Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) Read Free

overrunning a lush and green forest. At the time my story starts, the advent of technology and the growth of the population had already caused Bowerstone to expand beyond an acceptable size for any city, much less a pit such as Bowerstone. If you expand a dung heap, you just end up with a far greater stench.
    â€œNot that the entirety of Bowerstone was execrable. The immediate area surrounding Bowerstone Castle was quite nice. And one could actually spend a pleasant day wandering Bowerstone Market, with many respectable shops and the Cow & Corset Inn, where the meat was fresh and the wenches fresher. But then there was Bowerstone Industrial, a haven of so-called progress, belching smoke and fouling the very air. And then there was Old Quarter, a depressed slum filled with thieves and lowlifes. It is also the home of one of our protagonists, but we shall get to him anon.
    â€œInstead, our story begins in the mind of a young man.”
    â€œHow would you know what was in his mind?”
    He had been about to move to the next sentence in his narrative, but his mouth remains open momentarily before snapping shut with an audible click. He pauses a few seconds, and then, his mouth in a firm line, says, “With all due deference to Your Majesty, this story will progress far more smoothly if you do not question me perpetually as I tell the tale. Please, I pray you, accept that I am the omniscient narrator of this ‘fable,’ and thus am somewhat . . . what is the word . . . ?”
    â€œOmniscient?”
    â€œExactly.”
    I wave my hand magnanimously. “Proceed.”
    â€œThank you, Your Majesty,” he says with a slight bow that is, surprisingly, devoid of any sense of irony. “So . . . the young man. His name was Thomas. Thomas Kirkman. He was a resident of a region called Millfields, near the lake. His father was a wealthy merchant dealing in textiles and simply assumed that Thomas would devote his full efforts into going into the family business since he was about to come of age. His mother, on the other hand, was of ill health and seemingly had been for as long as Thomas could remember. As for Thomas himself, he was a large, bold, and bluff boy with a disturbing tendency to say precisely what was on his mind regardless of the consequences. But he was also haunted by his original sin.” He pauses. “You are doubtless wondering what that sin might be.”
    â€œDare I ask?” I say drily.
    â€œYou are a king. The king dares all.”
    â€œWhat,” I say, “is Thomas Kirkman’s original sin?”
    â€œHe had the unadulterated nerve to not die.”

Chapter 1

    THE CREATURE WAS RIGHT IN FRONT of Thomas, right there, its mouth wide and its jaws slavering and its muzzle thick with blood. Its pointed ears were upright and quivering. Its fur was a dirty black, covered with debris and brambles from whatever bushes it had been hiding in, and when the creature roared, its breath washed over Thomas and caused his stomach to clench and his gorge to rise.
    You can’t smell things in dreams! You can’t! This is . . . is no dream! Thomas’s fear-stricken voice sounded in his head, and he tried to scream, but he was unable to find the breath to do so. The most he was able to muster was a paralyzed “urkh” noise that was hardly helpful when it came to summoning aid.
    Thomas, lying on his bed, tried to twist away from the creature, but his body refused to obey the commands of his distraught mind. His attention remained fixed upon the blood that was all over the beast’s mouth because he knew whose blood it was, and the notion that his blood was about to join it was overwhelmingly terrifying to him.
    I don’t want the same thing to happen to me . . . I don’t want to end up like Stephen . . . please, no, please, no . . .
    The creature grabbed one of his shoulders and began to shake him violently. This prompted Thomas to discover his voice, and it