Patricia Briggs

by The Hob's Bargain

  He was ashamed I had seen him as he had been earlier.

  “He was conscious for a bit, he’s resting now. I’m no healer, but he doesn’t have the look of someone on the brink of death.” This was difficult—I didn’t want to hurt him. He was vulnerable now, and more tired than I was.

  “Kith, you’re not a monster.” He looked up then, but I continued before he could speak. “Danci’s breaking her heart over you—and you, you’re in worse shape than she is. I’ve seen you sitting outside her house at night, hiding in the shadows. Don’t you understand? Your choices are different now. There’ll be no bloodmage, no Moresh to kill you as if you were a hawk with a broken wing.”

  He laughed, and there was such bitterness and mockery in it that it hurt me to hear it. “There are no choices, Aren. Who do you think Wandel is? The king’s eyes and ears, sent to make certain that the nobles keep their bonds—and an assassin when need be. Why do you think Moresh was so generous with his hospitality? Did you think he was a music lover? There were other minstrels who came through here, and they didn’t stay in the manor. That mare of his is worth a king’s ransom—wartrained and royal-bred. Harpers don’t make that kind of wealth, not the kind of harpers who travel from village to village. The king sent him here this year to make certain Moresh kept his word on certain matters. He came to me and talked to me about it after we returned from Auberg. We made a bargain, didn’t we Wandel?” He didn’t raise his voice or look away from me as he spoke the last.

  “Yes.” The harper stood halfway down the slope leading to the cairn.

  I could see his face clearly in the afternoon sun. There was nothing left of the funny, sweet-talking harper that I knew. His eyes were as blank of emotion as his face. “We understand each other,” he said.

  “I am needed now,” continued Kith. “When the danger is past, when the raiders are gone, then he will take care of the problem. Or”—he smiled, grinned, really—though there was no humor in his eyes—“maybe the problem will be taken care of for him.”

  If I said anything, it would be the wrong thing. I wanted to hit both of them, to scream at them—make them see reason. Stupid men who couldn’t see the world had changed, was still changing while they remained caught up in what had been.

  “Let’s get Albrin to the inn, where someone who knows what they’re doing can help him,” I said finally. Fight the most immediate battles first.

  Kith slipped back into the cairn, leaving me to glare balefully at Wandel. The unfamiliar coldness of his expression added to the surrealism of the day. Finally I turned away to rub Torch underneath the bridle’s cheek strap where the sweat gathered. I laid my forehead wearily on his warm neck, keeping it there until I heard Kith step out of the cairn.

  “Wandel, I need your help,” he said. “I can’t lift him properly with one hand, and I don’t want him hurt any more than necessary.”

  As he turned back inside, Kith said, “Don’t break your heart, Aren. I was dead when Moresh recruited me—don’t hold the harper’s vows against him.”

  “Vows I hold against no man,” I said darkly. “Deeds are an entirely different matter.”

  SEVEN

  By the time we got back to the village, it was almost dark. I slipped off my perch behind Wandel before we quite stopped. The Lass crow-hopped twice, making the harper soothe her so he could dismount. She hadn’t liked carrying double.

  “Melly!” I called from the yard.

  She came to the door of the inn, wiping her hands on her apron. “What is it? Oh, lords and ladies, it’s Albrin. And Kith as well.” She dashed into the public room briefly and returned with a number of patrollers who were gathered at the inn before practice.

  “No, no,” she commanded as they started to take Albrin from Kith. “Wait. I sent Manta and Ice to get the door from the kitchen. He’s been jostled enough.”

  The Beresforders had wasted no time; they showed up with the kitchen door on the heels of Melly’s words. Carefully, Albrin was lowered to the door.

  When I started in behind the boys carrying Albrin, Melly stepped in front of me. “Oh, no, you don’t. You don’t look much better than he does. I’ll have too much help as it is, don’t you frown so. I’ll do better not having to clean you up off the floor, too. You go right on in there and pour yourself some of the mead I’ve heating by the fire, missy. When we’ve settled Albrin, I’ll have a dinner brought to you. I’ve seen less tired faces on corpses, child. In with you.”

  As Albrin was carried up the stairs, I hovered in the doorway until Melly’s flapping apron drove me into the tavern. I took a clean mug from behind the bar and poured it full of the sweet-smelling mead. Though the tavern itself was empty, I could hear noises from the public room beyond that indicated people were there.

  Peering through the doorway, I saw a couple of the fishermen eating dinner at one of the tables. Engrossed in conversation, they didn’t look up as I wandered in. The only other person in the room was Koret, slumped against the back wall with the remains of whatever he’d been drinking in the glass. From the look of the table, the helpers Melly had commandeered had been drinking with Koret. I don’t know why he hadn’t come himself.

  He looked up and raised his eyebrows when he saw me. I brushed at my clothes somewhat ineffectually, but there really wasn’t much I could do. I sat down opposite him, gingerly, stretching my leg out before drinking the warm mead.

  “I heard you rode out after Kith,” he said. His voice slurred slightly. “Not the smartest thing to do.”

  “No,” I agreed, wondering if his surprise was at my survival rather than at seeing me here. Perhaps I ought to be offended.

  “Kith’s here. Wandel and Albrin, too,” I told him, though he knew, already. “I’m not certain if Albrin’s going to make it. They sent me here to get me out of the way.” There was a spill on the tabletop and I touched it with my finger, pulling the moisture around in odd patterns.

  Koret nodded, but he didn’t look excited. “Live today…die tomorrow or next week like the rest of us. I’m not certain it matters.”

  I narrowed my gaze on him. “Actually, I didn’t go out after Kith—at least not at first.”

  Koret knew how to listen even when he was depressed and half-drunk. He waited patiently, letting the silence linger between us like the caress of old lovers, expectant but not demanding.

  “Do you remember what I told you about the thing that attacked me on the mountain this spring? That someone killed it and healed my arm before Kith and Wandel found me?” Deceptive Wandel, sweet-tongued killer. “That the harper and I found an inscription there on the side of the mountain?”

  Koret nodded, straightening a little—though I think it was discomfort rather than interest sparking the move.

  I looked down at the table. “With the raiders controlling Fell Bridge, with Albrin’s people and the manor folk gone, I knew it was only a matter of time before the village died, too.”

  Koret gave me a small smile and sipped his ale. Doubtless, I thought, he’d seen it long before I had. He was experienced in warfare. My bench wobbled as Merewich seated himself beside me. I hadn’t seen him when I’d come in. He topped my mug from Melly’s pitcher.

  “So I went for help.” I looked at the table, wondering how I could get them to believe what had happened when I hardly believed it myself. “I found the hob—or at least a hob.”

  “So what is a hob?” asked Merewich.

  “Well”—I considered the matter—“he’s…not what I expected.” I thought of how I trailed behind him, my hand wrapped around his tail, and grinned.

  “How much of this has she had?” Merewich asked Koret.

  “Rather less than he has,” I said, though I could feel my thoughts clouding pleasantly. Adding mead to no sleep and no food wasn’t an aid to clearheadedness.

  I sat forward and braced my elbows on the table, trying to put the hob into words. “He told me to call him Caefawn. I told him…I don’t remember what I told him. He took me to th
e manor to show me what he could offer—in return for something the village has that he needs. The raiders were everywhere. He killed some. So did I. But most of them he put to sleep or had chasing a white stag hither and yon.” I took a deep swallow of the mead, feeling the warmth of it seep to my bones. I decided I was more tired than drunk. “He wants to meet with the village elders tomorrow. He said something about a hob’s bargain. I think he wants to help. I think he might be able to.” Certainly I was more tired than drunk. More tired than anything now, with the mead taking the soreness from my knee.

  “Tomorrow morning?” asked Merewich.

  “What does the hob want?” asked Koret.

  “Don’t know.” I yawned and folded my arms on the table, resting my forehead against my forearms. I closed my eyes.

  I could feel the two men stare at me. The bench shifted as Merewich moved toward Koret.

  “What do you think?”

  Koret grunted, then said, “If I hadn’t heard the stories of what the Beresforders faced getting here, I’d not believe it. But…I suppose we’ll know in the morning, eh?”

  “I want to believe it,” confessed Merewich, almost in a whisper. “I want to believe it very much—but I don’t trust in hope anymore.”

  WE MARCHED UP THROUGH THE EARTH AND INTO THE enemy’s home. Wooden boards and a heavy cloth covered the dirt beneath my feet, but I could still feel the earth’s reassuring presence….

  I awoke wide-eyed and breathing hard through my nose. Without questioning why I was in a strange room, I swung my legs from the bed and darted for the door. I bolted down the inn stairs, ignoring Koret and Merewich, who were running out of the public room. I sprinted to the barn to collect my crossbow.

  Too late, I thought, too late—but I hurried anyway.

  The night air was still. The moon shone silver and gilt as it touched the cobbles of the inn yard. The stones in the yard cut into my feet, and I stubbed my toe on something in the dark barn before my scrabbling fingers snagged my crossbow. Next to it I found the quiver with the pouch that held the goatsfoot.

  Too late, I thought feverishly, too late.

  Only a short way down the street from the inn the alarm bell was lit by the faint glow of the moon. The alarm bell was closer than the baker’s house.

  The moon’s illumination allowed me to take the flight of stairs that led to the bell rope without slowing. Caefawn must have been right about my knee—I hardly noticed it. Rough hemp cut into my fingers when I set my weight against the rope. I had to do it twice before the clear tolling of the bell rang through the streets.

  For a moment the stillness of the night continued, then people spewed from their houses, children in the arms of adults. The crowd grew with silent efficiency, gathering around the bell to find out where the attack was coming from. The response was better than the last drill Koret had run.

  “Belis!” I shouted to the quiet crowd, leaving off ringing the bell. “Has anyone seen the baker?”

  They were beginning to murmur a bit and shuffle around. I stepped up on the railing, holding one of the bell posts for balance as I tried to look over the crowd to see the fringes. Belis lived in one of the outskirt houses, farthest from the river. It would take him longer to reach us.

  If he could.

  I had seen just enough of the house in my vision to recognize the rug Gram had given Belis in return for a winter’s supply of bread. I still wasn’t certain what had invaded his house, but I had the impression that his house wasn’t the only one they’d tunneled their way into. Merewich and Koret were working their way through the crowd—it occurred to me that if something didn’t happen soon, I would have some explaining to do.

  No one would listen to me without proof, not if matters had gotten far enough out of hand that the villagers killed Touched Banar. If Kith were in the crowd, it wouldn’t have mattered. No one gainsaid Kith, and I could count on him to back me up. But Kith didn’t come out of the inn.

  Just as I was ready to give in to despair (too late, too late), I saw a group of people coming down a side street from the north side of town. Belis, tall and thin, stood out from the crowd, and I felt something inside me relax.

  I set the nut and pulled out the goatsfoot, using it to draw the string to the nut and hook it. I pulled a bolt from the quiver and set it in place. The bow at the ready, I aimed for the darkness behind the small group of people who joined the rest of the village.

  “Aren?” Koret’s voice was a soft murmur as he mounted the stairs. Cautious.

  It occurred to me that I must appear a bit touched, standing on the railing, wearing a man’s nightshirt, and aiming a bow at the shadows no one…. But they ought to expect madness from someone who saw visions. Visions that had saved at least one man this morning.

  There! I loosed the bolt and drew again, swearing at the time it took. After half a season’s drilling, I no longer felt the strain in my forearms every time I cocked the bow, but it was not effortless and I wasn’t as fast as I should be. The crossbow was not as quick as a longbow, and Kith, using one of the stirrup-drawn wooden bows, could outdraw me even with only one arm. But I could shoot almost as far as a good longbowman, and I hit what I aimed at.

  “Damn it, girl,” bellowed Koret, reaching for my bow, but a shout near the northeastern corner of the crowd stopped him.

  There was a shift in the people as they turned to face the enemy gradually emerging from the side street Belis had come from only a few moments earlier. Someone called an order; children began to filter in from the edges to gather under the bell podium. All at once the relative hush of night gave way to the roar of battle.

  Koret charged down the ladder, drawing his sword and leaving me to shoot at will. I loosed a bolt at another movement in the shadows.

  Finally, from the darkness of the side street, a swarm of…something boiled into the street. In the uncertain light, I couldn’t see them well. Better, I thought, if I didn’t.

  As ferociously as the villagers fought, we could not press back the tide of creatures. They were smaller than a man—I could see that much—perhaps only half as tall, though wider in the shoulders. Like a plague of locusts, there seemed to be no end to them.

  They weren’t hillgrims. If they had been, there would have been a lot more villagers lying in the mounting pile of bodies. Instead of the graceful movements of the grims, these new creatures moved with the stolid slowness of a great bull. Their arms hung almost to the ground, muscular and wickedly powerful—but mercifully slow. The villagers quickly learned to avoid the blows, and after the first few minutes I didn’t see anyone fall. All the same, they pressed the villagers back by sheer strength of numbers.

  Before I ran out of quarrels, Manta dashed up the stairs with two handfuls of bloody shafts.

  “Here,” he said shortly. “Koret sent these, says to stay where you are. You’re doing more damage here than you would in the thick of things.”

  He was gone before I could thank him. The arrows were warm and damp, and I wished for my gloves, which were, I supposed, somewhere in the inn with my clothes.

  In the end it was the sun that saved us. As dawn began to show over Faran’s Ridge, the creatures turned and sped away faster than they had come.

  Spent, I slipped from my post on the railing. Laughter came unbidden—for once my sight had been in time. Just this once—but it helped make up for all the other times when I’d been too late. It was quiet laughter with a slightly hysterical touch, so I let it drift to silence beneath the soft moaning of the wounded lying in the streets.

  I wiped my bloody hands on the tail of my borrowed nightshirt. It was unmannerly to stain someone else’s clothing, but I couldn’t bear the feel of the blood any longer. My hands ached from setting the goatsfoot. Training made me load the crossbow once more before I climbed down the stairs to see what it was I’d been killing.

  Geol the cooper was surrounded by a group of people trying to stanch several wounds. Talon the smith sported a nasty gash on his forear
m that he was awkwardly trying to bandage. Before I could offer my help, his wife bustled up to him. The bootmaker, Haronal, had a throwing ax embedded in his skull.

  I didn’t see any of the creatures bodies. At last I saw Koret kneeling beside a shuddering form near an alleyway, and went to him. The body was one of the things we’d been fighting.

  It was vaguely human in feature, more so than the hillgrim. Standing, it (or rather he—the creature wore no clothes) might have been waist high. Curly, dark hair covered his head and the lower part of his jaw. His features were manlike, except he had no eyes. A horrible wound opened his belly, revealing internal organs.

  “Is this what attacked you on the Hob?” asked Merewich, who’d joined us.

  I shook my head, staring at the dying creature. If it had been human—a raider, maybe—I’d have been down on my knees holding the wound together and calling for someone to sew him up. It wasn’t human, but it wasn’t…Before I could decide if I wanted to try to save it, it died.

  “Maybe the hob will know what he was,” I said hollowly.

  “Wait until you see this,” said Koret intensely. “Wait.”

  The weak morning light touched the body, allowing me to see clearly what was happening to it. The tip of his nose and the ends of his fingers and hands changed, darkened, began to flake off.

  Cracks split the skin of his face. The bloody gash in his abdomen quivered, filling suddenly with a dark, ashy matter that covered the details of the wound. The process sped up as it progressed. Each break in the creature’s skin gave way to a multitude, until there was no body left.

  Koret squatted on his heels and put his hand in the residual substance. My lips curled back in disgust as he rubbed it back and forth between his fingers, then held it up to his nose to smell.

  “Mulm,” he said, standing up and dusting his fingers lightly together. “Good planting soil.”

  “Pirates,” commented Merewich sadly. “They have no sensibilities.”

  “Ah,” replied Koret with a grin that told me at least part of his nonchalant manner was for our benefit. “I have noticed how delicate your sensibilities are, Merewich. That is why I didn’t taste it.” He wiped his hands on his pant leg. “So Aren,” he said, “what made you come out here and ring the bell?”