Patricia Briggs

by The Hob's Bargain

  I twisted to look at the hob. He grinned back. It still looked rather alarming when done with fangs, but I was getting used to it. When he began backing quietly out of the brush, I followed.

  I decided I needed to be armed with something better than a knife. Kith said by the time you could use a knife, you were too close. Even an idiot could kill you. Especially if you were fighting someone bigger, stronger, and better armed. Most of the people we’d be encountering would be all three. When we came to a tree with good stout branches, I stopped.

  “You’re too serious,” Caefawn said, watching me hack at a solid branch of oak. “This should be fun.”

  I stopped hacking and turned to stare at him.

  “Of course,” he said, “it never hurts to be prepared.”

  He reached over and took the branch, breaking it off the tree as if it were a twig. Holding it in both hands, he fell to one knee and presented it to me, his tail curled around his feet.

  “Your tree branch, my lady.”

  As he’d intended me to, I laughed as I took it from him—though for some reason his actions brought back that last morning with Daryn. I stripped the branch of its leaves and thought, This one’s for you, my heart’s desire.

  The hob shook his head at me. “So sad.” He reached over and touched my cheek with one black claw. “Come, let’s find some more raiders to tease before you make me weep.”

  The second group we came upon had ten men in it as well. This time the man Caefawn chose wasn’t big enough to take two men to carry. When the rest of the group headed out, the direction they chose was right over the top of us.

  Caefawn erupted from the underbrush before they knew we were there. The sight of him—ears, fangs, and tail—stopped them where they stood. I knocked one unconscious with a clout of my stick before any of them started fighting.

  Satisfaction lent strength to my blows and speed to my reactions. I’d been waiting all spring and half the summer for this. While I swung my branch, I remembered Daryn defending my father’s body with a walking stick.

  These were lowlanders not much bigger than I was, but I wasn’t as strong as a man my size would be. However, they were startled and off balance, whereas I…I jammed the end of the staff into the diaphragm of the man who’d tried to take me from behind. If Kith knew what rage I was feeding into my blows, he’d have my head. Anger might make me careless, but it felt really good.

  The man I fought was not as good as Ice but better than Manta. If I’d been a man, I would have lost because he was better than I was, too. But he underestimated me. He brought his sword at my staff, thinking I’d be stupid and try to block it. Instead, I let it slide past and pushed his sword farther from his body, stepping into the opening I’d made. It worked just the way it had in practice.

  Neither my staff nor his sword was usable in such close quarters. I dropped the branch and drew my knife. It was so easy, so smooth. I jammed the knife under his ribs and touched his heart.

  His body took my knife as he fell, but I bent down and snatched up my staff. There were only two raiders left on their feet, and they were concentrating all their efforts on the hob, seeing him as the larger threat.

  As I watched, Caefawn’s tail caught the foot of the man to his left while he bashed the head of the other with his staff. He spun around in a jingle of beads and feathers and tapped the head of the man still tangled in hob tail. He did it without effort. So much stronger and faster than the men he was fighting, he could choose to let them live. None of his moaning foes were dead. I was the only one who’d killed.

  I waited for the flood of exultation, for release from the anger that had dogged my every step since that morning when I beat my hands bloody on the trapdoor of my cellar. I waited for triumph.

  The hob turned to me, though I noticed he kept one ear cocked behind him to keep track of his victims. The man I’d hit in the diaphram continued to struggle for breath, making the other man, the one I’d stabbed, seem all the more quiet.

  His face serious, the hob looked at me. I wondered if I’d violated some taboo by killing the raider, but after a moment he stepped to the dead man and took my dagger, cleaning it on the bottom of the man’s shirt. Though he did a thorough job, the knife he handed to me was hard to take back.

  I’d wanted to kill the raiders, all of them, ever since they’d destroyed my family. I dreamed of it at night, how it would feel to avenge their deaths. Instead, I felt sick and guilty.

  “Come,” said the hob, giving me another speculative look. “We need to leave before the rest of them recover.”

  I followed him into the woods. The next group we found were even easier than the first one. Not only was the man Caefawn brought down was the biggest of them. The rest of the party were lowlanders, three of them little more than boys. The leader sent all three of the youngsters off with their unconscious comrade. Swearing bitterly, the leader took four fewer men with him as he continued on.

  The fourth group we came upon was very close to the manor. The woods had begun to thin out, and the place we’d found to hide wouldn’t conceal us from any kind of determined search. That didn’t seem to bother the hob.

  The leader of the raiders wore a horn around his neck, and a bit of gold cloth, battered and bedraggled, dangled from his belt. After the hob’s quill had done its magic, the man knelt over his fallen comrade, drew his knife, and slit his throat. The rest of his men were silent.

  The hob shook his head in disgust. “The fool. Let’s teach him a bit of a lesson, shall we. Here, take this and follow me.”

  The underbrush where we crouched was dark, and I was distracted by what had happened. I took what he handed me and scuttled behind on my hands and knees as he approached the stone-faced mercenaries. Their leader said something short and curt, and one of the others nodded.

  We edged closer…closer. The soft, velvet-covered rope I held in my hand twitched, and I realized what it was. I banged my head on a low tree limb. It’s hard to pay attention to things like tree limbs when distracted by the…well, the peculiarity of holding on to someone’s tail.

  Caefawn kept going, though the cover was so thin now that if someone chanced to glance our way, they couldn’t help but see us. Bright red feathers don’t exactly blend into the landscape.

  “Hush, now, and mind you don’t lose your grip.” The hob’s voice was soft. The mercenaries, as jumpy as they were, didn’t hear him.

  Caefawn wove some magic and dropped from the sight of my eye sometime between one instant and the next. The only way I knew he was there was the reassuring pressure of his tail in my hand. I couldn’t, quite, see myself either.

  When the mercenaries started out, we did, too. I held my breath as we broke from cover. One of them looked right at me, but he called no warning. The dead man glared accusingly at me as we passed.

  Their progress disguised any sounds we made. Caefawn tugged me forward until we were so close I could hear the last man muttering angry swearwords under his breath as he guarded their rear. And I’d thought Kith could curse.

  When we reached the first of the manor gardens, the hob whistled softly. The swearing man turned to see who had made the noise, but the mercenary beside him cuffed him lightly to get his attention.

  “Nawt but t’bird—Look!” The last word was drawn from the man in a shout, calling everyone’s attention (including mine) to the edge of the garden.

  Nearly half again as tall as a normal deer, the kindred deer, nearly twice the size of any other kind of deer, posed motionless, as if to say “Here I am, worship me.” I’d seen a kindred deer a time or two, but they were rare here. I’d never heard of one that was white like this one was. His great golden antlers shimmered in the sunlight. Eyes blue as the sky settled first on the hob, then on me.

  For a moment I thought they twinkled with the same mad humor the hob’s did, but his gaze moved on. When it was through looking us over, the stag darted into graceful motion. The mercenaries, freed from the spell of surprise, dropped
their weapons and ran to follow.

  When we were alone, I released my grip on the hob’s tail. I’d been holding it so hard that my hand was stiff.

  “The white beast,” I said in awe.

  “If I find a safe place for you, will you stay there?” Caefawn asked abruptly. “The stag is a little too contemptuous of humans to watch out for his own safety.”

  “Fine,” I agreed. I think that if he’d asked me to stake myself out as bait, I’d have agreed to that, too.

  THE TREE LIMBS HAD LONG SINCE CEASED FEELING PRECARIOUS and had slipped into flimsy when the hob, climbing behind me, quit urging me farther up the ancient oak that dominated the grounds of the manor.

  “There, now,” he said, his voice a toneless whisper. “Without that thrice-damned road the oak listens to the mountain and will hide you from notice. The raiders are moving this way, so be careful.” He placed my hands at apparently random places on the swaying branches. “Stay here until I come for you.”

  “Mmm,” I said, which was as much of an agreement as I was prepared to make.

  He apparently thought it agreement enough because he slipped down. I watched him leave, then put my forehead against the tree.

  “Oh, Gram,” I said out loud, “hobs, hillgrims, sprites, the white beast…and the day is not over yet.”

  I’d killed a man today, not because I had to but because I wanted to. I thought about it and decided I could live with it. But I also decided vengeance was for fools. If I’d killed him only because I’d had to, I wouldn’t be feeling nearly this bad.

  His death hadn’t made Daryn less dead. Instead, I wondered if the raider’d had friends who’d mourn his passing.

  A movement below caught my attention. One of the raiders crept stealthily forward, scanning the perimeter of the parkland. My perch, which had seemed so high moments before, now seemed pitifully vulnerable. I missed the reassuring weight of my crossbow. Next time I went hunting hobs, I’d be sure to bring it.

  The man stopped just below me, crouching forward. He held a longbow and had a quiver strapped across his back. He was missing a finger from his right hand.

  I was still staring at that missing finger when the thin shaft of an arrow slid through his throat at an angle, emerging gore-covered from the skin on the far side of his neck. His body convulsed, twisting with instinctive desire for life. I watched as he finally stilled, and I got a clear look at his face.

  He was the man who’d shot Caulem as he went for help. Fighters, like farmers, often lose a finger or two, but I could not mistake the face.

  The irony of it all made me laugh. Whoever killed him had saved me from testing my resolve to not look for vengeance.

  As the raider’s eyes glazed, the blood that had pumped from twin wounds slowed as the beating of his heart slowed. There had been too much death in the past few months for the gore to raise more than a hint of horror. Horror was watching Kith’s face as he held down a man so Koret could cut off the farmer’s infected hand, crushed in combat.

  I looked around to see if I could find the archer. Hadn’t the hob said the raiders were looking for a couple of archers as well as Kith? Even though I was watching, he was almost to the tree before I noticed him.

  He wore a hooded, mottled green tunic and dark pants, and carried the bow that was Lord Moresh’s pride and joy. Moresh had gotten it from a traveling merchant who’d brought it from far across the ocean. It was an exotic and powerful weapon—and to Moresh’s chagrin, he’d never been able to draw it. He kept it on display in the manor.

  The archer nocked his bow again, using the arrow he’d pulled from the dead man’s throat. As he did so, he turned his head to the side and I saw his face clearly. Wandel’s harp-calloused fingers pulled the bowstring with the same deft skill they had on the harp.

  Almost gently he released the string. I tracked the arrow’s flight to its target. A man crouching on one of the low walls separating the herb garden from the park fell to the ground. He’d been so still, I hadn’t seen him until the arrow touched him.

  I almost called out to Wandel, but decided it might attract more than just his attention. Besides, the thought of the minstrel bending a bow that Moresh, a warrior born, could not, was oddly disturbing.

  With all of the problems of this summer, the steward had let the grounds go. Usually the park was kept much shorter, but the waist-high grass served as cover for Wandel as he slid forward on his belly, snaking his way to a tree closer to the wall.

  Something moved under my tree again. A raider armed with a crossbow scurried to the trunk, his gaze fixed on Wandel, who had chosen this moment to make a target of himself against the wall. The man under me spared no glance for his fallen comrade. He stepped on the stirrup at the end of his crossbow and cocked it with quiet speed.

  Koret and Kith had both assured me that my knife was no good for throwing. Not that it would have mattered, because I didn’t have any practice throwing knives. I’d have to try something else.

  As quietly as I could, I began climbing down to a less lethal (for me) height from which to jump. I climbed down as far as I dared, finding a limb that left me an unobstructed path to the ground. Balancing there, I urged him silently to move forward. I thought for a moment that he was going to try to take his shot from the shelter of the oak, but he stepped away to get a better angle. Trying not to think about the dizzying distance between me and the ground, I dropped.

  Even softened by his body, my landing was harder than I’d imagined. My knee caught him in the back of the neck and snapped the bone with an audible crack. After a moment, I rolled off him and dragged myself to my knees.

  “Aren?” asked Wandel in a whisper.

  I looked up blearily, realizing he must have heard the noise I’d made jumping on the raider and had come back to see what it was.

  I must still have been a little stunned from the fall, because I said, “I brought the hob from the mountain. I’ve got to get back up in the tree.”

  “Shh,” said the harper, pulling me away from the bodies, his victim and mine. “Are you all right?”

  I shook my head, pulling away from him enough to tuck my forehead down on my knees. When I spoke again, it was in a tone as quiet as his. “Sorry. Knocked the sense out of me.”

  “Anything hurt?”

  Feeling better, I lifted my head to meet the harper’s gaze. “No. I’ll be black and blue by morning, and my left knee is not pleased with me. I’ll get back in the tree.”

  “You said you brought the hob out of the mountain?” he asked cautiously. “Like the thing that attacked you?”

  I grinned at him then. “That was a hillgrim. Last I saw the hob, he’d sent a group of raiders out after a white stag. He’s wearing a brown cloak covered in feathers and beads. Don’t shoot him.”

  Wandel grunted. “A feather cloak sounds pretty distinctive. Any fighting man worth his salt would remove it before his enemies began using it for target practice. If he’s done that, how can I tell him from the others?”

  “If he’s taken off the cloak”—I scooted until my back was against the tree and slid up to get to my feet, a little rough on my back but it worked—“you’ll know him when you see him.”

  BY THE TIME I REGAINED MY PERCH, MY KNEE HAD BEGUN to hurt. I found a more comfortable position and scanned the countryside. I couldn’t see Wandel or the hob, but the number of raiders had dwindled significantly. I couldn’t see any organized groups at all, just a few raiders wandering randomly here and there. I closed my eyes just for a moment to rest them.

  “LASS, WAKE UP. WE’VE MORE WORK TO BE DONE.” I looked at the hob stupidly for a moment, then shifted incautiously and almost tumbled out of the tree.

  Caefawn steadied me, cinnamon eyes twinkling in his gray face. “Now, no sense falling out of the tree twice. This time there mayn’t be a nice fat one to break your fall.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a firmer grip on the branches, not questioning how he knew about my little adventure. Kith would
have known as much just by glancing at the ground under the tree. If he could do it, there was no reason why the hob could not. “If you’ll start down, I’ll follow.”

  It was hard climbing down with my knee stiff and sore, but I managed it with the help of Caefawn’s bracing hand. When we reached the ground, the hob bent and put his hand on my poor, sore knee and squeezed.

  “Ouch,” I said, jumping back. “That hurts.”

  “Let me look at it—there may be something I can do to help.”

  When he approached me again, I let him look. This time he was more careful when he put his hand on it. It still hurt.

  “Well?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “If I’d seen it when it first happened, I could have fixed it up tight. There’s nothing wrong that a day’s rest won’t cure. I can do nothing about the swelling—you’re not going to be able to walk far on that, at least not very quickly.” He pursed his lips and whistled a little melody.

  Since he was obviously waiting for something, I waited quietly, too—trying not to look at the dead men who lay nearby.

  I didn’t think it was obvious what I was doing, but after a moment the hob said, “They bother you?”

  There was no ridicule in his voice, nor censure, so I nodded. “I can’t help but think that the man I killed was someone’s sweetheart, someone’s son.”

  “He was,” agreed the hob. “Best you remember it, or you’ll become more wicked than he ever was. The only thing worse than those who don’t think about who they kill, are those who do, and enjoy it.”

  “Is that why you didn’t kill anyone?” I asked.

  He smiled, but there was no merriment in his eyes. “I killed a few today, but there aren’t so many dead here as are sleeping or wandering. I’m thinking yon village is going to need every head it has to make it through the coming troubles. But it won’t work as long as men like the one who chose to kill his own comrade still survive. I can’t sort the good from the evil, but there are some helping me who can.”

  I really didn’t want to know, but I had to ask just the same. “What’s coming?”