Balefur was a villainous, ambitious fox, and a supporting antagonist in the Redwall book Outcast of Redwall.
Origin[]
Balefur was a tough, independent dogfox loosely attached to Shang Damsontongue's band. He comes from the far northlands, or at least doesn't contradict Swartt when he infers this. When Swartt poisoned Damsontongue, Balefur's band was assimilated into his horde.
Biography[]
As Swartt noted Balefur's independent and aggressive nature, he sought to impress him with a show of power. He had Balefur escorted into his tent in the presence of armed guards. However, this turned into a disaster as Balefur brazenly mocked Swartt to his face, and intimidated him with his battle-axe. This humiliated Swartt in front of his guards.
Swartt, knowing how corrupt and greedy Balefur was, got angry as he listened to his own hordebeasts giving an exaggerated account of this event, talking about how Balefur would usurp Swartt and be leading his horde soon. Swartt was just as ambitious as Balefur, yet much more intelligent. He sent his seer Nightshade to spy out the land, and she returned with new information about the place.
She had found two stoat witches, who protected their dwellings from evil serpents which had invaded a nearby quarry. So, Swartt seized his chance to betray Balefur, who was just planning on killing Swartt under pretence of Swartt being delusional and old. So Swartt had Nightshade tell Balefur, under guise of her loyalty to him as a fellow fox, about the alleged treasure in the quarry that the stoat witches protected.
Being as stupid as he was greedy, Balefur took the lie, hook, line, and sinker. Balefur took two foxes with him as henchmen and had planned to meet Nightshade at the quarry to split the spoils. Unaware that the entire quarry was full of hungry serpents, one fox threw himself into a pool and drowned, and the other two foxes were devoured, including Balefur.
