Prown Devils & Demons

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5439-0862-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

The second book in 'The Chronicles of Dorro' series, Devils & Demons finds the village of Thimble Down plagued by a mysterious creature. Animals are disappearing and there have been terrifying occurrences in the Great Wood. It's up to Mr. Dorro and his young friends to find the truth before the beast acquires a taste for Halflings. Or is it already too late?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Prown, Pete

Leseproben

1. Deathstock
 

There was blood. Gobs of it. Everywhere.

Dorro Fox Winderiver, the venerable bookmaster of Thimble Down, was maybe a dozen feet from the door to his burrow, but there was nowhere to run. He looked down at his hands and saw them covered with rich crimson liquid and blazing red drops splattered on his shirt. He swung out at his attacker, in a futile attempt to save himself, but to no avail. Time was growing short.

I can’t die yet! I haven’t even begun to spend time with my nephew, thought Dorro hurriedly. He knew his time was short. Wyll, my boy, remember me when I’m gone ….

Suddenly, Dorro began to feel weak from the loss of precious lifeblood. He struck out again at his assailant and stumbled towards the door, hoping to see the inside of his home once more, but he couldn’t make it that far. Barely three steps from the entryway, he collapsed and fell into utter blackness. All around was grim silence, save for a few bumble bees gathering nectar on this otherwise sweet summer’s day.

***

Twenty minutes later, Dorro’s eyelids fluttered open. He wasn’t dead, he realized, but certainly grievously wounded. If he hadn’t died yet, Dorro reasoned as he lay on the warm grass, he would probably punt off pretty soon. At least, the bookmaster noted, it was a lovely June day, in the year 1721, A.B., and he was in his very own garden. What better place to leave his mortal coil behind, he figured. Dorro waited another few minutes, staring at the clouds floating gently against the cool blue sky.

Hmmmm … this dying business is taking longer than I thought, he mused, his eyes flitting from left to right and back again. Actually, it’s rather boring.

Dorro sat up groggily and looked around again, in case his attacker was hiding in the garden, ready to make another vicious assault. Dorro was thoroughly bewildered by this point. He stared again at his hands and made note of the deadly wounds. “Well, they’re not so deadly,” he said out loud to no one in particular. “Really more of a scratch or two.”

He hoisted himself to his feet and began looking for the scene of the attack. He had been pruning his prized roses when he was stabbed viciously—or actually, as Dorro began to remember, he may have gotten somewhat overzealous cutting back the bush and accidentally fallen into it. The light began to dawn.

“Oh … errrm … maybe I just got pricked by rose thorns.” He felt sheepish, looking around to make sure none of his neighbors had noticed the incident. With relief, Dorro realized they had not.

“You’re a naughty rose anyway,” he chided, fixing the pale-yellow blossoms with his most vexatious scowl. “It’s not polite to sneak up on well-intentioned gardeners and make them think they’ve been attacked by a vicious monster. Not polite at all!”

More embarrassed than anything else, Dorro gathered his hand-loppers and a wicker basket full of old canes and weeds and, as nonchalantly as possible, headed off to dump the garden clippings in the refuse heap. Meanwhile, above him on the branch of an old apple tree, a pair of gray catbirds had witnessed the entire incident and were laughing and tittering about it in vivid bird-speak. They would later tell the entire flock and soon birds all over Thimble Down would be giggling about the silly Halfling who fell into his own rosebush and thought he was being murdered.

***

A half-hour later, after Dorro had cleaned himself up—washing off the rather miniscule amount of blood on his hands and changing his shirt and vest—he headed off towards Thimble Down’s library, which was essentially his second home. Thimble Down is a bucolic village on the edge of the River Thimble and near other hamlets such as Upper-Down and Nob. It is populated, as you can guess, by Halflings, an inoffensive folk prone to eating, napping, laughing, and blustering up a storm, especially after a few ales. Still, by all reckoning, they are a pleasant lot, at least compared to tricky gnomes or big, greedy Men-folk.

Dorro ambled down the lane towards the library, enjoying the lush floral display around him—there were vast tracts of purple and white clematis, salmon-pink and cream-colored foxglove and, even though he was still peeved at them, roses by the score. There were stout red ones and climbing pink ones, spindly white ones and luxurious ivory ones, and charming pale-yellow double ones like the shrub that attacked him earlier. The scene was so intoxicating that Dorro was beginning to forgive his rosebush and let bygones be bygones. He was generous like that.

Finally arriving at his destination, the bookmaster opened the door to the library and took stock of the goings-on. Here and there, Thimble Downers were sitting at heavy wooden tables and benches, reading old books and scrolls or quietly conversing amongst themselves. Dorro ran a crisp, efficient library, able to provide practical information to those that sought it, as well as diverting literature for those looking to escape the mundane.

His eyes finally settled on the big desk in the center of the floor, where a young girl with bright yellow hair was deftly checking out books and answering patron’s questions. That, of course, was Miss Cheeryup Tunbridge, one of Dorro’s favorite people—young or old—as well as his frequent confederate in sleuthing. That she was barely twelve years old was no matter; Dorro knew she was as sharp as a tack and, unlike him, brave as a badger. More than once, the girl had led the charge into perilous situations, ones that Dorro shied away from. But that was Cheeryup: smart, sweet-natured, and absolutely fearless.

“G’day, Mr. Dorro!” echoed throughout the library as the girl spied him and waved to him gaily. Just then, the bookmaster saw another figure moving behind the railed gallery above him—it was a lad just about Cheeryup’s age, with tousled, dirty yellow hair and perhaps an inch or two taller in stature. He had been shelving some recently returned scrolls and was now gliding down the ladder to the first floor like an otter skimming atop the water. The lad was quick and wiry and, like Cheeryup, had a taste for adventure and mystery.

This was Wyll Underfoot, who as it turned out was Dorro’s nephew, though the elder Halfling had only learned of his existence recently. He was the son of his late sister Siobhán, from whom Dorro had been estranged for many decades. Yet he had turned up on the bookmaster’s doorstep that Spring at the dawn of a rather terrifying and perilous adventure (previously recounted in the scandalous tale, Thimble Down).

Wyll waved to his uncle and joined him and Cheeryup at the big desk. “How goes it, children?” asked Dorro with a small grin. “Keeping all the book borrowers in line, are we? Wouldn’t want any trouble at the library, now would we.”

“All secure, Mr. Dorro,” giggled Cheeryup knowingly. “However, a small tot named Billiken Bunkins asked for a book about dragons and monsters, but I thought that it might give him nightmares. So I had Wyll toss him out the window.”

“You what?”

“She’s just teasing, Uncle Dorro!” rejoined Wyll, as Cheeryup began laughing out loud. “Say, why are your hands bandaged up? Were you in another altercation?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes, but I handled the miscreants deftly—it was a mere trifle,” bluffed Dorro, changing the subject quickly. The children knew it was more likely that the bookmaster had been attacked by a mop or frightened by a chipmunk than anything truly dangerous, but they played along. “Anyway, Wyll, you promised to go fishing with me when we close the library this afternoon. Still interested?”

“Yes indeed, uncle! Mr. Timmo asked me to try out a special bass lure he just invented, so I’m eager to do just that.”

“Is that so? Not fair, I say!” grumbled Dorro, irked that his friend, the village metalsmith, would give Wyll first crack at his latest fishing tackle. “Timmo always lets me try out his best lures. What’s it called?”

“The Bashful Bass Basher. It’s a diving spoon made of copper that he says will have the bass salivating the moment they see it. Mr. Timmo explained that it will wobble slowly underwater, like a shy little minnow, and then it takes off like a shot. That’s what makes the bass and trout attack and, in just a second, they’re hooked!”

“Hmmfph—the Bashful Bass Basher. Sounds silly to me,” noted Dorro, feeling snubbed. “But no matter. We shall fish anyway and we’ll just see who catches more bass. And Cheeryup, you’re more than welcome to join us. Interested?”

“Yes, Mr. Dorro! I’ll just run home to tell my mother and then join you two by the river.”

“Good. You run along now and we’ll close up the library. And you, young sir—we’ll just see how this ridiculous Bashful Bass Basher performs against the skills of a true angling master!”

The three laughed at Dorro’s absurd boast, though each was looking forward to a perfect afternoon on the River Thimble. In Summer, there was no better place in all of Thimble Down.

***

“Brrrahhhpp!” Sheriff Forgo delivered a gigantic belch in the confines of the Thimble Down gaol, having just downed a tall mug of cider and a plate of cold-roast chicken legs for his early supper. He was sated and happy. But as the lawman knew, that feeling never lasted long in this village.

True to form, there was a loud knock on the door and in barreled...