cleaving arc, splitting an imp from shoulder to hip. The two halves fell away from each other, each still twitching in the dirt, the fire within them guttering out like candles snuffed by a sudden wind.

  Syras moved at an angle, light and low.

  He met the first imp with a heavy downward blow, his cleaver biting deep into the creature’s shoulder and carving downward through the torso. The thing split open, a sheet of flaming blood spilling out in a rush. The cleaver caught in bone for a breath, then came free.

  Another imp darted toward his flank.

  Syras pivoted, stepping into the attack rather than away. His cleaver rose in a tight, controlled arc, and the blade took the imp at the base of the neck. The head came free, spinning once in the air before hitting the ground and bouncing once, twice, before coming to a stop in a pool of molten blood.

  The flames around the stones flared higher, casting long and broken shadows across the walls.

  The imps screamed and fought and died.

  Of the ten, six burned where they fell.

  The flesh collapsed inward, curling into blackened mounds that steamed and hissed in the cold air of the cavern. What remained of them was no longer flesh at all, but a fine, red dust—Fire Salt—coating the stone in shallow piles. The scent of brimstone thickened, carried on low drafts along the floor.

  The other four stiffened at the moment of death.

  Their bodies turned rigid, stone-gray and rough, their wings frozen mid-beat, their jaws locked in the last echo of their screams. Petrified. Hard and brittle, still radiating heat. Syras didn’t know why it happened. No one did. Some alchemists wrote long papers on it, he remembered. None agreed. Some blamed the strength of the soul. Some said it was the purity of the flame within. Syras didn't care to ponder it further.

  He knelt by the nearest mound of Fire Salt and reached into his [Inventory].

  From it he drew a small glass spice jar, clear and thick-walled to resist heat. He scooped up the Fire Salt carefully, not wasting a grain. When one jar was filled, he sent it back into the fold of space and pulled another free. Three jars he filled in total, sealing each with a cork stopper before storing them away.

  Afterward, he moved to the stone-locked corpses.

  He pulled a coil of butcher’s twine from his belt and wrapped each carcass tightly, binding the wings and limbs so they would not snap in transport. They were hot to the touch, the heat biting through his gloves. He worked quick, fingers deft and practiced, tying each one as he would a hog for roasting.

  One by one, the bodies vanished into his [Inventory], appearing in his ledger as:

  [Fire Imp Carcass (4)]

  He stood and dusted his gloves against his thighs.

  Orlen approached, spear held loose in one hand, a brow lifted high.

  “Mind explaining why you’re gathering all that, Mister Syras?” he asked. His voice was light, but there was an edge to it. “Fire Imp materials are usually discarded. Too volatile. Too low-grade for serious work.”

  Syras glanced up at him, the last of the dust slipping between his fingers.

  “Experimentation,” he said. “Exploring new flavors.”

  Orlen's eyes narrowed for a moment. He held Syras’s gaze, weighing something behind his brow. Then he shrugged once, the steel of his plate groaning faint against the motion.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. He turned back to the tunnel ahead, raising his voice for the others. “Let’s move on. See what else this hole’s hiding.”

  They gathered themselves and pressed deeper into the dark.