Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) (34 page)

Thomas emptied his rifle into one of the balverines that was charging straight at him and, as with the other weapons, it did nothing to slow him. The balverine leaped straight at him and Thomas, reversing his rifle, swung it around like a club. The rifle slammed against the balverine's head and the stock shattered, the balverine being knocked momentarily to the ground. Thomas tossed aside the broken rifle and yanked out his sword. The downed balverine started to clamber to its feet, and Thomas whipped his sword around as hard and as fast as he could. It wasn't silver, but it was sharp nevertheless. His aim was to behead the creature; in that he fell short. Instead, the sword made it halfway through, lodging in the balverine's throat. It tried to howl but instead coughed up blood, and Thomas yanked hard on the sword, tearing it loose. The balverine, clutching its throat even as blood poured between its fingers, lunged for him, and Thomas sidestepped and brought his sword swinging around from the other direction. He connected with his target once more, and this time the force of the blow was sufficient to tear the beast's head from its shoulders.

Then there was another roar from directly behind him. Having no time to turn, Thomas desperately thrust the blade backwards under his arms. He heard an agonized yelp and tried to turn around, but in doing so he loosened his grip for half a second. That was all the time that was required for the balverine behind him to strike him in the back of the head. Thomas was sent flying several feet and crashed into a tree. He slid to the ground and tried to see what was happening around him, the world spinning from the blow he had taken to his head.

A balverine was crouched there with Thomas's sword buried in the upper part of its chest. With an annoyed growl, it yanked the blade out and tossed it aside. Then it advanced toward Thomas, and Thomas tried to grab for his crossbow, but he knew that there was no way he was going to have time to load the thing before the balverine was upon him. Even if he did, the odds were minimal that even a perfectly placed bolt would have the slightest effect.

Then Thomas saw Kreel, the laird himself, coming up right behind the balverine, and he had to think that he had never been so happy to see anyone in his life, ever. Kreel was going to save him and strike down the balverines with the force of his personality alone, and perhaps even wave his hand and bring the dead people back to life. Anything was possible when Laird Ethan Kreel was there.

Kreel cuffed the balverine on the side of its head as if it were a misbehaving puppy. “Not this one. You know better. You should all know which is which. Fool.” He struck him once more, and the balverine growled in annoyance but then turned and loped away.

Then Kreel looked apologetically to Thomas. “Apologies for the inconvenience,” he said, as if he had kept Thomas waiting too long for an appointment. “The bait I packed into the backpacks of the servants is supposed to draw them to who is food and who is not. As you can see, I am selective.”

“W-what?” Thomas wondered just how hard he had struck his head. Certainly the world already seemed on the verge of blacking out; perhaps this was some sort of delusion that was preceding unconsciousness. Maybe he was already out cold, and this was a dream.

Then Thomas was yanked to his feet, and there was a stink behind him of rotting meat that turned out to be the breath of a balverine that was holding him immobilized. From across the way he saw that James was being similarly held, and was screaming his name. Dean Carter, Laird Shaw, and Lady Newsome were likewise in the grasp of balverines and were already shrieking protest as they were being yanked away into the woods. The remaining balverines were feasting on the bodies of the downed servants, some of whom—horrifically—were still twitching.
They're eating them alive . . . blood and thunder . . . they're eating them alive . . .

Kreel's smiling face swam back into view. “I know this is most confusing for you, fellow. But trust me when I say that this is actually a tremendous honor for you. You could have been the prey. Instead”—and suddenly his eyes were glimmering yellow—“you are going to be given the honor of being made a predator.”

“What . . . what are you?” whispered Thomas, as a curtain of black seemed to descend over his eyes.

“I am Ethan Kreel, high laird of the Balverine Order,” Kreel told him. “And you are about to become one of our number. But it must be done properly, lest you be reduced to the savagery of one of these poor creatures.” And he gestured to indicate the other balverines, who were still picking through the remains of the servants. “Do not concern yourself; I assure you that all will be made clear.”

And then all went black.

 

 

He was being dragged through the forest by balverines, hauling him along as if his attempts to pull clear of them meant nothing. They had taken his weapons from him, and he obviously posed no threat in a hand-to-hand situation. But where the hell were they taking him and the others? It made no sense at all.

A short distance away, Thomas was also being hauled along. Unconscious, he'd been slung over the shoulder of one of the balverines, who was carrying him along as if he were a bag of laundry. Carter, Shaw, and Newsome were farther ahead, their cries of terror having disappeared into the distance.

More in a display of defiance than with any expectation that it was going to do him any good, James abruptly brought his foot down and slammed it onto the paw of the nearest balverine. It let out a yelp and snarled at him, drawing back its claws as if ready to gut him like a trout.
That would be better than whatever they have planned for us,
he thought, and readied himself for death. He was surprised to discover it didn't require all that much preparation: to some degree, he'd been ready for death ever since embarking on this excursion in the first place.

“Ah-ah,” a scolding voice said sharply, and the balverine backed off. James turned to see that Kreel had fallen into step alongside them. The balverines were making no threatening gestures toward him, nor were any holding him by the arms to prevent him from escaping. “He and his friend have been chosen. You know that.” The balverine growled at him but clearly understood, although that didn't deter it from glaring fiercely at James in a way that indicated that—given the slightest opportunity—it would tear James to pieces.

James tried to speak, but his voice was so constricted with fear that at first it came out barely as a whisper. “Ch-chosen for what?” he finally managed to say.

“Why, to be added to the Balverine Order. We are a growing and influential group.”

“You . . . you're an order of people that . . . that are friends with . . . with these monsters?”

“No, James.”

He gestured for the balverines who were dragging James to stop, and they did so. Kreel turned to face him, and—just as Thomas had seen—his eyes transformed from brown into pale yellow. But there was more. His teeth began to lengthen and become sharper, and white fur began to appear on his face, his jaw distending into a muzzle. He held up his hands, and claws began to jut out from his fingertips.

He halted the transformation, seemingly through willpower alone, at a midway point between being a human and a full balverine. But James could see that that was where the metamorphosis was taking him.

“Do you begin to understand now?” Kreel said, his voice deep and guttural and sounding more like a snarling animal's than a human's.

“You're . . . you're a white balverine,” he managed to gasp out, stating what was patently obvious. “But . . . you wear the fur of—”

“Of a former rival.”

“You're a monster!”

Kreel's clawed hand lashed out and wrapped itself around the petrified James's throat. “We,” he snarled, “are not the monsters. It is humanity that performs the monstrous acts. Hunting our kind into oblivion. Changing the world, remaking it into their image. Even though you have been gone from your home for a time, you still stink of industrialization and ‘progress.' Albion was once a land of myth and magic.
Now
look at it! Forests being chopped down to make way for cities, which in turn pollute the air with their foul industry. Creatures of wonder being driven into hiding or away from the eyes of man altogether, while mundanity steadily increases its choke-hold upon the collective imagination of the population. You've seen a world without greatness, without quests, without Heroes and fables of them. Do you truly think it an improvement over what once there was? Do you?”

And James's eyes locked into those of Kreel, and even though he could barely speak, still he managed to command with a hoarse whisper,
“Let go of my throat!”

Kreel did so without even thinking about it, and then looked at his own hand in mild surprise, as if it belonged to someone else. Then he turned back to James, his eyes narrowed, cautious where he had not been before. “We are going to change things, James. The Balverine Order is making sure of that, slowly but surely.”

“Change things to what?”

“To a world that is more suitable for our kind, James. One where we can run free without fear of assault and extinction. Where we can prey upon food with impunity. Where we can halt the building of cities and the annihilation of forests, take back the land, and live the sort of life to which we are entitled.” He reached out with a single clawed finger and stroked the side of James's face. “And the way to do that . . . is to be in control. That's how we're going to do it, you see. By being—”

Suddenly Kreel's head snapped around as an infuriated barking came from just to his left. Bursting out of the brush, her teeth bared, snarling and snapping, came Poxy, barreling straight toward Kreel, defiance in her eyes.

She had come for James. She had overcome her fear of the forest, her trepidation, and—seeing James in the hands of the enemy—did not hesitate to charge her opponent.

“Poxy, no!”
screamed James.

Kreel did not pause. He took two quick steps forward, meeting her charge as she leaped straight at him. He swung his hand as if swatting a fly and gutted Poxy while the dog was still in midleap. Poxy let out an agonized cry that mingled with James's own, and then the dog hit the ground and lay still. She scarcely had time to whimper, and then there was a rattle in her throat and a look of surprise in her eye that quickly faded and became blank.

James cried out and tried to get to her side, even though she was already gone, but the balverines holding him yanked him back alongside them. “You didn't have to do that!” he howled at Kreel.

“I was attacked, and I struck back,” Kreel said calmly, taking the time to lick the blood from his claws. “That is the balverine way. You will understand that before very long, when you become one of our Order.”

Hot tears were running down James's face, and he snarled in a manner that would have rivaled that of a balverine, “I'll kill you. I'll kill you, you bastard. You're going to die.”

“I very much doubt that,” said Kreel, and then—as if James no longer mattered—he said, “Ah. We're here.”

James was hauled into a clearing and, moments later, Thomas was dumped by his side. Thomas moaned softly, just starting to come around, and the balverines stepped back, releasing their hold on James. Neither of the boys were now being restrained, but balverines were ringing them, and escape was clearly impossible.

At that moment, though, James wasn't thinking about escape. Instead, he was trying to comprehend just what exactly it was that he was seeing.

It was a temple of some sort. It seemed as if it had been carved out of solid rock, right into the side of a mountain, and it towered above them, at least fifty feet high. There was a large opening that served as a gateway to whatever was inside. There was what appeared to be a large, irregular circle with points chiseled into the stone, and it was only after looking at it for a few moments that James realized he was staring at a rendering of a wide-open jaw. The meaning was clear: Whoever entered there was effectively being swallowed up by those within.

There was a man standing directly in front of the temple entrance. Even in the dimness, he appeared familiar to James, and he couldn't quite place where he knew him from.

“It took you long enough,” growled the man, and that was when he knew.

“You're . . . you're the coachman!” James said.

Thomas, who was clearly trying to shake off the unconsciousness that had settled upon him before, didn't seem to comprehend. “Coachman . . . ?”

“The one who suggested we go to Windside! To the Library to learn about balverines!”

“Kind of you to remember,” said the coachman. He wasn't talking at all in the manner that he had been when they first encountered him. He sounded more polished and educated and even a bit contemptuous of them. “Tried to set you on the right path, hoping you'd get here sooner or later. I thought right from the start that you boys had potential. Good to know that I was right. Sent word on ahead to Kreel to be on the lookout for you.”

“And here they are, sir,” said Kreel with a touch of pride. “James, Thomas . . . this is Lugaru, the undisputed leader of our Order.”

“We've met,” said James tightly.

“Yes. Yes, we have,” said Lugaru, but he was paying no attention to James. Instead, he was focused entirely on Thomas. “And I want to say that it is going to be a personal pleasure turning you, Thomas. As one of our Order, you will travel the land, encouraging other young bravos such as yourself to join Laird Kreel in balverine hunts. As much as we have a dearth of Heroes upon the land, there is still always the possibility that more may rise. Yours and James's particular task will be to seek them out, bring them to us, and help convert them to our cause. Eventually, the Balverine Order will control all the nobility, all the richest and most powerful individuals, all the potential Heroes, and—with just a bit of luck—the monarchy itself. We will use that power and influence to remake Albion into what it was rather than into the pestilent rathole that it is currently being turned into. And you will be a part of that, Thomas.”