The Beast of Bramble Lane

Offer

There's a boar in the lower fields that the children call the Beast, and for once the children are right. Thrice the size of any boar should be, eyes like coals, and it put Ned Haybury's cart in the ditch with Ned still in it. Something of the dark has touched it. They say such beasts are champions, and that a wise person leaves them be. I am asking you to be unwise.

While in progress

It roots in the lower fields at dusk. You'll know it by the noise. And the smell. Mostly the smell.

On completion

Ned will be glad, though he'll not say so. Ned is never glad aloud. Here: the Hold keeps a little put by against hard days, and if these aren't hard days I don't know what are.