Pigs Explode

"Pigs Explode" is a short story by Rosemary Jones.

Summary
After a recalcitrant wizard in The Vast slays his neighbors' pigs with a curse that renders their flesh inedible, the farmers hire on a team of mercenaries, The Siegebreakers, to bring down the wizard's tower before he returns from his annual pilgrimage to the south for the winter.

These mercenaries, Ivy, Mumchance, Gunderal, Zuzzara, Kid and Mumchance's little dog, Wiggles, decide on using the cursed corpses of the pigs that the wizard slew as explosives to bring down his tower. After gathering the dead pigs on the tower's basement, they ready a pyre and a line of burning powder, so that they can light it from afar. However, after their first attempt fizzles out from the humidity inside the basement, Mumchance adds Gunderal's shoe polish to the pyre, in order to dry it out. It works a little too well, and Wiggles starts barking right before the others notice the smoke, which warns them that the pyre is already on fire. They quickly flee the tower, and not a moment too soon, as its base blows apart and its top tips over.

They agree to bring down their next target using water instead.

Index

 * Characters


 * Locations


 * Creatures


 * Ethnicities

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 * Magic