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?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said James, wondering why the smithy’s tone had suddenly become so stilted. “We just told you that—”
He had about two seconds worth of warning, enough time for the sound of steel hissing from a scabbard, and James spun, yanking out his cutlass and bringing it up in a purely defensive manner, blind, instinctive. A sword came crashing down upon it that he managed to deflect through the wildest of luck, the two blades running the length of each other and clashing together at the hilts. The other sword was in the hand of a young man with wild hair and wilder eyes.
Their gazes locked, and James was filled with anger, with an unnameable rage, that this person had tried to assault him from behind in such a cowardly manner. He focused all that fury, envisioned it as if it were a ball of black energy within him, and he drove that blackness directly into the eyes of the young man who was shoving against him. It froze his attacker in his tracks, and James brought his fist up and around in a short, quick jab that took his assailant on the side of the head, sending him down to one knee. He pointed his sword at the young man’s throat, and if his assailant was giving any consideration to trying another attack, the growling Poxy’s face a mere inch from his dissuaded him. The young man froze.
The smithy, meanwhile, came straight at Thomas, wielding the long tongs as if they were a bludgeon. They were not designed as such, but then neither was a fireplace poker, and one could certainly stave in someone’s head with such an instrument. Thomas dodged back, grabbing for his own blade, but the smithy struck him on the arm with the tongs before he could pull it. Thomas cried out, losing all feeling in the arm, and fell back against some chains hanging from nails on the wall. He grabbed the chain with his still-functioning left arm and whipped it around as fast and as hard as he could. He got lucky; the chain snaked around the smithy’s throat, cutting off his air. The smithy dropped his makeshift weapons to try to remove it, and Thomas yanked as hard as he could. It hauled the smithy off his feet and slammed him in
to the wall, which shook violently from the impact. Before the smithy could recover, Thomas yanked again, hauling the smithy the other way. The smithy stumbled and tripped over his own feet, crashing noisily to the ground. The impact yanked the chain out of Thomas’s grasp, and instead of trying to grab it again, he yanked out his sword. The smithy pulled the chain clear of his throat, and whispered hoarsely, “You bastards . . . I’ll kill you ...”
“Not,” James called out, “before I kill him. I assume his death would mean something to you.”
It was at that moment that Thomas suddenly realized that he had no idea if James was bluffing or not. Up until this moment, neither of them had been in a position where they would be forced to take lethal action against an opponent. It was one thing to contemplate having to kill a monster in order to survive. But slay another human being, especially in order to fulfill a threat? Thomas wasn’t sure if he himself was capable of such a thing. But when he looked at James, he saw a burning coldness there that made him think that not only was James capable of doing such a thing, but that he would think nothing of it.
Whether it would have come to that or not would not be known, at least not at that moment. Because the tableau was disrupted by an alarmed female voice that cried out, “What’s going on here!”
It was said that if one wishes to get an idea of what a daughter will look like twenty years hence, one need only look at the mother. In the young woman standing in front of them, with pale blue eyes and an expression so frightened that all the blood had drained from her face, there were the general hints of Mrs. Mullins. But she was far smaller and delicate, which gave Thomas enough reason to hope that the girl—presuming she was who Thomas suspected her to be—might escape that undesirable fate.
“Hannah?” said Thomas tentatively.
The young man whom James was holding at sword point shouted, “Don’t answer him, Hannah!” and then promptly winced in mortification.
“And you,” Thomas continued, addressing the young man as if he hadn’t spoken, “would most likely be Samuel. And you, sir”—and he turned to the fallen smithy—“are Robert?”
James, who had been grinning at the young man’s slipup in revealing the girl’s identity, suddenly looked bewildered, as if he had wandered into the middle of a play and was desperately trying to get caught up on the plot. “Wait . . . what? I thought they were—”
“Dead. That’s what they wanted people to believe, wasn’t it,” Thomas said, but it was not a question.
There was a deathly silence, broken only by the low growl of Poxy, who was not yet entirely convinced that there would be no further attacks.
Then Hannah came forward, her hands clenched to her bosom, and she said, “If you are bounty hunters, please . . . we’ll pay you more than she did, I swear. I . . . I don’t know how, because we’re hardly rich, but if you’ll be patient—”
“We’re not bounty hunters,” said James. “We’re ...” He looked to Thomas, and then squared his shoulders and, trying not to sound self-conscious, said, “We’re Heroes.”
Hannah looked surprised, as did the two men. “Heroes?” she echoed. “Seriously?”
“We’re trying to bring it back into style,” James said with a shrug.
“But . . . you’ve been trained? I wasn’t even aware that any halls remained—”
“They’re keeping a low profile,” said James.
Thomas was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with every passing moment. “Who and what we are is far less important than your present situation,” he said, endeavoring to shift the emphasis back to them. “You understand why we’re here?”
“I’m not sure I understand why we’re here,” said James. “Your mother, your wife, and . . . well, she’s nothing to you, really,” he said to Samuel, “but this woman back in Blackridge, she’s in mourning for you. She misses you terribly.”
“Of course she does,” Robert said heatedly. “Misses having us as her servants. Misses brutalizing us, dominating us, making our lives a living hell. That’s what she misses, I can guarantee you that.”
“And if we went back,” Hannah spoke up, “there would be more of the same and worse besides.” Abruptly, she started to yank up her skirt, and James immediately looked away, unsure of what she was intending. “I want you to see this,” she insisted.
“I assure you, there’s nothing there that we feel is any of our business,” James said.
“James,” Thomas said softly, “I think you need to see this. Do as she’s telling you to.”
Confused but attending to his friend’s words, James turned back, and he gasped when the sight met his eyes.
There were bruises along her legs. Most of them had faded with time, but there was still enough evidence of them that he could determine they had, at some point in the recent past, been extremely severe. There was also a huge gash down her right thigh. There was no shame in the girl’s eyes; instead, there was pure defiance.
“When . . . did those happen?” he managed to say.
“When did they not?” she shot back. “Pain and injuries have been part of my lot in life for as long as I can remember. It didn’t matter the reason—a dropped dish, a less-than-respectful word, or not performing a chore with sufficient alacrity. This gash”—and she pointed to the scar—“is when she struck me a glancing blow with a whip.”
“A whip?”
“One of a number of weapons she keeps around in case of balverine attack. She believes they fear the noise of the whip crack.”
“I never heard that one, and I think that the whip crack would slow them for maybe a second before they ripped you apart,” said Thomas, and then he gestured toward her exposed legs. “I think you’ve, uhm . . . made your point.”
She dropped her skirt back into place. James, meanwhile, turned to Robert. “But . . . if she was like this, your wife . . . if she was so brutal . . . why didn’t you fight back?”
“Would you like to see my array of scars and bruises?” He prepared to lift his shirt.
“No. No, that’s quite all right,” James said hurriedly. “But . . . look, if you don’t mind my asking: Why did you marry her in the first place?”
Robert sighed heavily in that way people do when they are reflecting upon the follies of their existence. “I used to drink heavily. I suppose the two of you are too young to experience what it’s like to wake up on a cruel morning and discover that the attractive, charming woman sharing your bed is far less so upon the return of your sobriety.”
“Ouch,” said James.
“Indeed. And when that unwise assignation results in your child being carried within her belly, well ...” And he shrugged. “If you’re a man, you take responsibility for your actions and come to feel that whatever happens is happening because you deserve it.”
“But it reached a point,” said Hannah, “where we could no longer stand it.” She moved over to her father then and took his hand firmly, looking at him with great sympathy. “You’re in that sort of situation, and you feel trapped. It’s hard to describe. The biggest challenge is overcoming that feeling and taking it upon yourself to break free of it.”
“And you did it with the help of Hannah’s friend, Samuel,” said Thomas, nodding toward the young man whom James had had at sword point earlier. “Friend or . . . more than friend?”
“Far more,” said Hannah, and then gently she rested her hand on her own belly.
It became blindingly clear to James at that point. “You’re up the spout, with his child,” he whispered.
“No drunken assignations required,” said Samuel.
Hannah nodded, and then she reached out and took Samuel’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “And if mother found out, I can’t even think what . . . it’s unimaginable ...”
Thomas and James could imagine it all too easily. Any reaction, from her mother murdering Samuel to beating her daughter so comprehensively that she lost the child . . . anything was possible. If the woman bruised her daughter over a dropped d
ish, how would she react to something like this? Not well, that much was certain.
James at last understood. “So these two”—and he indicated father and daughter—“went off into the woods, and Samuel, you came running back with the entire story about the balverines, knowing that the woman’s superstitions would cause her to believe you . . . but wait, no. That wasn’t all. The blood ...”
“Courtesy of a stolen pig,” Thomas said. “You stole one from a local pig farmer ...”
“A runt,” said Samuel defensively, as if that somehow made it more acceptable. “It wouldn’t have been worth much to him anyway.”
“Then you brought it to the crossroads, slaughtered it, spread the blood all over while father and daughter went on ahead, after Robert changed shirts and gave you a torn one that you could soak in the pig’s blood. That’s why,” Thomas said to James, “the dog went straight to the pig farm. She was just following the scent of the type of animal whose blood it was.”
“Ah. Well . . . good girl.” James petted the top of her head approvingly. “I knew there must have been a reason for it.”
“What happened to the actual carcass of the pig?”
“We took it with us,” said Robert. “Served as a decent meal for our first few days here.”
“And this business? You’re a blacksmith—?”
“This was not,” said Robert, “something that was simply embarked upon. I prepared for this carefully. Set up this business ahead of time so that I would be able to provide for my daughter and”—he nodded toward Samuel—“my future son-in-law. Keeping my plans hidden from my wife was tricky, but not impossible.”
“And that brings us back around to you,” said Hannah. She stepped toward James, and Poxy immediate growled in warning. James softly shushed his dog, stroking the back of her head to indicate that he was not facing any threat. “You can’t tell her. You just can’t. If you tell my mother, she’ll show up here, and—”