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This article or section contains information original to the novel Fable: The Balverine Order, which is a licensed Fable work, but does not necessarily conform to Lionhead's Fable canon.
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Fable: The Balverine Order

Fable: The Balverine Order is a novel by Peter David based on the Fable series of games. It was released in North America on 5 October 2010 and in the United Kingdom on 21 October 2010. Physical copies of the book include a one-time use code to unlock a unique weapon, the Shardborne, in Fable III. Digital copies do not include the bonus item.

Synopsis[]

The days of magic and myth are fading away, the days of industry and science are coming. As the aged last Hero sits upon the throne of Albion, two friends - the privileged Thomas and his loyal servant, James - set out for the East in search of a legendary beast: the vicious, rarely seen balverine. But their desire for adventure may be their ultimate undoing.

For although the age of Heroes is ending, dangers and darkness still abound in the wilds of Albion. And as they travel, they encounter both unlikely friends and unnerving allies who seek adventure of a different sort. Though Thomas and James seem on the verge of finding their quarry, they may not live to tell the tale. Because their quarry has just found them.

Plot[]

To ease understandment of the plot:
  • Italic text is for events that happened in the present.
  • Common text is for events that happened in the story told by the Storyteller.

The story begins with an elderly King of a faraway land thinking about legends of heroes of the distant lands, as he himself isn’t one. The closer to hero he ever knew, he thought, was the Duke of Overland a noble who often departed in excursions. While sitting alone in the Royal Gardens he is startled by the arrival of an unknown man who started to tell a real tale of true heroes after the king confided him his daily thoughts.

Many years before, in Albion a young man, Thomas Kirkman was having a recurring nightmare depicting the night in which a Balverine killed his older twin brother Stephen when they were younger. Thomas was awoken in the middle of the nightmare by his uneasy father who rushed him to see his ill mother who seemed to be in her last hours.

Thomas arrived at her bed only for her, in a delusional state, to mistake him for his late brother Stephen and confessing she always blamed him for his brother’s death and that she indeed preferred that Stephen had survived instead of Thomas. With this, she died leaving a much alive Thomas heartbroken.

By the morning, James Skelton, the Kirkman’s servant and Thomas lifelong friend left his family house in Bowerstone Old Quarter and headed to the Kirkman’s house in Millfields, only to arrive in the middle of a heated discussion between Thomas and his commerciant father who disapproved of Thomas lifestyle of reading books and daydreaming about heroes and beasts such as Balverines an how he had little to no interest in taking the lead in the family business.

After Mr. Kirkman left enraged Thomas retold James of the night Stephen was killed by a balverine and how he only escaped thanks to stabbing the beast in the eye with the dagger his brother had dropped. Up to that present day no one had truly believed in the story, as the balverine had mysteriously fled by the time the townsfolk arrived. People then treated the case as an unfortunate attack of a common wolf, as balverines had been particularly unseen for many years and thus were reduced to a mere legend.

The two then were startled by the intense smell of burned stuff only to rush out of the house and find that Thomas’ father was burning all of his son’s books and things that “kept him away from reality” as his father told. This was the edge for Thomas who decided to leave the house for good in order to finally hunt down and prove the existence of balverines. James promptly presented himself to accompany Thomas and help his friend as Thomas’ sense of direction was as bad as death and he himself wanted to see if the core of the legends were true.

The King was suspicious about the veracity of the story but the storyteller asked not to be interrupted and explained how heroes would often emanate a supernatural aura who would give their alignment away.

Back in the tale, Thomas and James had travelled up to Rockridge in a chariot with the companion of an ignorant travelling merchant, Sutter, who disdained of the men’s quest while mocking their stupidity of believing in legends about balverines. The coachman, in the other hand, took Thomas and James’ side and told them about the legend of the Hero of Southcliff who had slain a balverine in his youth. The coachman then advised the two men to head east towards the Mistpeak mountains on the border of Albion where they should be able to find the town of Windside and its vast library which should be able to help them track their goals on their quest.

Several days later, after crossing Albion and climbing Mistpeak, the two men arrived at Windside and after renting a room in the ran down inn they headed to the library which was located way higher in the mountain, being only accessible via a series of stairs. As the two men finished climbing the stairs, they were attacked by a feral snow cat. Before the men could properly defend themselves a dagger was thrown by an unknown figure who was hiding in the midst of the snow fog and killed the beast.

Once inside the library, the two men were greeted by the old librarian there, who helped the two find all but one of the books who could help them in their quest. Such book was the fabled Omnicron, who was said to contain all about the great legends of heroes and beasts of Albion. While Thomas read about balverines and their origin as men cursed by the Balvorn, James (distraught by the discovery) wandered through the library and found the librarian again. After telling the story of three great heroes who had tried fighting balverines in the east of the known world the librarian attacked James much to his surprise.

The old man accused James and Thomas of being accomplices on a conspiration to overthrown the order of the modern world and to be trying to steal the secrets of the heroes of the west while posing as balverine hunters. Before James could reason what was happening the man vanished and soon he met another librarian, this time an old woman who told him she was the only librarian at the time and rushed him and Thomas out of the building.

Back at the inn, James told what happened to a suspicious Thomas who couldn’t bring himself to believe James. Suddenly a huge northern man stormed in from the rooms into the bar accusing someone of stealing his precious ring. But before a real fight could ensue, Thomas was able to find out that a pack rat who was living below the floorboards had been the one who stole it. Such cleverness attracted the attention of a mysterious boastful man who was also at the inn, who presented himself as Quentin Locke.

Turned out that Locke somehow knew about the men’s quest much to their astonishment and also predicted that they would eventually meet again. Right after that the two were greeted by the norseman who wanted to thank them for the help and then gave Thomas a musket as a gift.

Thomas and James would them spend many days heading east, way out of the known Albion borders, hunting to eat and gambling, thanks to James amazing skills, on inns they happened to encounter to get themselves enough money to keep going east.

The King interrupted the storyteller and asked why the majority of balverines had been driven east of all places. The man responded that either they were running from the modernization of the world in the west or running towards something that would attract them, or even both at the same time.

James and Thomas had finally reached what appeared to be the end of their journey when they arrived at the east coast of the continent, but after heading south in the coast they arrived at the town of Seaside where they met Captain Rackam the captain of a ship docked in the port. Although he and his crew were bound for the town of Shorewall, they had cargo to pick up in the town of Blackridge on the continent in the other side of the ocean, so he agrees to take Thomas Kirkman and James Skelton there.

After setting sail, James and Thomas, who discovered he was prone to seasickness, found that a dog had sneaked in the ship from the town, and after Capt. Rackam tried to kill it James stepped up and adopted the dog as a way of saving its life. The female dog them was named Poxy Cur.

Thomas spent is time in the ship talking with the crew members and knowing about the stories of sea monsters while James gambled his way into a small fortune against the crew not knowing it would attract the men’s rage against him. Before James and Thomas could think of a way of calming the situation Poxy Cur took the money bag and ran into the ship’s lower decks and after following her the men discovered that Rackam and the ship’s crew were pirates.

Rackam and the pirates tried to attack the three but a sudden storm prevented the massacre to go on as they needed to keep the ship afloat, before Thomas, James and Poxy could escape on a lifeboat the ship was attacked by a kraken in the midst of the storm. Although the beast killed all the pirates and sunk the ship the adventurers managed to escape it.

Paddling their way to the nearest shore, the rest of the time the trio spent on the lifeboat was rather short and peaceful with the exception of a whale who scared the men.

The King was dubious about the possibility of the men having surviving the encounter with the Kraken but as the storyteller mentioned, the story was better off being true than made up.

Eventually Thomas, James and Poxy achieved landfall in the other continent and made their way till Blackridge. They were immediately struck by how different and less industrialized it was compared to Albion.  

The inhabitants seemed quite distrustful of Poxy, and the men noticed how the town had no dogs and after asking around they found out that the fear of balverines had led the townsfolk to kill any living being that could be associated with the beasts, which reminded James of the story of a city, Port Manteau, in which the townsfolk had killed all their cats as to be relieved of a disease which in the end was being caused by rats. Much to Thomas relieve it seemed that balverines were very much real in the other continent (although no one had truly seen them) other than just legends as in Albion.

Eventually they found out about Mrs. Mullins, a housewife who seemed to have lost both her daughter and husband to the beasts not so long ago in the road passing through Underwood, the woods surrounding Blackridge and wanted help to find the remains of the daughter. The hideous and blunt woman told them how her husband, Robert, was attacked and eaten by the beasts and Hannah, her daughter, was dragged away still alive into, and how Samuel, a young man had seen the scene and vanished after being drifted apart by Mrs. Mullins after telling her.

The men agreed to help the woman and set to investigate the scene. Using Poxy to track the scent of Hannah down one of the paths in a road fork, they eventually found out that a pig had been stolen from a pig farm near the place of the attack, and the farmer, an old mercenary, told them that balverines did not exist anymore in those woods as he and many of other men had gotten rid of the beats many years before and since then there had been no one around that could have committed the massacre of the Mullins. The farmer asked them both to bring the pig thief to him if they ever found out who did it.

The men then followed the other path down the read fork and after half a day they arrived at other village in the Underwoods where Poxy led them to a smithy, where, after asking the blacksmith if knew someone by the name of Hannah they were attacked by the man and his assistant. Suddenly a young woman emerged from the house behind the shop and revealed herself to be Hannah, the blacksmith her father Robert and the assistant Samuel, her lover.  

Turned out they had stolen the pig from the farmer and used its blood to fake their deaths in order to escape the abusive Mrs. Mullins and start a new life elsewhere. They told them that if they sought for real balverines they should look for Kreel, a mysterious yet famous balverine hunter who lived even far in the east in the town of Sutcliff

Thomas and James departed with troubled ideas. While Thomas wanted to keep their secret to protect them, James wanted to give their position to both Mrs. Mullins and the farmer in order to collect the rewards. The next day, Thomas woke up to find that James had departed without him to do as he wanted. After pursuing and reaching his friend, the men clashed in the street. But at that point, after walking hours alone with only his mind, James had already given up the idea of giving the ex-Mullins away and was ready to head back to Thomas. The men then made their peace and started heading towards Sutcliff.

The King then asked the stranger if the legends about one’s alignment and choices could really affect their appearance, and the man said it was correct, as heroes were no ordinary people and their choices would impact the world way more than an ordinary person’s would.

Days later they arrived at Sutcliff, which was even more primitive than Blackridge or anything the men could have imagined. In the town’s market a hooded figure stole James' money bag and tried to escape in the midst of the crowd but the men and Poxy pursued and cornered the thief in a cornered alley.

Before they could retrieve the money a group of the town’s guards caught up to them and the thief, who was actually a young woman, tried to fool the guards pretending to be the one being robbed by the men, but as James was able to correctly tell the containments of the money bag the truth was revealed.

The Sergeant then explained that accordingly to the town’s law her hand should be cut off right away as to pay for her crime and moved to do so. Much to everyone’s surprise, mostly for the girl, Thomas tried to reason against such savagery, but to no avail, and then he engaged the Sergeant in battle, but as the latter was way more trained, he was defeated. James however, who was way more willingly to let the girl lose her hand had to help Thomas and convinced the Seargeant to take all of them to the city’s Magistrate in order to solve the matter for good.

After being locked in the town’s cells for some time they were eventually brought to their trial in front of the Magistrate. James this time didn’t held back and vigorously tried to confront the Magistrate ways, for which the old man gave them all death sentence.

However, the girl then made her move and revealed herself to be Sabrina Kreel, daughter of Ethan Kreel, the most powerful man of the region, and with that, the Magistrate, filled with fear, gunned down the Sergeant who almost cut her hand and released the girl.

Thomas and James were thrown back at their cells, and soon enough Laird Ethan Kreel himself came to their encounter and had they released and politely apologized for his daughter’s behaviour. Thomas right away asked the man about the legends of his balverine hunts and a joyful Kreel invited him and James to his manor as he was in the last preparations before his next great hunting.

In the manor, Thomas and James were received as guests and soon they met the other honourable hunters that had being reunited to join Kreel in his next campaign against the beasts. Such hunters consisted of the adventurer Lady Molly Newsome, the duke Roland Shaw and scholar Dean Simon Carter. While Thomas was having his way among such people, James was more comfortable talking with the hunters’ servants. One man caught his attention in particular: Bell, a man with a heavy accent and hair that make him look like a lion.

During dinner, conversations were enrolling until Simon Carter started to clarify some legends as asked by Kreel. Simon told about the Triumvirate, a group of three heroes of the past, each one specialist of one of the heroes' abilities, who had fought balverines there in the east until being finally cornered at which point their sacrificed themselves in order to lay their powers secured until the day other people, worthy of becoming heroes in their places could reclaim their power to fight the evil they couldn’t. Simon also revealed that the heroes’ relics might have been magically sealed in order to secure it against the same enemies that had defeated them in the end.  

Eventually the conversations all drifted away from the same topic and Thomas left the table to wander in the manor. He found a strange room with a giant painting of the manor, painted directly in its stone wall with three small yet strange tridimensional spires that mimic the real spires in the real manor’s towers.

Suddenly, Sabrina appeared in the room and asked why Thomas had tried to defend her earlier that day, she couldn’t stop thinking about that. Before he could answer she kissed him and confessing that she wanted to start a new life, away from her past. That night, the shaken Thomas couldn’t sleep and Sabrina lured him to her room where they had sex.

The storyteller apologized for the turn of events in the story but the King seemed unbothered as he himself had already been young.

The next morning, after sneaking back and gathering his things with a judgemental James, Thomas and his companions joined Kreel and all the others to enter the Elderwoods, the woods surrounding Sutcliff. Kreel had made sure that all present would have equipped silver bullets and other weapons in order to properly kill the balverines. Poxy, however refused to enter the woods and remained outside.

After some hours venturing inside the Elderwoods without any encounter, but suddenly, after being startled by a passing pair of deers the hunting crew were ambushed by balverines hidden in the treetops. Although the servants fired their arms and tried to fight back, the balverines all targeted them and tore their bodies apart, eating them alive, all of them had this fate except for Bell who seemed to be the only one who managed to kill the balverines attacking him.  

Thomas managed to kill one balverine with the sword he had kept with him ever since the beginning of their journey back in Millfields, but was soon knocked out by another of the beasts. His last glimpse was Kreel standing among the balverines, not being attacked nor trying to attack the beasts.

Turned out that Kreel was a balverine himself, and even more, a high member of the Balverine Order, a secret society composed by human-turned-balverines who wanted to reclaim the world for the wilderness and rule it themselves.

James who had also survived the ambush was being dragged through the forest, just like the other honourable hunters, and Kreel confessed to him that he had given fake silver ammo to the hunters in order not to kill any member of Order and also filled the servants bags with lures so only them would be targeted, and that he and Thomas had been selected to help lure naïve hunters and noblemen into Kreel’s expeditions so more influent people would be captured and turned into balverines, expanding the Order. Suddenly Poxy Cur emerged from the woods and tried to attack Kreel who transformed into a balverine and killed her right away much to James’ despair.

Eventually James and the others were brought to a temple in the middle of Elderwood shaped like the face of a balverine where the ritual would happen. James was surprised to see a familiar man at the entrance of the temple: the coachman who had set their journey back at Rookridge. This man was revealed to be Lugaru, the leader of the Order.

Turns out that Lugaru was himself the balverine who had killed Stephen ten years before, and he promptly teased Thomas admitting to have been watching him ever since as to eventually turn him into a balverine under his own rule.

Suddenly the floor went up in flames and many balverines were quickly shot from the distance and a loud voice commanded Thomas and James to run. Turned out that Bell was able to escape the ambush and came to the men’s rescue and soon enough the three men were rushing through the woods while the balverines had to wait for the fire to burn out between them and their preys.

Bell revealed himself to be Quentin Locke who had been tracking the Order down for years and finally believed he was sure enough that he, Thomas and James were destined to take on the Triumvirate mantle and defeat the balverines of Sutcliff.

Although the two didn’t understand at first Lock explained that he had watched over the two ever since Windside, being the one who killed the snow cat to protect them and disguising himself as the old librarian who attacked James in order to prove that the two weren’t balverines in disguise seeking the Triumvirate's powers. Locke revealed that he had tracked the whereabouts of the Triumvirate to Kreel’s mansion and Thomas realised that the spires from the painting were the magic seal to their tomb.

Locke clarified that the ritual only turned people into sentient balverines if they were bitten when the full moon was high up in the night sky and that they had just a few hours to get the Triumvirate’s powers and defeat the Order if they were to rescue the hunters before they were turned.

Eventually the three arrived at the manor and fought off the servants who realised the three shouldn’t be there at all, but even though they reached the room with the seal, it didn’t open right away. Suddenly Sabrina walked in and much to Thomas horror she revealed herself as also being a balverine, her father had sacrificed her mother to Lugaru to turn him into a balverine and soon enough he turned her into one of the beasts when she was little.

Although Sabrina didn’t want to attack Thomas the rule of the Order commanded her to do so and she launched onto the men. In the fight, Sabrina was mortally wounded by Thomas and in her final moments she thanked him for allowing her to escape her cursed life.

Thanks to Sabrina’s blood being imbued their hands, the seal opened and revealed a passage down to an underground chamber where the men found the remains of the three heroes. After been allowed to get closer by the magic cast by the old Hero of Will as their intentes were to do good, each one of them took one of the heroes’ abilities. Thomas took the Quicksilver, the legendary sword from the Hero of Strength and thus he became filled with such hero’s abilities. The same happened with Locke as he took the Hero of Skill’s gun, the Black Dragon, and with James as he took the gauntlet the Hero of Will had fashioned.

As soon as they emerged from the chamber it closed, and Thomas had to stop James, who’s alignment was revealed to be corrupted, to use Raise Dead on Sabrina’s corpse as he wanted her post-morten state to aid them.

Back at the balverine temple, Kreel had feelings that something might have just happened as he has chills down his spine. In Sutcliff, a small pack of balverines were just to caught up to the heroes but were promptly killed by the new Hero of Skill with the Black Dragon.

The three new heroes departed to the Elderwoods but as midnight hour was already near James focused his will into casting a enweaved Time Control spell to stop the world from moving around them so they could arrive on time. Turned out that such spell extended only until the balverine temple, and thus the hunters who were chained on an altar saw the balverines being frozen in time while they remained in the usual passage of time.

However, James started to feel sick as he maintained the spell for too long and Locke said he didn’t have enough willpower to do so and so should lift it so he could be of use later in the battle. James then lift the spell and revealed that he had no strength left to walk, and so Locke rushed Thomas to leave him behind, and the latter reluctantly had to do so. Turned out that James was faking being weak as he had grew tired of Locke and thus, he abandoned the two and started to head back.

Unfortunatelly, as the balverines started moving again, Shaw gasped out of surprised and confessed to Kreel that the balverines had being frozen for a long time and the later realized what was happening and rushed Lugaru to start the ritual. At the same time Locke and Thomas battled their way through the woods until they reached the temple’s entrance, but were uncertain in how to proceed.  

The answer came when James, once again second guessed himself and decided to re-join the other heroes as he wanted to take revenge on Kreel for killing Poxy more than he despised Locke. As James casted fireballs and lightning in the balverines hiding inside the temple’s entrance, Locke and Thomas would come in, the Hero of Skill protecting the Hero of Strenght while the latter freed the hostages while the Hero of Will would guard the entrance from the balverines still in the woods.

James was so thrilled while killing balverines with such ease that he carelessly let a balverine come too near and thus he was slashed in the stomach.

Finally in the main chamber, Thomas and Locke were fast enough to arrive before any of the hostages were turned and in the fight that ensued Thomas revealed to have killed Sabrina and Kreel lashed onto him, knocking his sword away. Locke however, made a deal with Kreel while holding him at gunpoint, the latter would leave unscarred if he were to release Thomas from his grasp. Kreel agreed and Locke let him escape much to Thomas’ astonished. Turned out that Locke was bluffing as he had no bullets left and that was the only chance he had of saving Thomas

Outside the temple, Kreel found an agonizing James in the ground, and to take revenge on Thomas, moved to kill his friend. When asked about his last words, James unleashed a drain life spell, ultimatelly killing Kreel and restoring his own life, his wound cured. Poxy was avenged.

Just as Lugaru avoided the fight and was ready to bite Lady Molly, Thomas took the risk and threw the sword towards him, cutting his leg off and knocking the balverine to the ground. Thomas took the advantage onto Lugaru, who, after having both a leg and an arm severed off by the Quicksilver defied Thomas one last time and slashed his own throat, killing himself, forever preventing Thomas of achieving revenge for his brother.

By morning the three heroes and the three rescued hostages returned to the mansion after killing the last balverines left in the temple. The three heroes returned the relics back to the Heroes’ underground chamber, much to James’ disapproval as he wanted to carry being a hero to fend off evil while being unbeatable in the meantime, and once again the chamber was sealed. That noon the six survivors buried Sabrina’s body and went their separate ways.

With that, the story was over. The King and the Storyteller were then surprised by the sudden arrival of the Duke of Overland. Out of nothing, the storyteller drew his gun and shot the Duke in the shoulder, and for the King’s horror, who called for his guards, saw the Duke transform into a balverine before being but down by a second shot from the strange man. By the time the guards arrived, the Storyteller was already gone.

The King then realised that story indeed hadn’t ended yet.

Trivia[]

  • The story begins with an Unknown King of an unknown country wandering in his garden. There he encounters a strange storyteller who is presumably Quentin Locke. The storyteller persuades the King to listen to his story.
  • The King assumes that the narrator of the story is Quentin Locke, however, in the beginning of the story the speaker knows Thomas Kirkman's thoughts. Making it a possibility that the narrator is indeed Thomas rather than Locke, especially since the thoughts of neither of the other Heroes are privy to the narrator.
  • In this way, the book is divided into two story lines. The first storyline being the King and the storyteller, and the second storyline being the story told to the King, about the young heroes Thomas and James and their adventure.

External links[]

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