Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) (21 page)

Thomas rolled his eyes, and said, “Lie down. Don't move. James, get over here and bring the pack.”

James did as Thomas bade him, and Thomas knelt next to the man who had, moments earlier, been ready to shoot him. “What are you doing?” demanded the wounded man. “Are you going to try and kill me now—?”

“I have a sword, I have a rifle—two rifles, counting yours—and a crossbow. If I wanted to kill you, it would prove no great difficulty. Now be quiet and try not to squirm. James, come help hold him down.”

The man let out a yelp, but he was still too much in pain thanks to the combination of the knife and the brutal kick to the groin. James pushed him over with ease, and when the man tried to sit up, Poxy trotted over, placed one of her paws on his chest and growled in his face. The sight of her bared teeth was enough to cause the man to stop moving and stare up into her muzzle with undiluted terror.

Slowly, carefully, Thomas withdrew the knife from where it was embedded and quickly pressed a cloth against it to stanch the bleeding. “You've got damned good aim,” the man said grudgingly. “Looks like you didn't hit an artery or anything vital.”

“I was aiming at your heart,” said Thomas.

The man grunted.

It took Thomas and James only minutes to dress the wound. Again displaying grudging respect, the man said, “Not badly done for amateurs.”

“And you're a professional?”

“Former soldier of fortune.”

“And now you're a pig farmer?”

He shrugged and then winced at the pain the thoughtless gesture had caused. “Family business. My father was old, needed help, and I came here. We do things for our fathers.”

Thomas's lips thinned, and he simply said, “Yes, I suppose we do.” James said nothing.

The former soldier of fortune looked from one of them to the other. “So you really had nothing to do with my stolen hog?”

“Not a thing,” said Thomas, and he quickly laid out for the man the circumstances that had brought them there. “I suppose the dog just smelled the pigs, and that's what brought her here,” he concluded, but then he frowned. “Except ...”

“Except what?” said James.

“Well . . . that's just a hell of a coincidence, don't you think? That one of his hogs was stolen right about the same time that that Robert and Hannah vanished?”

“You're thinking that a balverine might have done it? That that's what Poxy was tracking?”

“That's a possibility ...” said Thomas. “It explains some things, but—”

“Balverines?” The soldier-turned-pig farmer regarded them skeptically. “In this neck of the woods? Ain't no balverines around here.”

“The townspeople believe—”

“The townspeople don't know their backs from their fronts. They jump at shadows and believe that danger lurks behind every corner.
Used
to be balverines in these parts, and their legend still keeps everyone on edge. But they ain't 'round these parts. Not anymore.”

“Why not anymore?”

“Because”—and he had a smile of pride—“me and some others drove 'em off. One of the last things I did before I hung up my sword. Me and some of my mates, we rooted 'em out and sent 'em packing. Last I heard, they retreated farther east. So if you're truly mad enough to go seeking them, then that's where you're going to want to be.”

“But I don't understand,” said James. “If there are no balverines around here, then why did some of them show up to attack Hannah and her father? Why did they drag her off?”

“I suppose it's possible,” said the pig farmer. “A stray couple of pack members wandering far afield.”

“Or . . . it might be something else,” said Thomas, but he made no attempt to elaborate.

“Well, if you find my pig, or find who took it, there's a reward in it for you if you either return the animal or put the thief's head in my hands.”

“We'll definitely keep that in mind.”

They departed the farm then although Thomas had taken the precaution of removing the remainder of the ammunition from the man's rifle without his knowledge. That way, if he suddenly decided to avail himself of the opportunity to fire upon their unprotected backs, he would not be able to do so. And by the time he reloaded, they would be long gone.

“So now what?” James said. He was still obviously chagrined over Poxy's inability to bring them to their quarry although he supposed he couldn't blame her. The aroma of the pigs must have been powerful, even from the distance they'd initially been standing.

“We go back to the crossroad.”

“And—?”

“We try again.”

“We do?” James said in surprise. “But she's just going to bring us right back to the pig farm, won't she?”

“Not necessarily. We've got the other item, the hairbrush. We use that this time.” Thomas looked down at Poxy, who had stopped briefly to chew on some shrubs. “I think you were right about her, James. I think she does have some tracking capability. How good it is, we're about to find out.”

James scratched his chin thoughtfully. “What's going through your mind, Thomas? You're thinking something, but damned if I know what it is.”

“I don't want to say just yet. Let's see how matters play out.”

That seemed needlessly cryptic to James, but he decided not to press Thomas on the matter. This attitude was very much in character for him: Thomas didn't like to voice opinions unless he was completely certain of them.

Returning to the crossroads, James removed the hairbrush from his bag and, once again, held it under Poxy's nose. This time she got the idea even faster than before. She buried her nose in it and withdrew with an annoyed little yelp as the bristles from the brush scratched her tender nose. She shook her head, making an irritated snuffling sound, and then sniffed the brush more cautiously.

Then she started moving in a circle around the crossroads, sniffing the ground industriously. James considered this to be a good sign; at least she wasn't heading straight off right back down the road that they'd just come from. She seemed to understand that she was looking for a different scent this time. The only question that remained was whether she was going to find it.

After a few more moments that seemed to crawl past, Poxy's tail suddenly stiffened, and her ears flattened. She growled low in her throat, which made James think for a moment that some sort of threat was imminent, hiding behind a tree or some brush. Then James realized that Poxy was in fact reacting to something that was no longer there; she had instead picked up a scent that she obviously considered extremely threatening.

“She's got it,” James said with growing excitement, and Thomas nodded in agreement. “Go find her, girl! Come on!” And he clapped his hands briskly. “Go find her!”

Poxy required no more urging. Instead, she bounded away, this time continuing straight down the path rather than moving to the intersecting crossroad. Thomas and James set out after her, moving at a full-out run yet falling behind nevertheless. As before, every so often Poxy would stop, turn, and wait for them to catch up before she continued on her way.

This, however, was not destined to be as short a trip as their first attempt to track down the missing young girl. Instead, they continued through the woods for hours. The sun moved irresistibly through the sky, and every so often they would have to stop to rest, eat from their meager supplies, and regain their strength. During those times, Poxy would return to them with what appeared to be great impatience, so eager was she to have them continue following her.

The early evening stretched into night, and they were still in the woods. Neither Thomas nor James was ecstatic about their situation, because if the pig farmer had been wrong—and there was every chance that he was—and the balverines in fact stalked these woods, then the boys would be tremendously vulnerable. But there was no choice for it, and so they made camp in the midst of a natural ring formation of boulders, thus providing them some minimal protection. James then went into the woods, borrowing Thomas's crossbow, and within the hour returned with a newly caught and deceased rabbit that he expertly skinned while Thomas started up a campfire. They cooked the animal over the fire and ate their fill while Poxy—who seemed to understand that there would be no more tracking this evening—managed to chase down a pheasant for herself. Unlike the boys, she preferred her meal raw.

“I don't like just sitting here,” grumbled James, “when we could be following her—”

“She's been gone for a while, James. I wouldn't be concerned; one more day shouldn't make all that much difference in the grand scheme of things.”

Thomas sounded entirely too relaxed about the whole thing; James was now more sure than ever that Thomas had thoughts he wasn't sharing and was burning to know what was going through his friend's mind. But he knew Thomas well enough to be sure that he would tell him when he was good and ready.

They took turns sitting guard while the other slept, passing the rifle between themselves. Truthfully, neither of them knew how firearms would fare against such creatures, but simply having it in their hands was enough to give them some measure of confidence.

When the morning sun barely crawled onto the horizon, they downed a mean breakfast of bread that was rapidly becoming stale and was one day away from being inedible. James, foraging in the immediate area, found a spring where he was able to refill their water containers. Once he and Thomas were ready to move out, he pulled out the hairbrush and held it up toward Poxy's nose as he had the previous day. Poxy sniffed it, this time taking care not to bump her nose against the bristles, and moments later was back on the scent. By this point, Poxy had managed to develop a steady pace that didn't threaten to leave the two of them behind, so she no longer had to keep stopping to wait—with growing impatience—for them to catch up.

The forest began to thin around them, a development that both pleased and disappointed Thomas. It appeared, at least from what they had encountered or, more precisely, failed to encounter, that the pig farmer had been correct. There were no balverines in this forest although very likely the mere threat of them was enough to make sure that the villagers never wandered particularly deeply into it. So that was something of a relief since they had been able to pass through unmolested. On the other hand, since finding such a creature was their top priority, it was disappointing and frustrating that they had not managed to encounter any.

Poxy kept them on the trail and then, about half a day's journey farther down, they came upon another village that was so similar to the one they'd departed that for a short time Thomas feared that they had gone in a tremendous circle. This worry was quickly set aside, however, as whatever chance encounters with passersby they had resulted in nods or smiles or comments of “Good day to ye,” without the slightest bit of hostility directed toward Poxy. Whatever feeling the locals might have had toward balverines, it certainly didn't extend to their views on dogs. In fact, James and Thomas even saw a few other dogs wandering around the area, and Poxy almost let herself get distracted until James managed to refocus her with a sharp word and a wave of the hairbrush.

The roads continued to be unpaved, which was of benefit since they weren't entirely sure how the scent would have stood up if it had transitioned from dirt to pavement. Then Poxy abruptly veered off onto a side road, and the two of them followed her as she eagerly led them along.

Ahead of them, they heard a steady clanging that signaled they were approaching the shop of a smithy, who was steadily hammering away on his anvil. It was there that Poxy was bringing them. Thomas and James shrugged to each other, unsure of what to expect, but they gamely trailed behind the dog and moments later walked into the smithy's shop.

Sure enough, there he was, an older man with the sort of massive forearms that one would expect of a man in his profession. He was wearing loose trousers and no shirt but instead a leather apron, as well as thick gloves. Wielding tongs in one hand and a large mallet in the other, he was hammering out a horseshoe and building up a good deal of sweat as he did so. He didn't notice them until James loudly cleared his throat, and then he looked upon them with kind eyes as he set his tools down. “How can I help you boys?” he said.

“Well, actually, we're ...” And unsure of how to approach it, James said, “We're looking for Hannah.”

“Oh,” said the man, and automatically he turned as if he were about to call out a name. Then he hesitated, whatever he was about to say dying in his throat, and slowly he turned back to them. “Who might you be?”

“I think a better question,” Thomas said, taking a step forward, deepening his voice to sound more authoritative, “is . . . who might
you
be?”

The man had put down neither hammer nor tongs. In fact, as the mood in the small building grew chillier, he seemed to be gripping both of the tools tighter. “Considering that you happen to be strangers here, and this is
my
shop, I don't see where you get to be asking
any
questions. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, what you get to do is get the hell out of here.”

“We're here,” Thomas said slowly, “because her mother is worried about her.”

“I don't know any Hannah, and I don't know her mother.”

“Really. Because it seemed to me that you were about to call out for her when we first arrived.”

“You're wrong.”

“I don't think I am.”

And then something in his voice changed, and his gaze became very fixed upon them. “So you're looking for Hannah, are you? On behalf of her mother?”