Chapter Two

Dagney froze, feeling Batty go still beside him. Somebody was coming out of the village. Dagney could hear who it was even before peering out of the shrubbery. Fat Farmer from up the road was running out of the village, sobbing softly as he sweatted and jogged.

Something had clearly upset or frightened the man, but that was not Dagney's concern. Batty had hardly even looked up from the large rock she was hunkered down in front of.

When the sounds of the man had barely begun to fade, Batty hissed at him impatiently and tugged at the rock. Dagney sighed and went back to his knees beside her.

He heaved on the lip of the rock, and one end slowly rose into the air. Batty crawled right under the rock, despite the way his arms were already beginning to tremble. She was fearless. She took her time setting the deadfall, but Dagney took it stoically. It had to be rigged just so, or it was a waste of bait. And so far this particular rock had yet to fetch them a single squirrel.

Batty slowly crawled out from under the rock and stood. Dagney began to let go little by little, until finally he took his hands away completely. It held.

They stepped back together, and Dagney followed his sister further into the woods. "I wonder what has Fat Farmer so upset this time." Dagney said. Fat Farmer was wound too tightly at the best of times.

Batty shrugged, though whether that was because she really didn't care, or simply because she hated making any sort of noise when they were on the trails, was not clear.

She had even started to shoot him looks of exasperation on the rare occasion that he did speak, or worse, left a mark on the trail. Which wasn't very fair, because he was almost a full head taller than she.

And he had this bow besides, which would catch a branch at every opportunity.

Batty surprised him by answering. "Smelled like he'd been in the piss-up."

"We'll be at his place tonight if our luck stays this bad," he replied. "Maybe we can sneak in for a listen."

"I just hope he stops crying before then." Batty didn't have much sympathy for Fat Farmer, or anyone else for that matter. But she didn't argue. She had her own reasons for wanting to visit the dilapidated farm. Dagney just wished he could fathom them.

By nightfall they had checked every single line and trap, all for nothing. More than one trap had been dashed, and a couple of them looked like they had been robbed. Monger had found every single one.

Batty had her stag horn in both hands, gripping it like a swordsman. She was as scared of Monger as he was, but her response was pure fury. Dagney worried that Monger was following them right now, or was waiting for them at one of the few vegetable patches that were safe enough and easy enough to steal from. Batty was probably hoping it was there.

Whoever or whatever Monger was, Dagney never wanted to meet it.

The darkness made very little difference to Batty as they travelled, but Dagney started having more and more problems keeping up. "Hey," he whispered. "Either wait up or move onto the path."

Batty immediately changed direction, as he knew she would. She was too mad to slow down, and she would not want to risk him speaking again. She was hunting with her ears, listening for holes in the evening sounds of the forest. Holes that would tell her where something unnatural lurked. Something like Monger.

Thankfully, she didn't find any. There never was any trace of Monger. Not a single one. Ever.

That Monger was hunting them, there could be no doubt. It had begun by stalking them through the entire summer. The feeling of being hunted was nauseating, but it had gotten worse when Monger started leaving little mouse skeletons or squirrel skulls in their empty traps.

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The taunts had gotten worse, more frightening. One morning they had woken up to find the ground outside their den littered with the bones and half chewed carcasses of small animals.

Batty had taken it as a declaration of war, and it had become immediately clear that she was right. Not only had it encroached upon their territory while they slept, but that morning had been the first time that Monger had begun spoiling their traps. They had eaten nothing but vegetables in the nearly two weeks since.

As they trod silently down the path, Dagney had to force his arms to ease the bow string back. His hands ached to fire shaft after shaft into the creature, to punish it for all of the hunger and fear that it had put them through. Specially his sister.

A short hour later they arrived at Fat Farmer's farm.It took them almost as long again to creep into position and crawlthrough the dense rose bushes that served as the farm's back fence. In truth, Dagney was getting too large to crawl through the bush any longer, but there was no way in hell that he was going to let his sister go anywhere alone. Batty was extremely capable, and despite being over a year and a half younger than himself already much more clever. But he simply couldn't trust her to run. If she ever did find Monger she would attack him immediately, he just knew it.

Batty was through the bush much quicker than he, which only spurred him to push that much harder. And that made the going slower, louder and more painful. When his bow caught, he let go without hesitation as he listened hard for any sounds of trouble coming from in front of him.

A vicious barb caught his cheek, not an inch from the corner of his eye. It made his final burst of effort a painful admonishment to his clumsy impatience. But he was through.

Batty was standing just in front of him, with her back turned. He had been expecting her to be hissing at him, disdain loud in her posture, but she paid him no mind at all. He came up beside her with his sharpest arrow, the only one they owned with an iron head, clutched tightly in both hands.

With half a moon in the sky, there was plenty of light for Dagney to see by, but it took a while to understand what exactly he was seeing. The field had been levelled.

There were supposed to be a few rows of corn to conceal them from the farm house and barn, but those were gone, pulled out of the ground and trampled. The vines beyond those, much tougher than the corn, had suffered the same treatment. As had every other plant in the field.

From the mounds of blackness Dagney could see beyond the barn, Fat Farmer's other field had been destroyed too. Monger.

Batty didn't say a single word, and for once Dagney didn't care. He turned away from the sight in disgust, going to his knees and crawling into the rose bush. The thorns that grabbed at him and ripped at his face didn't slow him one bit. Even with the time it took to free his bow he was through well before his sister.

By the time Batty came silently through the hedge, he had his breathing and his emotions under control. His eyes still stung though, so he kept his back to her as she came up to stand beside him. Dagney still didn't feel like talking. He didn't have a clue what to say. Before he could start away through the underbrush Batty gripped his forearm.

"There's somebody in the lane."

Dagney felt his water freeze. His first fear was that it was Monger, but he quickly dismissed it. Monger would not be detected from so far away as the lane in front of Fat Farmer's house was. Nor would it use the lane. But more importantly, Batty was not charging towards it in a towering fury.

A hint of scented oil, like the kind they burned in their lamps in the village, drifted in along a vagrant breeze. Batty pulled at his arm, pushing him to circle the hedges with her and gain the path behind them.

As he led the way, Dagney began to hear the muted talk of men.

Their voices carried through the brush, and despite their unwanted intrusion their presence somehow reassured him. He was not afraid of the men, simply because there was no way they could catch him in the dark. The average villager had almost no woodlore, and these ones sounded besotted with drink.

Batty pushed at his back again, impatient as always to catch them up so she could listen. Men who travelled at night almost always talked, as though they could keep the night at bay with the sound of their voice. Dagney and Batty followed everyone they encountered traveling their woods, but they only heard the best chatter about the daily lives of people at night. Also at night, it was sometimes possible to listen at peoples windows and catch a glimpse as to what life would have been like with a real family.

The men in front of them sounded tense and angry. They were speaking so loudly that by the time Dagney and his sister reached the narrow cart path to Fat Farmer's front door they could make out everything the men said.

As he listened to what the men were saying, Dagney once again began to fear that his sister was about to try to kill someone.