Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) (20 page)

“MAIN ROAD ” WAS SOMETHING OF AN
overstatement. There was in fact only one road through Blackridge, and they were able to follow it readily enough toward the Underwoods. They were relieved to get out of town because the glares they were receiving from the townspeople they passed since they had a dog in their company were becoming tiresome. In several instances, some of the men stopped and turned and looked as if they were ready to try and assail Poxy, but Thomas would have his hand resting with significance on his rifle while James kept his on the pommel of his cutlass, and that was generally enough to send a mute warning to anyone who was even thinking about trying to start difficulties.

“This whole thing with the dog reminds me of something I read about in a history text,” said Thomas, as they walked the main road. “An outbreak of disease about a century back, in a seaside city called Port Manteau. It swept through the city, killing one person in three. And Port Manteau had a fairly high cat population. So a group of superstitious idiots decided that the cats were avatars of demons and started killing all the cats. In no time at all, every single cat in the entire city had been executed in the belief that it would rid the city of the disease.”

“Did it?”

“Actually, it aggravated it. Turned out that the disease was actually being spread by wharf rats, and the cats were the only thing keeping the rats in check. With the cats gone, the rat population exploded, and people started dying faster than ever.”

James shook his head. “Amazing sometimes what people will and will not believe in. They think balverines and krakens are the stuff of legend, and in the meantime slaughter harmless animals out of fear. Did they ever finally manage to bring the disease under control?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Meaning?”

Thomas stopped and looked glumly at his companion. “The local governor had his soldiers surround the city so that no one could leave, and then they fired flaming arrows at it by the hundreds.”

“They torched the place?” James could barely speak above a whisper.

“They did. Houses, women, children, everyone. It was said that the stench from the burning flesh could be smelled from ten miles away, and the tower of black smoke was visible from twice that distance. The city was never rebuilt.”

“No surprise there. Who would want to live or do business in something that had once been a huge charnel house?”

“No kidding,” said Thomas. “And there are some who believe that to this day if you walk around the area where Port Manteau used to be, you can hear the terrified cries and agonized screams of the once-living residents, howling for help that would never come.”

“By contrast with that, the occasional balverine assault would seem like no big deal. And yet”—and James scratched behind the dog's ears—“the people here still felt the need to try and get rid of the very animals who might have helped them fight the monsters they were so afraid of. Astounding how shortsighted people can be sometimes.”

“Sure is.”

They said little else as they continued on their way, and they were in Underwoods before they even quite realized it. There wasn't a clear line of demarcation between village and forest. Instead, the trees seemed to increase in number until they found themselves in the midst of the forest. There had been paving on the road when it was in the village, but as they moved out into the woods, it was replaced with the plain old dirt road that it no doubt originally was.

It didn't seem any different from any number of other forests through which they had traveled, and yet Thomas found himself far more alert than ever before. The shadows seemed to stretch out toward him, and everywhere seemed to be potential hiding places for balverines. They had come a long way from the realm where such creatures were considered harmless beings of myth.

A snap of a branch caused Thomas to jump two feet, and his sword was out of his scabbard and in his hand as he whirled to face the new threat. All he saw was James standing there, lifting his foot off a branch and not knowing whether to feel chagrined or amused. “Are you all right, Thomas?”

“I'm fine.”

“All evidence to the contrary.” James watched as Thomas sheathed his sword, and then said, “I didn't mean to startle you ...”

“I startled myself. I just—”

“You just what?”

Thomas hesitated, and then said, “I know what I saw the night that my brother was killed. I know in my heart that it was a balverine, and such things were real. That's why we're here; that's why we set out on this quest. Except I've spent so much of my life being told that I was wrong, that I was imagining things, that I was crazy—that my brother wasn't killed by a balverine because such creatures don't exist—that it's just weird to be faced with the reality of it. There was always some element of . . . I don't know . . . safety in thinking, in the back of my mind, that it was a delusion on my part. Now I'm in a place where there are people so worried about balverines that they slaughter dogs. It's just requiring a bit of adjustment on my part.”

“Well . . . adjust fast, okay? You can't be jumping at every sound.”

“I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.”

“I'm not,” James said cheerfully. “I'm worried about me. I don't need to accidentally startle you and wind up with my head on the ground before you've had a chance to realize that it's me.”

Thomas laughed at that. But then he stopped laughing and likewise stopped in his tracks. When James looked at him quizzically, Thomas simply pointed.

There was a crossroads just ahead.

“Odd,” Thomas said after a moment, “that balverines would take refuge in a forest that's so relatively ‘civilized' that it would have not one but two roads through it.”

“Why odd? If they're looking for human prey, why would they spend all their time in forests that are never traveled and unlikely to see anything except the occasional lost soul? They'd want to position themselves along a busy road.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

Slowly, they approached the crossroads, Thomas keeping a wary eye on the shadows, which now seemed even more fraught with peril than before. Everything was quiet.
Still as the grave,
he thought. It wasn't nighttime, the primary domain of the balverines, but daylight hadn't prevented the creatures from assaulting Robert and his daughter, so that certainly didn't serve as a guarantee of safety.

Once they reached the crossroads, they stopped and stood there for a few moments. It was definitely the same one, because although time and weather had washed away some of the blood, the trees were still stained with it, and some of the ground was stained as well.

Poxy stared around curiously, showing intense interest in a squirrel that was perched on a branch overhead and looking down at them mockingly.

“All right,” Thomas said to James. “Now's as good a time as any to test your theory.”

James removed the bloodstained piece of tunic and held it up to the dog's nose. Poxy stared at it with curiosity.

“Get the scent, girl,” said James, and when Poxy made no move toward it, he pushed the cloth forward up against her nose. “Get the scent,” he said again.

Poxy drew her head back, trying to get away from it, and James stubbornly kept moving the cloth back and forth in order to keep it in front of her nostrils. Thomas watched this for a minute, and then said, “James, I think you're wasting your time. This is—”

“
Wait!
She's
got
it!” James said excitedly.

It appeared that James was right. Poxy had suddenly taken a renewed interest in the cloth that he was holding in front of her, and her nostrils were flaring. And Thomas could have sworn that there was something akin to understanding in her eyes, as if an old instinct, possibly long forgotten, was being reignited.

And then, with as much confidence as any trained bloodhound had ever exhibited, Poxy went to the center of the crossroads and began sniffing around.

“I don't believe it,” said Thomas. “This is incredible.” “Ha,” said James dismissively, as if the outcome had never been in doubt. “That's my dog, is all.”

At which point Poxy suddenly bounded up and down, barked excitedly, and then started down the road to the right. She stopped briefly to turn and bark again, clearly wanting to make sure that the boys were going to be following her.

They set off after her immediately at a brisk trot, moving at a moderate pace since they had no idea how far they were going to be following the dog, and they did not wish to wear themselves out. Poxy could easily have left them in the dust, but every time she started to put any major amount of distance between them, she would stop, turn, and wait until they were close enough so that she could continue on her path without losing them.

As it turned out, they didn't have to go all that far. In fairly short order they found that the road was leading them directly to a farm. A pig farm, as it turned out, which was something they were able to determine easily enough with their own noses. They may not have had the olfactory prowess of Poxy, but it was hardly required because the smell of the swine was quite pungent, and the wind was carrying it directly to them. Poxy barked with greater excitement as they drew within view of the farm. There was a ramshackle house, a barn, and a large pen in which a number of oversized hogs were feeding and grunting and acting like pigs. Poxy bounced around, running up to the pigs, barking eagerly, and then running back to Thomas and James with her tail wagging. Clearly, she was expecting to be praised.

“Great,” said Thomas, walking over to the pigpen and looking down at the inhabitants. His nose wrinkled in disgust. “This is a dead end.”

“She seemed so sure,” James said, visibly disappointed.

“It was a nice try, but I think we—”

The air exploded around them.

Thomas was so startled that he tumbled headlong over the fence and into the pigsty. The pigs bounded backwards, snorting and grunting in indignation that an uninvited guest had entered their pen.

James darted behind a tree, Poxy right with him, as there was a second explosion that chipped a huge piece of bark off the tree. “What in the—?”

A burly man with fiery red hair was lumbering toward them, and he was wielding a rifle that looked significantly larger than Thomas's. He was the one who had shouted at them, and apparently the diatribe was only just commencing.
“Came back for more, did you? Well, you'll get more than you bargained for this time! This time I'm ready for you!”

Making sure to keep himself shielded behind the tree, James called out,
“What the hell are you talking about! We've never been here before!”

“You expect me to believe that?” demanded the man who was approaching them. “You think I don't know what's what? You!” And he swung his rifle around to get a bead on Thomas, who was lying on the ground behind one of the pigs. “Get out here and die like a man!”

James rapidly calculated the distance between himself and the crazy man with the rifle, and realized there was no way he could cover it without presenting an easy target. That wasn't about to deter him, though; not when it came to Thomas's life being on the line.

And suddenly Thomas was up from behind the pig, his right arm moving in a blur. Something hurtled through the air, and the man let out a shriek of pain as a throwing knife buried itself firmly in his upper chest. Even as the hilt was still quivering, Thomas was bolting out of the pen and vaulting the fence in one quick stride. The man tried to bring the rifle to bear, but Thomas had scooped up a fistful of mud and threw it squarely into the man's face. It blinded him, and he got off another shot, but it went wide. Thomas darted in quickly and grabbed the barrel of the rifle and shoved it straight up so that it presented no threat. Then he drove a knee squarely into the man's groin with an impact that James could feel from where he was standing. The man opened his mouth and tried to groan, but he couldn't gather his breath to do so as Thomas yanked the rifle completely clear of his grasp. The man sank to his knees, his eyes looking ready to leap out of his head. “You . . . bastard,” he managed to gasp out, and then he slumped over, his hands over his crotch, as if he was concerned that Thomas was going to strike him there a second time.

Thomas picked up the fallen rifle and held it across his body in a nonthreatening manner, but in such a way that he could aim it quickly at its owner if such an action was required. With one hand, he made a vague effort to brush some of the crusted mud off himself. Over in the pen, the hogs were still snorting in irritation and letting him know that they did not appreciate his intrusion.

“Now listen to me carefully,” Thomas said with remarkable calm. “We don't have the slightest idea what you were going on about. Why don't you tell us, and perhaps we can help each other ...”

“You buried your damned knife in my shoulder!”

“
You
were going to
shoot
me!”

“
You
were going to steal another one of my pigs!”

Thomas looked to James in confusion, apparently hoping that James had some idea as to what the man was talking about, but James was as clueless as Thomas. “What the hell are you
talking
about?” James said.

“You know what I'm talking about! Two weeks ago! One of my pigs disappeared! And now you strangers show up here, poking around my animals! Who else would it be? Criminals returning to the scene of the crime!
Damnation!
” That last was as a result of the man trying to pull the blade out of his shoulder and yowling in pain.