Little things caught Hadrian’s attention. Mounted beneath one window hung a flower box with a scallop-edge and the image of a deer carved into it. The front door, made of solid oak, had a latch formed of hand-beaten iron, revealing not a single peg or visible joint. The stones that created the walls, alternated colors of gray, rose, and tan, each chipped to a fine flat profile. The curved walkway was bordered with bushes trimmed to resemble a hedge.
Theron Wood sat amidst the ruins of his home. The big farmer, with dark leathery skin, had a short mangle of forgotten gray hair that crowned a face cut by wind and sun. He looked like a part of the earth itself, a gnarled trunk of a great tree with a face like a weathered cliff. He rested on the remaining wall of his home, a grass cutter held between his legs, slowly dragging a sharpening stone along the length of the huge curved scythe blade. Back and forth the stone scrapped while the man stared down at the green field below, an expression on his face Hadrian could only describe as contempt.
“Daddy! I’m back.” Thrace ran to the old farmer hugging him around his neck. “I missed you.”
Theron endured the squeeze and glared at them. “Are these the ones then?”
“Yes. This is Hadrian and Royce. They’ve come all the way from Colnora to help. They can get the weapon Esra told us about.”
“I have a weapon,” the farmer growled and resumed sharpening his blade. The sound was cold and grating.
“This?” Thrace asked. “Your grass cutter? The margrave had a sword, a shield, and armor and he—”
“Not this, I have another weapon, much bigger, much sharper.”
Puzzled, she looked around. The old man offered no insight.
“I don’t need what lies in that tower to kill the beast.”
“But you promised me.”
“And I am a man of my word,” he replied and drew the stone along the edge of the blade once more. “The waiting only made my weapon sharper.” He dipped the stone into a bucket of water that sat beside him. He raised it back to the blade but paused and said, “Every day I wake up, I see Thad’s broken bed and Hickory’s cradle. I see the shattered barrel that Thad made, the fields I planted for him—growing despite me. Best season in a decade. I woulda reaped more than enough to pay for the contract and tools. I woulda had extra. I coulda built him a shop. I might even have afforded a sign and real glass windows. He coulda had a planed wooden door with hinges and studs. His shop woulda been better than any house in the village. Better then the manor. People would walk by and stare, wondering what great man owned such a business. How great an artisan was this town’s cooper that he could manage such a fine store?
“Those bastards back in Glamrendor who wouldn’t let Thad hang a shingle. They would never have seen the like. It woulda had a shake roof and scalloped eaves, a hard oak counter and iron hooks to hold lanterns for when he needed to work late at night to complete all his orders. His barrels would be stacked in a storage shed beside the shop. A beautiful barn-size one, and I would paint it bright red so no one could miss it. I’d ’a got him a wagon too even if I had to build it myself, that way he could send orders all over Avryn—back to Glamrendor too. I’d ’a driven them there myself just to see the shock and anger on their faces.
“Morning! I’d say grinning like a lipless crocodile. Here’s another fine delivery of barrels from Thaddeus Wood, the best cooper in Avryn. They’d cringe and curse. Yep, that boy ’o mine, he’s no farmer, no sir. Starting with him, the Woods were gonna be artisans and shopkeepers.
“This village, it’d have grown. People woulda moved in and started businesses of their own, only Thad’s woulda always been the first, the biggest, and the best. I’d seen to that. Soon this here woulda been a city, a fine city and the Woods the most successful family—a merchant family giv’n money to the arts and riding around in fine carriages. This here house woulda been a true mansion ’cause Thad woulda insisted, but I wouldn’t care ’bout that, no sir. I’d been content just watching Hickory grow up, seeing him learn to read and write—appointed magistrate maybe. My grandson in the black robes! Yes sir, Magistrate Wood is going to court in a fine carriage and me standing there watching him.
“I see it. Every morning I get up; I sit; I look down Stony Hill and I see all of it. It’s right there, right in that field growing in front of me. I haven’t hoed. I haven’t tilled, but look at it. The best crop I ever grew getting taller every day.”
“Daddy, please come back with us to the Bothwicks. It’s getting late.”
“This is my home!” the old man shouted, but not at her. His eyes were still on the field. He scraped the blade again. Thrace sighed.
There was a long silence.
“You and your friends go. I swore not to seek it, but there is always a chance it might come to me.”
“But, Daddy—”
“I said take them and go. I don’t need you here.”
Thrace glanced at Hadrian. There were tears in her eyes. Her lips trembled. She stood for a moment, wavering, then abruptly broke and ran back up the path toward town. Theron ignored her. The old farmer tilted the blade of his grass cutter to the other side and resumed sharpening. Hadrian watched him for a moment, the sounds of the stone on metal drowning out Thrace’s fading sobs. He never looked up, not at Hadrian, not to glance down the trail. The man was indeed a rock.
Hadrian found Thrace only a few dozen yards up the trail. She was on her knees crying. Her small body jerked, her hair rocking with the movement. He placed his hand gently on her shoulder. “Your father is right. That weapon of his is very sharp.”
Royce caught up with them carrying a fractured piece of wood. He looked down at Thrace with an uncomfortable expression.
“What’s up?” Hadrian asked before Royce said anything callous.
“What do you think of this?” Royce replied, holding out the scrap that might have been part of the house framing. The beam was wide and thick, good strong oak taken from the trunk of a well aged tree. The piece bore four deeply cut gouges.
“Claw marks?” Hadrian took the wood and placed his hand against the board with his fingers splayed out. “Giant claw marks.”
Royce nodded. “Whatever it is, it’s huge. So how come no one has seen it?”
“It gets very dark here,” Thrace told them, wiping her cheeks as she stood. A curious expression crossed her face and she walked to where a yellow-flowered forsythia grew at the base of a maple tree. Taking a hesitant step, Thrace bent down and drew back what Hadrian thought was a wad of cloth and old grass. As she carefully cleaned away the leaves and sticks he saw it was a crude doll with thread for hair and X’s sewn for eyes.
“Yours?” Hadrian ventured.