Pushing aside the long sausages which dangled like Yuletide ornaments from the low rafters, Giles made his way across the common room, until he stood before the table indicated by the barkeep. At his approach, a shadow detached itself from the deeper shadows of the corner and leaned forward into the light glowing from the hearth.
"I've got them," Giles said, still gasping for air.
The robed figure stiffened. "Where?"
"At my place," he said.
The stranger leaped to his feet. "Ssssshow me," he whispered excitedly.
"First, the reward you promised," Giles demanded. He didn't trust strangers, least of all those who took such care to hide their features.
An angry hiss answered him. The stranger seemed to hesitate. "When I have them, you will be paid, but I must ssssee them firssst," he said at last.
"And if they don't have your property?" Giles asked.
"What?"
"The thing they stole from you?"
"Oh, that. Do not worry. They cannot have ssssold it yet. But if they have, you will sssstill get your reward," the stranger said.
"Very well then." Hesitating a moment, Giles said, "Follow me."
Together, they exited the inn and made their way through the increasingly wet weather to the farm. Along the way, Giles was disconcerted by the fact that no matter how slowly he walked, the stranger seemed always to struggle behind him. It was as though the fellow wished never to have his back to Giles. Only the promise of a handsome reward kept him from confronting the mysterious man. With the complete loss of his flock of chickens, he needed every silver piece and steel coin he could scrape together just to survive the winter.
They reached the cottage just as the sleet gave over to rain. As they crossed the yard to the coop, the stranger seemed very much amused by the sight of dozens of frozen chickens carpeting the ground. He hissed and giggled inside his cowl. When he saw the door to the coop nailed shut, he laughed even harder. "Sssso that issss why you ssssought me out," he said. "If you'll pardon my expresssssion, you wissshh to 'recoup' your lossssessss."
"Yes, yes, very funny," Giles snarled as he used the hammer to pry the boards loose from the door. "You'd just better be ready with that reward. Don't you try to cheat me, or I'll nail you up in there with them." He knocked the wooden bar free and snatched open the door.
"Breakfast is served!" he shouted as he motioned the stranger inside. Slowly, with seeming trepidation, the stranger approached the low door, his feet squelching in the slushy snow on the ground. Without removing his cowl, he ducked inside.
The rain beat down on Giles's unprotected head as he waited outside the coop. Some forgotten motherly part of his mind told him that he would catch his death out here, but he only ground his teeth and glanced at his dead chickens to remind himself of his purpose. Somebody had to pay, that's all he was sure of.
All of a sudden, the stranger stepped out of the coop. He turned to face Giles, his features still hidden by the cowl, his hands wrapped in the fold of his voluminous sleeves.
"There issss no one in there," he hissed angrily.
"What? Impossible!" Giles shrieked as he threw down his hammer and ducked into the coop. Again, it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Meanwhile, he shouted, "Where are you, you miserable little rats?" Silence answered him.
He thrashed about the interior of the coop, tossing aside nests and shelves and bales of hay in his fury. "They can't have escaped!" he cried. "It's impossible. There is no way out. This coop is as tight as a ship. Not even a weasel can get in here when it is shut up!"
Exhausted by emotion and exposure, Giles shuffled wearily back to the open doorway. Outside, the stranger stood impassively in the rain. "I don't understand," Giles complained as he sank to the floor, his face in his hands. "I just don't understand."
A strange pattern of ice on the floor caught his attention. It was a footprint, a slushy footprint. A slushy three-toed, reptilian footprint. Giles jerked and fell over backwards, as though struck a blow by some invisible weapon.
"Draconian!" he gasped.
"Ah, now that isssss unfortunate. And after all the care I took to concccceal my identity," the stranger lamented as he pushed back his cowl. A long reptilian snout emerged, surmounted by a wide, heavy brow overshadowing dark, beetling eyes. Long bronze horns swept back from his low, crested forehead. A narrow forked tongue as red as blood slithered out from between two long fangish teeth and flickered in the air.
"What do you want with three gully dwarves?" Giles asked.
"Three? I only want the one. The otherssss, they are nothing, but the one, I would have paid handsssomely for the one. Now, you mussst pay," the draconian said.
"Wait!" Giles shrieked.
The draconian took a few steps back, then planted his feet in the mud. "Sssssomebody mussssst pay," he hissed as he drew a wand from his robes. He pointed it at the coop.
"No, wait!" Giles screamed.
The draconian spoke a single word, and a tiny ball of light streaked from the wand and into the coop, where it struck Giles squarely in the chest and exploded with flame. The roof of the coop sailed high into the air as the walls burst outward. For a few moments, a living ball of fire writhed on the floor, screaming hideously, before it grew still.
Satisfied, the draconian pulled his hood back over his head, turned, and stalked away. Moments after he vanished around the corner of the cottage, the barn door opened and Lumpo appeared, a metal pail dangling from his hand.
"Look. The inn is on fire!" he said. He lifted the pail to his lips and drank deeply. When he finally lowered it, creamy milk flowed in runnels to the tip of his scraggly beard. He smacked his lips and sighed contentedly. Millisant trotted out, and seeing the lowered bucket, stuck her head into it and lapped greedily. Lumpo seemed not to notice.
Uhoh stepped out from behind him and gazed at the roaring flames that was once the chicken coop. "It a good thing we get out before he nail door shut," he commented as he squeezed milk from his beard. "That two times we nearly killed already. We not listen to Glabella no more."
"What I do?" Glabella shouted from inside the barn.
"You no have luck picking inn. Slagd find us in Pig Mud Inn yesterday, nearly catch me. Lucky I got lots of nice pig mud on me, slip away like worm," he laughed, wriggling in imitation of his narrow escape the day before. "Now Chicken Inn burn down. Lucky I decide to milk nice cow for breakfast, before it go bang!"
"I say we milk cow!" Lumpo argued. "Me got lots of luck that way."
He sniffed the air. "I be glad when nice man get back with bacon," he commented.
"You eat too much," Uhoh said.
"Do not!" Lumpo protested.
"You eat two chickens last night. Now you hungry again," Uhoh accused as he turned and entered the barn.
"Do not! I only eat two chickens," Lumpo said as he followed Uhoh.
"Ha! I see you eat two chickens. You not deny it."
"Two chickens? I only eat two, not more than two."
Slowly, the barn door closed as the burning ruin of the chicken coop spit and hissed in the rain.
15
As Seamus Gavin skidded to a stop outside the door to the library, a sheaf of papers spilled from his large leather portfolio and fluttered in all directions. He stooped and hurriedly gathered them, only to have the pair of heavy books that he held precariously under one arm slip and tumble noisily to the floor. All the while, he muttered "Sorry, so sorry," even though he was quite alone in the hall.
While he fumbled on the floor for his things, the door to the library opened, spilling a warm light into the hall. Seamus peered up and puffed at the loose gray hairs dangling in his eyes.