With a movement so fast it was almost imperceptible, Rocco Hildebrandt stooped down towards his barrow, took out a crossbow concealed under a rush mat, brought it to his cheek and sent a bolt straight into Pike’s mouth, which was wide open in a yell. Incarvilia Hildebrandt, née Biberveldt, swung her arm powerfully and a sickle spun through the air, slamming into Milton’s throat. The peasant’s son puked blood and somersaulted backwards over his horse’s rump, swinging his legs comically. Ograbek, moaning, tumbled beneath the horse’s hooves, with grandpa Holofernes’ secateurs buried in his belly up to the handles’ wooden facings. The strongman Klaproth aimed a club at the old man, but flew from the saddle, squealing inhumanly, caught right in the eye with the spike of a dibber flung by Impi Vanderbeck. Okultich reined his horse around and hoped to flee, but granny Petunia sprang at him and jabbed the teeth of her rake into his thigh. Okultich cried out and fell, his foot caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse dragged him across the sharp poles of the wattle fence. The brigand yelled and wailed as he was dragged and Granny Petunia–with her rake–and Impi–with her curved pruning knife–followed him like two she-wolves. Grandpa Holofernes blew his nose loudly.

The entire incident–from Pike’s shout to grandpa Holofernes blowing his nose–took more or less the same time it would to rapidly utter the sentence ‘Halflings are incredibly fast and can throw all sorts of missiles unerringly’.

Rocco sat down on the cottage steps. His wife, Incarvilia Hildebrandt, née Biberveldt, planted herself beside him. Their daughters, Aloë and Yasmin, went to help Sam Hofmeier finish off the wounded and strip the dead.

Impi returned in her green frock with the sleeves spattered up to the elbows with blood. Granny Petunia also returned, walking slowly, panting, grunting, leaning on her blood-spattered rake and holding her lower back. Oh, she’s getting old, our granny, thought Hildebrandt.

‘Where should we bury the brigands, Mr Rocco?’ asked Sam Hofmeier.

Rocco Hildebrandt put his arm around his wife and looked up at the sky.

‘In the birch copse,’ he said. ‘Next to the other ones.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

The sensational adventure of Mr Malcolm Guthrie of Braemore took the pages of many newspapers by storm. Even The Daily Mail of London devoted several lines to it in its column ‘Bizarre’. However, because very few of our readers read the press south of the Tweed, and if they do, then only newspapers more serious than The Daily Mail, let us remind you what happened. On the day of the 10th March last year Mr Malcolm Guthrie went fishing to Loch Glascarnoch. While there Mr Guthrie happened upon a young woman with an ugly scar on her face (sic!), riding a black mare (sic) in the company of a white unicorn (sic), who were emerging from the fog and darknes (sic). The girl spoke to the dumbstruck Mr Guthrie in a language which Mr Guthrie was so kind as to describe as, we quote: ‘probably French, or some other dialect from the continent’. Because Mr Guthrie does not speak French or any other dialect from the continent, a conversation was not possible. The girl and the accompanying menagerie vanished, to quote Mr Guthrie again: ‘like a golden dream’.