by Peter David
“And what?” The skepticism in James’s voice was evident. “Drag you back home, kicking and screaming?”
“Possibly,” said Robert. “Or she may be so filled with fury that she’ll just kill us all here.”
“This is ridiculous!” James said in exasperation. “It’s unmanly, that you should be so afraid of a single woman! You should stand up to her, face her, tell her that she has no business terrorizing you like that! And whatever she’s done, she at least deserves to know that her family didn’t die at the hands of balverines!”
“James,” Thomas said firmly, “that’s not our decision to make.”
“What?” James turned to Thomas, astonished. “How is it not our decision? The woman asked us to provide her some sort of definitive word of her family! I know that you’re all about hunting down balverines, but me, I was thinking that we were supposed to, you know, keep our word to the woman who sent us on this task in the first place!”
“You wish to locate balverines?” Robert said abruptly. “I can tell you where you can find them.”
“And we should believe you?” said James. He folded his arms and regarded Robert with derision. “A man who came up with a whole plan to fake his death because he was too afraid to be honest with his own wife?”
“Believe me, do not believe me: It is entirely up to you,” Robert said. “But if it is balverines you seek, I can tell you where to go and who you can speak to about it.”
“To whom we can speak?” This last interested Thomas tremendously. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a man. He came through Blackridge a year or so ago, seeking to do business.”
James was about to express disbelief, but he was distracted by Hannah’s reaction. There was fear in her face, and her voice trembled slightly as she said, “The tall man?”
“Yes,” said Robert, nodding. “The tall man. His name was Kreel. Kreel the huntsman was how he introduced himself around town.”
Unconsciously protective of her unborn child, Hannah automatically wrapped one arm around her stomach. “I did not like him. I did not like him at all. Death unseen walked arm in arm with him.”
“And what did this Kreel the huntsman want?” said Thomas.
“He wanted to see people die.”
“Hannah!” said Robert sharply.
But she did not back down from the tone in her father’s voice. “That’s what he wanted, Father. Let’s be honest with them. None but a sadistic madman who wants to lead others to foolish, needless deaths would be endeavoring to offer excursions into balverine territory.”
“I met him too, this Kreel,” Samuel now spoke up. “Hannah has it exactly right. He claimed that he had spent his life hunting balverines. You ask me, that’s a career choice that’s enough to make any man cold and brutal. He claimed he had killed many of them, and that he had decided to enlist others on balverine-hunting expeditions. He said that he knew our village had a keen interest in the creatures and thought there would be potential customers eager to take him up on his offer.”
“And did anyone?” asked Thomas.
Robert shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, no. Kreel did not seem particularly concerned. He simply announced that it was the collective loss of the townspeople and returned whence he came.”
“And where was that? Where can this Kreel be found?”
Robert hesitated, and then said, “Your word. Your word that you will leave us to ourselves and tell my wife nothing of this.”
“You have my word.”
“Thomas!” James had spoken with such vehemence, such astonishment, that the tone of it startled Poxy. “What about—?”
“You have my word,” Thomas repeated firmly. “We’ll get out of here, and you can live your lives as you see fit.”
“They’re Heroes, Father,” Hannah said. “That alone makes their word good enough for me.”
Robert gave it a moment’s more consideration and nodded, satisfied that he and his makeshift family would remain unmolested. “Sutcliff,” he said. “Kreel is based in Sutcliff. It is said that the forest there is a major hunting ground for balverines. If you seek them, and a guide to take you to them, then Sutcliff should be your destination.”
“And that would be—?”
“Due east from here.”
“Yes, that figures.” Thomas bowed briefly and stiffly to them. “For what it’s worth, I think what you have done is answer cruelty with cruelty. She really is in mourning for you, your wife . . . your mother.”
“And me?” asked Samuel.
“Honestly, she didn’t seem to give a damn about you,” said Thomas. “But however nasty she is on the outside, she’s as grief-stricken as any mother and wife would be. I just want you to know that, in case it makes you think about going back to her someday. Who knows? She might be so glad to see that you’re alive that you won’t have to be worried about your safety. Plus, I hear that grandchildren can work wonders on people. Just think about it is all I’m saying.”
“We shall,” Robert said, although there was little in the manner in which he had spoken that led either Thomas or James to believe that any of them were actually going to do it.
JAMES SAID VERY LITTLE AFTER HE AND Thomas took their leave of the small blacksmith shop. Any questions or attempts at casual conversation resulted in only short, barely articulate grunts. Even Poxy could discern that there had been a change in her master’s demeanor, and she stayed close by his side and whimpered every so often to make her concern known.
With the sun lowering and no inns in sight, they made camp just off the road, at which point Thomas could stand the silence no longer. “You are upset,” he said.
“That’s ridiculous. I have no right to be upset,” said James. He sat a short distance away, his legs curled up and his chin resting upon his knees. “Where does it say I’m entitled to have opinions? Only what you say matters.”
“Stop it. You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m ridiculous!” It had not taken much prodding on Thomas’s part to spur James to vent his frustration. “You believed everything they said! Everything!”
“You saw the marks on the girl. Their story made sense.”
“Their story was just that: A story! But you, you’re so damned trusting, you just accepted everything they said at face value! What if the mother isn’t the brute they say she is? That the father just decided he could do better elsewhere, and the daughter and her lover went along with it?”
“Come on, James. You saw that woman. She would have beaten us to death, given half a chance.”
“She didn’t know who we were! And what about the pig farmer! He promised us a reward if we could point him to the one who stole his pig. Which we can do now, except . . .”
“Except I gave my word—”
“Your word, not mine. Or are we back to insisting that I’ve no say in it? Besides,” he added before Thomas could respond, “you only promised not to rat them out to the mother. You didn’t say anything about the pig farmer. Let Samuel deal with the consequences of his actions instead of us always struggling to keep our purses and bellies filled.”
“There are more important things than money, James.”
“Isn’t it funny how people who have money always say that?”
“James—”
James put up a hand, and said brusquely, “Forget it, okay? Just forget it.” He added in a formal tone, “You have made the decision and I, your humble servant, will abide by it.”
Thomas was hurt by James’s reaction. “James . . . come on. You know you’ve always been a good friend, not just a servant.”
“All I know is that I’m tired of talking about these things, okay?”
That was most definitely not how Thomas wished to leave the matter, but it was clear that James was in no mood to continue the discussion. So Thomas lay out his bedroll and rested himself upon the ground, James following suit, pointedly lying with his back to Thomas. Thomas shrugged, hoping that James would b
e in a better mood upon the rising of the sun and that matters between them could return to normal.
He drifted to sleep and, for the first time in a while, the balverines came to him in his slumber. He was a child again, running through the woods with his brother next to him, urging him to flee, and then his brother went down, and this time there was not one balverine but a dozen. They were ripping him apart before Thomas’s eyes, and he opened his mouth to scream as loudly as he could, but no sounds were coming out. He lay helpless on the ground, paralyzed with fear, and the balverines crawled over his brother’s corpse and slowly approached him, their lips drawn back, their baleful glare fixed upon him, and then, with an ear-shattering roar, they leaped upon him.
He woke up a split second before they landed on him and sat up immediately, gasping, clutching at his chest, checking himself automatically to make certain that he had not received any fatal wounds. His pounding heart started to slow to something approaching its normal rhythm as Thomas moaned and remained upright, now fully awake and afraid to return to the realm of dreams, where the balverines were waiting to pounce upon him.
Thomas glanced over toward where James had been sleeping to make sure that he had not disturbed his friend.
James was gone. So was Poxy. And so was their gear.
Chapter 10
THE SUN WAS HIGH IN THE SKY WHEN James arrived at the crossroads and hesitated, trying to determine which direction would be best for him to go. It was an extremely bright day, and yet only a few slivers of sunlight were able to thread their way through the thicket of branches overhead.
“So what do you think, Poxy?” said James after a few moments of contemplation. “To the pig farmer first? Or to the mother? My inclination would be to the farmer,” and he sat down, working it through. “And here’s why. The farmer is probably going to want me to bring him to Samuel before he’ll cough up the reward. But I doubt he’ll have any interest in the father or the daughter; just the one who slaughtered his pig. So he’ll be busy taking vengeance on the lad, and that’ll give the father and daughter a sporting chance to get away from there before the mother shows up. On the other hand, Mrs. Mullins should have the opportunity to confront her runaway family. Maybe I can get her and convince her to stop along the way to pick up the pig farmer, and the two of them can travel with me. That way, everything is done all at the same time, and everyone can be satisfied all at the same time ...”
His voice trailed off.
Poxy was studying him with her steady, unblinking gaze, and although he knew he had no reason to think of such things—that although his dog was bright, she was only bright for a dog and certainly didn’t have anything approaching human intelligence—it nevertheless seemed to him that she was judging him somehow. That she was contemplating his motives and not liking what she was seeing.
“The woman has a right to know,” he said to Poxy, “and the man has a right not to have his livestock stolen. You know that, right?”
If Poxy was to provide an answer, it was a mute one: She turned and trotted off into the forest, barking, perhaps in pursuit of a squirrel that she had noticed running past. He called after her in annoyance, but she didn’t return. “Fine, Poxy Cur!” he shouted. “But don’t expect me to be sitting here when you come back! I’m leaving! Now!”
But he did not leave. Instead, he remained there for what seemed an unbearably long time, staring off into the distance, his gaze turning from the direction of Mrs. Mullins to that of the pig farmer and then back again.
“Dammit,” he said at last.
He turned around and had just enough time to let out an alarmed cry as Thomas plowed into him. They went down in a tangle, elbows slamming into their respective eyes and mouths and chests, and they thudded across the ground until they rolled to a stop. Then James threw himself off Thomas and kept going, skidding to a stop a short distance away and scrambling to his feet. “Thomas! What the hell—!”
“You were going back!” Thomas shouted, his face twisted in fury. James could not recall ever seeing him so filled with wrath. “You were going back to Mrs. Mullins or the farmer! After I told you—”
“After you told me?” James bellowed right back at him. “So much for the whole thing about how I’m not your servant! That I’m your friend!” He mockingly started bowing, his arms outstretched. “Yes, master! Whatever you say, master!”
“Don’t be an ass!”
“Better an ass than a hypocrite with an elastic sense of values!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thomas said heatedly, advancing on him. His right hand was clenched, trembling, as if it were ready to strike James of its own accord. “It’s not hypocritical to display some simple human compassion.”
“Where’s your compassion for the mother, eh?”
“Maybe she doesn’t deserve compassion! Did you ever consider that? Maybe she’s exactly what she was described as! You saw her! And there’s no reason to doubt what they said about her and about how she made me feel!”
“You? How she made you feel?”
“I mean them. How she made them feel!”
“Is that what you mean?” James said challengingly. “You with your ideals of perfect heroism. Looking to have your own little glow of light following you around?”
“As compared to you? Do you know what happens to Heroes with dark alignments? The darkness starts showing up on the outside!” He approached James and started ticking off aspects on his fingers. “You grow horns! And your eyes glow red! And . . . and flies start following you around ...”
“Oh, please.”
“It’s true!’
“You don’t have an exclusive on what’s true and what’s false! There’s plenty of information about the world that isn’t in any of your books!”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like—”
“Well? Don’t just stand there, James. Enlighten me. Tell me what—”
“Like that my father left us!”
Thomas stared at him blankly, taken aback by the statement, which he did not entirely understand. “What do you mean? I knew that. He died when you were—”
“Not ‘left us’ in that sense. I mean actually left us. Walked out on us. Said he was going out for a while and never returned. Your father may be far from perfect, Thomas, but at least you have one. And I swore, I swore I would never be anything like him because I saw what it did to my mother. But what did I do at the first opportunity? I ran out on my mother and on my family. I became exactly what I swore I never would become.”
“You said they wouldn’t miss you.”
“They probably won’t, but that doesn’t make what I’ve done any better.”
“Then”—Thomas was utterly perplexed—“why did you come? It’s not as if I asked you; I certainly didn’t beg you. Why are you here if you feel that way?”
“Because you were going, and I thought you needed me. And I figured I’d be letting you down if I didn’t come with you.” James shook his head, running his fingers through his hair. “How stupid does that sound? I mean, really. You’re of age. I should have just left you to your fate instead of volunteering to come with you. I ...” He sighed heavily. “I feel like I’m losing the will for this, the longer that we go on ...”
“Ridiculous,” Thomas said firmly. “You have more will, more determination, more resolve, than anyone I’ve ever met. And the fact is,” he admitted after a brief hesitation, “the fact is that you were right. I would be lost without you, James. Truly lost. And . . . well, maybe I’m no different than you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’m letting my feelings about my own family affect how I’m reacting to what we’re facing now. I mean . . . no matter how many times I tell myself that the things my mother said on her deathbed were meaningless, it still hurt like hell. And so I wind up not being particularly sympathetic to Mrs. Mullins, you know? Although the fact that she tried to pummel us to death didn’t do much to endear her to me eith
er.” He picked up a small stone and threw it in a random direction, watching it rebound off a tree. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should tell Mrs. Mullins the truth and just let things sort themselves out.”
“And allow their deaths to be on our conscience? Not sure I see the purpose of that. Let’s face it, Thomas: If we take our mutual blinders from our eyes and give our best guess as to what really happened, it probably did play out exactly as father and daughter described. And if the mother finds them ...”
“There will be more of the same, only worse,” said Thomas. “Bruises that don’t ever heal.”
“Hard to heal when you’re dead.”
“You really think she’s capable of killing them?”
“Oh yes,” James said without hesitation. “You saw the woman. The kraken wouldn’t have wanted any part of her in a battle. I mean, maybe its cruel to her to let her live a life of uncertainty, but it’s only one person being made to suffer instead of three. Four, if you count the child that’s growing in Hannah’s belly.”
“You say all this now,” said Thomas, “and yet you ran off intending to inform on them. And you were going to tell the pig farmer for that matter, in order to get the reward.”
“Yes,” said James, “and I’m not proud of that. I guess I needed some time on my own so that I could come to my own conclusions. Conclusions that were, as it turns out, identical to yours, but at least I knew for sure that they were, in fact, my conclusions.”
“Rather than just deferring to me, you mean.”
“Pretty much. I was actually getting ready to retrace my steps when you decided to knock me to the ground.”
“Sorry about that,” Thomas said with obvious chagrin. “I just . . . needed to stop you.”
“Well, next time, try shouting, ‘Stop!’ That’ll work just as well.” He flexed his shoulder tentatively, wincing as he did so. “You were lucky. If I had any warning at all, I’d have handed you your head.”
“No doubt in my mind,” Thomas said diplomatically.
James studied him, trying to determine whether Thomas was being sarcastic or not. Thomas kept his face carefully neutral. Finally, James lowered his arm, and said, “Horns? Seriously?”