Chương 49: Chapter 45. Blood Pigs

I was still laughing when the dog suddenly pushed itself upright against my chest, front paws planted on me, and before I could properly react its tongue dragged across my cheek.

"Ah—!" I lifted it instinctively, which only seemed to encourage the thing. Its tail wagged harder as it wriggled in my arms, trying very seriously to reach my face again. Varen recoiled.

"Eww. Don't tell me you're one of those weird people who lets dogs lick inside their mouth and shit?"

"What? No!"

"Then stop holding him that close to your face." He pointed at the dog as if warning me about a dangerous criminal.

"He'll get his tongue in there the first chance he gets, and you have absolutely no idea what's been in that mouth. He lives on a farm." The dog looked at me, panting happily. …That was a disturbingly good point. I had just begun lowering it when a sharp whistle came from behind us.

"Rufus!" The dog's ears immediately perked.

"Come here, my boy! Stop pestering these young gentlemen!" I set him down and Rufus shot away the moment his paws touched the ground, racing across the yard toward the old man I had seen with Professor Ashara. The two of them were approaching us now, Ashara walking with her hands behind her back while the farmer bent slightly as Rufus reached him, laughing when the little dog circled his boots before jumping up against his leg.

"There you are," the old man said, scratching vigorously behind his ears.

"Making a nuisance of yourself again, are you?"

"Not at all," I said.

"He's very friendly. I like him." The old man looked up at me.

"Well, you've made a friend for life now, lad. Give this one a scratch behind the ears once and he'll remember you longer than most people remember their own cousins, hahaha!" He straightened and came the rest of the way toward us, wiping one hand against the side of his trousers before offering it to me.

"Albus. Though nobody around here has called me that in years. Old Al will do." I took his hand.

"It's nice to meet you, sir. I'm Howl." His grip was rough and strong despite his age.

"Aye, Professor told me." I turned toward the others.

"And this is my team. Varen, Jaerik, Kael, Dren, and Tomás." Then I gestured toward Gowyn beside me.

"And this is Gowyn. He's my cousin, and my Shadow." Varen lifted a hand.

"How's it going, Old Al?" Jaerik placed a fist over his chest and inclined his head.

"May your home know peace, brother." Kael gave him a short nod. Dren managed a quiet, "Sir." Tomás straightened immediately.

"It's very nice to meet you, Mister Albus. Thank you for allowing us to stay on your property." Gowyn inclined his head with considerably more formality than the rest of us, and that was all from him. Old Al's eyes moved over the lot of us, lingering for a moment on Gowyn before a smile pulled through the wrinkles around them.

"Well. Quite the collection Sartheon sent me this year, eh?" Professor Ashara made a quiet sound beside him.

"Hm. Please be assured that they will behave, Albus." There was enough weight on the behave that every one of us noticed it, though her eyes settled most clearly on Varen, who smiled back at her with such innocent politeness that I almost admired the effort. Old Al laughed.

"Oh, leave them be, Professor. No need to threaten the poor things before they've even put their bags down." He waved one hand dismissively.

"Teenagers will be teenagers. Long as they don't burn the barn down or scare the livestock half to death, we'll manage." Ashara's expression suggested she considered at least one of those outcomes entirely possible. Old Al, apparently unaware, went on.

"I've got an eighteen-year-old granddaughter myself, so I'm no stranger to young people making noise, disappearing for hours, coming back hungry and pretending they haven't done anything worth asking about." Beside me, Varen twitched. It was barely more than a shift through his shoulders, but I felt it. Just when the old man mentioned his granddaughter. Old Al clapped his hands once.

"But oh my, come, come. Let me show you to your chambers, young people. You can stand around introducing yourselves properly later." He turned before any of us could answer, and we followed him across the yard. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. The farm was larger than it had looked from the carriage.

A packed dirt path ran between the farmhouse and several outbuildings, with fenced pens on one side and the barn on the other, while beyond them the damaged fields stretched toward the tree line. Chickens scattered out of our way as we passed, and somewhere behind one of the sheds a large and horned creature made an unhappy sound at our presence. Rufus followed us through all of it, weaving happily between legs and stopping every few steps to investigate something before sprinting back to catch up.

Old Al eventually led us toward a long timber building beside the main barn and pushed open the door. Rufus tried to follow.

"Ah-ah. Outside, you." The dog stopped on the threshold as Old Al pointed back toward the yard.

"You know the rules." Rufus stared at him for a moment, then let out a long, miserable little whine and lowered himself onto the dirt with his chin between his paws. Old Al sighed.

"He's a dramatic one. Don't mind him." I looked back at Rufus as we entered. He somehow managed to look abandoned, which pained me greatly. Inside, the building was essentially another barn, though someone had made a considerable effort to turn one half of it into living quarters. Seven simple beds had been arranged along the walls with folded blankets at their feet, a broad wooden table occupied the centre, and several lanterns hung from the rafters above.

There was even a small basin in one corner beside a water jug, which I assumed was meant for washing our faces and hands. It smelled faintly of hay and old wood, but not unpleasantly so. Actually, it was rather cozy. Old Al rubbed the back of his neck as he looked around.

"It's a bit rustic, I'm afraid. I would've tidied things up better if I could, but these Blood pig attacks have had us running about from sunrise to dark lately." He gestured toward the beds.

"Still, you've got somewhere dry to sleep, water nearby, and a roof that doesn't leak unless the rain comes sideways, so you should manage." Tomás set his satchel down beside one of the beds, but his attention had shifted almost entirely to Old Al.

"About the Blood pigs, sir... from what I've read, they're part of the natural fauna throughout these forests, but attacks on settled land are supposed to be relatively uncommon, right?" The old man nodded.

"They prefer dense woodland, particularly where there is enough prey that they don't need to range outward."

"That's about right." said Old Al, who sighed deeply right after.

"We could go years without seeing one this close to the farm. You'd find tracks now and again, maybe hear one deeper in the woods if you wandered farther than you ought to, but they generally kept to themselves and we did the same." His expression changed slightly.

"But not anymore."

"Do you know what's driving them out?" Tomás asked.

"Wish I did." Old Al rubbed at the grey along his jaw.

"Started with one or two coming near the outer fields. Then groups. Then whole bloody herds turning up after dark." He glanced toward the open doorway.

"This morning was the worst of it. Lost four sheep." His mouth tightened.

"And two of my dogs." The room went quieter at that, the silence only broken by yet another deep sigh from Old Al.

"They went after the pigs when they broke through the eastern fence. Brave fools didn't stand much of a chance once the rest of the herd came through." My eyes drifted toward the doorway, where Rufus was still lying outside with his chin against the ground. His tail was no longer moving. Old Al followed my gaze.

"That's why he's staying close today." I was not sure what I was supposed to say to that, so I remained quiet. But Old Al seemed to understand well enough.

"Truth is, it's gotten bad enough that I sent my granddaughter to stay with an old friend of mine for a while." He looked toward the doorway again.

"There've been attacks on people too, not just animals. Nothing here on the farm yet, thank the heavens, but close enough that I wasn't willing to take the chance." That got Varen's attention. He pushed himself away from the wall and grinned.

"Don't you worry, Old Al." The old man looked at him.

"We're here now." Varen rolled one shoulder.

"Those pests picked a really bad week to start feeling brave." Old Al stared at him for a moment, then laughed.

"Well, lad, if you six can convince them of that, I'll owe you more than a few meals." Varen's grin widened.

"Now you're speaking my language!" Professor Ashara's eyes moved to Varen.

"You are not here to be paid, Varen." His grin weakened.

"Any hospitality Mister Albus chooses to offer you is his generosity, not compensation, and you will not take advantage of it simply because you managed to kill something you were already assigned to kill, understood?" Varen straightened.

"Yes, Professor." Old Al chuckled under his breath while Ashara continued staring at Varen for another moment before apparently deciding the lesson had entered his skull. After that, we began settling in. Satchels went beneath beds, weapons found places against the walls, and Tomás immediately claimed a section of the table for the maps and mission documents. We had already more or less agreed that the proper hunt would begin tomorrow morning.

For today, we would inspect the farm, walk the perimeter, find the damaged sections of fencing and learn where the Blood pigs had been entering from. Then, tomorrow, we could enter the forest with some idea of where we were going instead of simply wandering between trees until something tried to eat us. It sounded sensible. But more importantly, it still left me most of my seventy-two hours. I had just placed my satchel beneath one of the beds when barking erupted outside.

This time, it wasn't the cheerful little woof Rufus had greeted us with earlier, but a sharp and frantic one. Old Al's head snapped toward the doorway as a second bark followed, already farther away, accompanied by the rapid patter of paws disappearing across the yard.

"Oh no." I looked toward Professor Ashara, whose eyes flicked toward the door, and she gave one small nod. Go. Was what I understood. So I straightened immediately.

"Come on, guys!" The others were already moving with me when a distressed bellow sounded from somewhere outside, loud enough to carry through the barn walls. Then Rufus started barking again and Old Al went pale.

"They're back!" He reached the door first and slammed it open while we spilled out behind him. At the far end of the yard, beyond one of the fenced pens, the large horned animal was staggering sideways through the dirt while dark shapes swarmed around it. Blood pigs. There had to be eight or nine of them already inside the enclosure, with more forcing themselves through a broken section of fence behind them.

They were uglier in person than the projection Ashara had shown us, broad through the shoulders and low to the ground, their ridged backs bristling as they darted in and out around the much larger animal. One lunged in and buried its teeth into the animal's rear leg, hanging there until a kick threw it loose. Another charged from the opposite side and slammed its heavy skull into the animal's ribs hard enough to make the entire body lurch.

The moment it turned toward that one, two others rushed its exposed flank, biting, tearing and retreating before the horns could reach them. They were taking turns, wearing it down. The horned creature bellowed again as one of its legs buckled, and running straight toward all of them was Rufus.

"RUFUS!" Old Al shouted, but the little dog did not even slow down.