The Shady Adventures of Fabian

Chapter 42

Rothchild reared up in terror at the sight of the giant wolf directly ahead. He bucked up and tried to retreat backwards, nearly yanking Sir Mikael's arm out of its socket in the process. As it was, the paladin lost his balance and fell over. Most of him managed to stay on the bridge, but one of his feet went over the edge and managed to get firmly stuck in the tar. The boot was made of extremely high quality leather, but even so he could feel the heat scalding his foot and he set to work furiously trying to wiggle it loose. After a moment his bare foot popped free. It was red and would probably break out in blisters, but was structurally undamaged. The boot, unfortunately, was done for.

The direwolf had been moving almost silently so Fabian wasn't even aware of its presence. He enjoyed a good uproarious laugh at the sight of Sir Mikael falling over and getting his foot stuck in the tar. "Now that's some quality entertainment."

It was actually Brandon who had the presence of mind to investigate what had caused the horse to get spooked. He looked over his shoulder and let out an involuntary squeak when he spotted the enormous creature that was continuing to approach them. "Um, sir?"

"Not now, Scrote. I'm deeply absorbed in watching this buffoon flail around." He let out another chuckle and then cupped his hands to his mouth and called out. "Way to keep your balance, you stupid paladin!"

"Sir, I really think you should look behind you. There's an extremely large wolf heading right for us."

"Eh?" Fabian said as he glanced over his shoulder. "Holy shit! Out of the way!" He hopped on the bridge and ran across to the other side as fast as he could, pushing aside Sir Mikael and a very frightened horse that was trying to back its way up.

Brandon pulled out his cutlass and held it limply in front of him, but before he could do anything, he saw Derek out of the corner of his eye walking purposefully towards the direwolf.

The wolf curled up its lips and bared its teeth as it snarled loudly. Long strings of drool dripped from its maw and splattered on to the ground, but Derek kept approaching, undeterred. When he got within a few feet of it he took his walking stick and whapped the direwolf on the nose. It let out a confused whimper and lifted up a front paw uncertainly. Derek whapped it on the nose again. It turned around and raced off back into the woods.

"That was impressive," Brandon said. "How did you know to do that?"

"You don't study the god of sheep as extensively as I have without picking up a few tips as to how to chase off wolves."

"I was about to do the same thing," Fabian said as he came back across the bridge and joined them. "I was just running to the other side to find a suitable stick. Luckily, Derek here already had one, but the important thing to note here is that I would have definitely saved the day."

Sir Mikael had managed to calm down Rothchild and led him the rest of the way across the bridge. "Well, that certainly provided some excitement, didn't it? By the way, I call dibs on any boots we happen to come across in our travels. I find myself suddenly in need."

"I'll flip you for any we find," Fabian said. "Poppa could always use a new pair of shoes. Now enough dawdling. We're losing sunlight and we've got a lot of ground to cover."

They passed by a small lake about an hour later that had been turned to tar, but luckily didn't encounter any more streams. Dusk was just beginning to fall when Fabian spotted an Inn by the side of the road. He proposed they stop and rest for the night.

"Do we have enough shillings to afford this place?" Sir Mikael asked. "Derek has taken a vow of poverty after all, and I haven't taken much gold with me as I wanted to travel light."