Patricia Briggs

by The Hob's Bargain

  The mountain shuddered under Duck’s hooves, and we fell. Luckily the slope was shallow, and Duck scrambled to his feet almost before I quite knew we’d gone down. I could feel the mountain’s rage, and knew my suppositions about the hob were correct. He’d told her where he was going, and she knew who’d told him about the bloodmage. She wasn’t happy with me.

  Fear sped Duck faster than any goad, and we jumped and dodged and wove like a shepherd’s dog as Duck fled down the side of the mountain. Tree branches caught at the cedar staff, but I held it fast.

  “I know,” I shouted, though I wasn’t certain the mountain would hear me. “I’m getting help.”

  Duck fell to his knees again as the solid footing shifted under him a second time. I steadied him as he scrambled to his feet, and he redoubled his speed. Great muscles trembled with his effort and his breath escaped in noisy gulps. If we did get off the mountain, there was a good chance he’d never run again.

  The brief break from the rain was over, and the ground grew wet and slippery. The mountain sent rocks tumbling after us, some of them as big as Duck. One crashed into a nearby tree, knocking the old giant to the ground in front of us.

  Given no choice in the matter, Duck bunched his hind legs underneath him and jumped with the power bred to drag an iron plow deep into the earth. I’d just enough warning to bury both hands in his mane and hang on.

  It wasn’t a graceful jump; he landed with both hind feet tangled in branches and went down for a third time. But those same branches cushioned our fall. I threw myself as far away from him as I could get, to give him room as he somehow scrambled up.

  Duck stood there a moment, head hanging in exhaustion. His chest was foam-covered, and a good portion of the water dripping off his back was not rain. His knees were cut and scratched from his earlier falls, but only the skin was damaged, as far as I could tell.

  The earth shook slightly one more time, but there were no more boulders or rocks. The sudden silence made me realize just how loud the earth had been. Now there was only the sound of the rain. A flash of lightning hit in the direction of Faran’s Ridge.

  “I thought you said there wouldn’t be a thunderstorm tonight,” I accused, but the mountain didn’t answer.

  The lightning meant there would be no time to get help. I didn’t doubt the hob could make it to Faran’s Ridge to confront the bloodmage, but it would take us mere humans a full day to get there.

  Duck and I continued toward the village at a slow walk.

  I didn’t doubt that the bloodmage would reach Fallbrook. I knew it. If I let go of the staff I held, I would see it, too. The vision hovered just behind my eyes. I gripped the staff tighter and tried not to think.

  I WALKED BESIDE DUCK ALL THE WAY TO THE INN. There were a few people out in the rain. The smith’s wife gathered her children together and hustled them into the smithy. I guess I must have looked pretty battered.

  Duck picked up his pace for a few steps when he saw the inn, but he soon slowed again. He waited patiently as I stripped him of his tack and wiped him off with a knobby towel. I put him in his stall and measured him a bit of grain. His chest was wet with sweat and rain, but cool from the long walk. I wouldn’t have to worry about giving him too much water.

  “What’s wrong?” Kith’s voice didn’t surprise me, even though I hadn’t heard him come in.

  I hooked the stall door and turned around. In the silence between us I played out what would happen if I told him.

  He would tell the villagers that it was between him and the bloodmage. They would let him surrender himself. His father was too ill to protest; Merewich could not risk losing what control he had of the village; Koret would see it as Kith’s choice.

  If the village gave Kith to the bloodmage, the mage wouldn’t harm the village. He would stay here; there was no other place for him to go. Me, he would kill, but he might be persuaded not to kill Kith because all of the reasons to kill him were gone. Though from what I knew and what Kith had said about him, that was not likely. Then what?

  If the earth spirit had not believed me when I told him we were not allied with the bloodmages, he would have destroyed Fallbrook’s food supply. What would he do when he discovered a bloodmage living here?

  I had the means to defeat the mage. I had known it all along—I’m sure the hob did, too. But I wouldn’t have done it for revenge or to save Kith’s life. But for the village, I would do what I wouldn’t for the man who was as close to me as my brother. In order to accomplish it, I’d need to confront the bloodmage alone. I looked into Kith’s eyes and knew he wouldn’t let me do that. So I lied.

  “Nothing.” No, that wouldn’t do. It had to be obvious from Duck’s condition that something had happened. So I added, “Pox-eaten hob. Went off to get himself killed.” The tears in my voice were real.

  Kith’s body tightened with…eagerness, I thought. “Where?”

  I widened my eyes at him. “What, and get you killed, too? Besides, he’s right; it’s his business.” His chance to drive away the demons that rode him at night. I wish I thought he’d banish them. I knew something of what the hob could do, and what he could not. Three berserkers and a bloodmage, off the mountain, were too much even for him.

  “I see,” said Kith, relaxing a little.

  If I closed my eyes, I knew I would see, too. So I reached over and grabbed the cedar staff I’d laid against the stable wall. Time enough for visions when I was alone.

  Focusing on Kith had helped. I wiped the tears from my eyes, so I could see him. Before I brought my arm down, Kith caught me in an awkward hug that was over almost before it had begun.

  It must have embarrassed him as much as it startled me, for he turned and took a few brisk steps toward the entrance. He stopped, then turned on his heel to face me. “Aren, I could love you no more dearly had you been my own sister.”

  “I love you, too, Kith,” I replied, wondering why he’d chosen this moment for his revelation.

  He nodded his head as if we’d been discussing the weather, and continued out the door.

  As soon as he was gone, I sat outside Duck’s stall and relaxed my mental hold on the cedar, though I left my hand on it. It hadn’t helped the last time, when the sight was strong, but it couldn’t hurt. The vision swept in like an unwelcome guest left knocking at the door too long.

  The bloodmage rode into Fallbrook alone. The streets were deserted. The only sound was the breeze whispering past the chimes that hung from several doorways.

  There was a tear in the mage’s cloak that widened and narrowed with the rhythm of his horse’s gait. The horse walked slowly. It looked as if it were held up only by the reins that the mage held in his left hand. His right hand held a handful of small wooden beads strung on a minuscule black chain.

  It ended there, by no effort of my own. I was glad it had. I knew enough. He would ride into town in the late morning from the east. He must be coming over Fell Bridge. I didn’t know why the streets were empty, but I knew why there was a howl of grief locked in my chest. The chain he’d held was the same one Caefawn wore in his ear. It was black with dried blood, hob’s blood.

  There in the shadows of the stable, I snarled with rage. I held that rage to my heart with all my will, for behind the anger were sorrow and fear. If I wasn’t successful, the village would die.

  I had the evening and night to gather my forces. I used the cedar staff and levered myself to my feet. Time enough for grief when it was over. For now I harnessed my rage. At the very least the bloodmage would know that he had been opposed. I owed that to Kith. To Caefawn.

  ELEVEN

  I led Torch from his stall. Duck had given all he had, and Torch was the only other horse I trusted not to run when the spirits came. He’d been trained as a warhorse for Kith, so he’d stand for things any sane horse would run from. It also meant he’d be testy with anyone but Kith on him. I was hoping he’d remember me from when I’d helped train him.

  I talked to him while I put Kith’s sad
dle on his back and tightened the cinch. “It’s partly for him, you know. If someone doesn’t step in, he’ll die. So you’re going to have to bear with me, just for tonight. Quiet, now, I don’t want him back here. I don’t want him to know what I’m up to, or he’ll fight for the wrong side.”

  I adjusted the stirrups, untying the laces, pulling the leather shorter, then retying the laces with the speed of long practice. There was an old waterproof cloak hanging at the back door of the stables. The deerhide it was made from was still soft and pliable despite its obvious age.

  Leading Torch, I walked out to the small run behind the barn. The field wasn’t much, just enough to let a horse stretch his legs a bit. It was surrounded on four sides by buildings, but there was a narrow alleyway between it and the fourth building. While I’d been in the stable, the rain had turned into a downpour.

  Wandel’s mare was turned out. She raised her head briefly, but when she saw it was only us, she dropped her muzzle to nibble at the overgrazed stubble covering the ground.

  Torch stiffened and blew air when I mounted.

  “Come on, Torchy. You know me. I’m not stealing you, just borrowing you for a bit.” I kept my body loose and my voice soft. If I got nervous now, he’d fight. I was counting on some very old memories to get us through this.

  His dark-tipped ears flattened and released, signaling his uncertainty. He stomped a front foot impatiently, then lifted both off the ground briefly. On Faran’s Ridge lightning struck again; I tried not to pay attention.

  I asked Torch to move forward. He hesitated before crossing the field in a stiff-backed walk. I set him through his paces: slow walk; speed it up; shift his front quarters to one side or the other; then turn attention to his hind legs. We sidepassed left, then right. By the time we’d worked into a canter, he’d decided I belonged on his back. I collected him and stopped him at the corner where the stable met the inn. By taking the diagonal across the field, I could work up enough speed for him to jump the fence.

  I set him at it. We’d take the fence at the opposite corner. It would make the obstacle he had to jump wider, but it would give him half a stride more landing room. It was no wider nor higher than jumps I’d taken on him before. But I hadn’t taken him out in a thunderstorm.

  Torch danced with eagerness, knowing, as horses will, what it was I intended to ask of him. He took the fence handily, resenting it when I asked him to slow to a walk. I intended to take him through the village by the alleyways; if we trotted, someone was sure to hear us. It would be best if no one saw me, especially riding Kith’s horse.

  The alleys in Fallbrook twisted around more than the roads—which weren’t exactly the King’s Highway. Some of the alleys were cobbled, and the heavy rain made them slick.

  I rode around the edge of someone’s storage shed, then down a gully into someone else’s backyard. That’s when I heard voices ahead. There were a number of people talking quietly. Torch stopped almost before I asked him. I couldn’t see into the next yard because of a bramble rose hedge and a sharp rise to the ground.

  I was still trying to remember who lived in the next house when someone screamed.

  I leaned forward, and Torch climbed the steep, mud-slick surface of the alley at a flat-out run. The hedge continued around the alley end of the yard, but it was lower, and Torch popped over it without slowing his headlong flight.

  There were six or seven people in the yard. One of them was down, rolling from side to side with something dark and furry on his back. In the two strides it took Torch to reach the man’s side, I saw that the animal was one of the odd creatures I’d seen in the Fell bog.

  Pikka, that’s what Caefawn had called it. I jumped off Torch’s back while he was still running and used the momentum to lend strength to the blow I struck with my cedar staff. It hit the creature in the ribs with a satisfying crunch.

  The pikka shrieked and, unlike the hillgrim, it let go and turned to face me. Pig-sized, intelligent eyes assessed me as I appraised it in return. Growling low in its throat, the pikka paced back and forth, looking for a path to me that would elude the bite of my staff. I backed away, little by little, trying to lure it from the fallen man.

  Pikka used magic to go undetected.

  If I’d been riding Duck, the second pikka would have killed me. As it was, I heard Torch squeal and felt the ground shake beneath his hooves. I turned my head just in time to see him strike another pikka behind me. My lapse in attention gave the wounded one time to slip past the cedar staff and attack.

  I turned farther away from it, and the pikka grabbed for the nape of my neck. It got a mouthful of hair and cloak instead. I dropped over backward, on top of the pikka, jerking loose the frayed strings that held the cloak to me. I rolled over without shifting my weight off the animal. Its sharp claws and sharper teeth were, for the moment, tangled in the tough old cloak. I tried to reach for my knife, but when I loosened my hold on the cloak, the pikka’s struggles increased and I had to take a better grip. I could see my knife, touch the haft with my elbow, but it was tantalizingly out of reach.

  And then it wasn’t.

  The knife slid out of its sheath and onto the cloak. Despite the thrashing of the pikka, the knife traveled smoothly up the cloak until I could shift and snatch it up.

  Knife in hand, I looked across the wet grass to the pikka’s victim. It was Poul. He’d rolled over onto his stomach and his eyes were on mine. He gave a short, painful nod, then his eyes closed as he grimaced in pain.

  My left hand held the pikka’s head against the ground while my knees on its shifting shoulders kept it relatively still. I drove the blade of my knife into its throat through the cloak. I stayed where I was until the creature was still.

  I looked up and saw the people who’d been gathered in the neat garden. I had to laugh at the irony. The pikka had interrupted a meeting of magic-haters. Poul’s mother was there, and the smith’s wife. I wondered if the smith knew his wife was involved with the people who’d killed his brother. No, I’d forgotten, he’d been told it was the raiders. Perhaps it had been—or the fetch, or any one of a number of deadly creatures. The pikka weren’t the only things invading the valley.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if the smith’s wife had found Touched Banar a burden she could do without—a grown man who couldn’t tie his own bootlaces without help. Had she encouraged these people to kill him?

  Since everyone was too scared to come closer—scared of me or the pikka, I didn’t want to guess—I left the pikka’s cloaked body and hurried to Poul. Poul, who’d saved me by using magic to give me the knife.

  Poul lay limp, but I could see his chest rise and fall. His shoulder was a mess. Someone should have been trying to stop the bleeding while I was fighting the pikka. He’d lost a lot of blood.

  I could almost hear Gram’s dry voice saying, “The bleeding will ensure the wound is clean—if it doesn’t kill him.”

  I stripped out of Caulem’s green tunic, wadded it up, and pressed it into the wound. Poul’s mother knelt on Poul’s other side and pulled off her apron. She ripped it into strips and began wrapping the cloth around his shoulder over the tunic, to hold it in place.

  “It’s bled freely enough to take care of most chances of infection,” I said, my voice sounding shaky to my ears. “My gram would tell you to leave the bandaging alone for a bit to let the bleeding stop.”

  “I’ve been tending my menfolk long before you were born,” she said in the same sour tones she’d always used to hide her soft heart.

  I backed away from Poul, glad he wouldn’t die—at least not today. My cloak lay in the mud where I’d thrown it. Like me, it was covered in blood. Clad only in Caulem’s thin linen undershirt, I shivered in the cold.

  I couldn’t look at any of the people in the yard. They were the core of the hatred that threatened the village every bit as much as the bloodmage and the earth spirit. I couldn’t bear it. So I walked to the pikka Torch had killed. Kith’s horse had done a fair job at pounding it
flat. I took a close look at the wounds and noticed blistering where Torch’s iron-shod hooves had touched flesh.

  I pulled the cloak off the one I’d killed. This one had taken far less damage. Long, black fangs showed through lips pulled back by death. It looked more like a small bear than a dog or cat, but its face was narrower. The pikka’s side was caved in where my staff had hit it. It would have died soon even if I hadn’t managed to slit its throat.

  Someone threw a dry cloak around my shoulders. I looked up to meet Poul’s mother’s eyes.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said abruptly. “I have business to attend to. Someone might get the priest—he and Koret have been studying the new creatures that’ve been plaguing us. Tell him that I think it’s a creature the hob called a pikka.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” she said.

  I looked away and nodded. “Thanks. If more show up, you might try fighting them with steel. The hob says that some of the wildlings are sensitive to it.”

  Torch was waiting patiently, his rump turned so he wasn’t facing into the rain. I looked him over for wounds as best I could in the dimming light. His legs and underside were covered with mud. He didn’t limp when I walked him out. I swung to the saddle and settled the cloak so it didn’t interfere with riding.

  “Aren,” she said.

  I looked up.

  “When people are hurt and scared, they do stupid things. Cruel things.”

  I thought about Touched Banar and glanced around the yard at the people clustered about Poul, people who almost certainly had something to do with Banar’s death. The smith’s wife looked up and met my eyes briefly.

  I rubbed my face wearily, heartsick, and said, “I hope that thought comforts you, madam.” I was going to do something evil myself—who was I to judge these people? “I hope it comforts me, too.”

  I think she would have said something more, but I leaned forward and Torch lifted into an easy canter, then popped back over the hedge.