Patricia Briggs

by The Hob's Bargain

  I CALLED THE SPIRITS OF THE BOG FIRST, THINKING IT was only just to follow the order Caefawn had laid out. Ghosts, with their ties to bloodmagic, I would leave alone.

  The ground gave off sucking sounds as I stepped closer to the bog. My call was strong, driven by my anger and by my hatred of the kind of person I was soon to become. My call echoed in my head like a shepherd’s horn.

  The noeglins came, not just one this time but all of them. As my call strengthened, I could feel them inside my head, a great, dark wave of maliciousness.

  I’d learned a few things about magic from the hob—rituals to twist for my use. I held up a branch of mountain ash, what Caefawn called rowan, stolen from a tree in someone’s backyard. My knife in one hand, the branch in the other, I said, “By rowan and iron I bind you to me. By iron, rowan, and the bit of you I hold, you will obey my words.”

  The slight breeze wafting across the bog stilled for a moment as I spoke.

  “You will await me at the eastern entrance to the town tomorrow at dawn. There’s a two-story cottage”—where I’d been sleeping—“with moss growing on the roof and a maple tree set to the north of the main doorway. You will stay there, in the attic, until I call for you.”

  I waited until all the protesting was done before sending them off. I kept something of them inside me, imprisoned in that cold part of my mind. Evil, I thought, not cold. To fight evil, I had to become evil myself.

  I tested the power I held. It wasn’t a tithe on what the ghost had offered. But the ghost was old, older than the manor, maybe older than the hob’s long sleep—and she was gone anyway. I couldn’t use ghosts. The bloodmage used death magic, and he was more experienced than I—a valid excuse, but not the real truth. I just couldn’t forget Touched Banar’s ghost cuddling against me as if I could protect him. They had been human once; the newer ones could be people I knew. I couldn’t expose them to the evil I was doing.

  Torch shoved his head against my shoulder, and I turned to find him wet with sweat and white-eyed. I patted him consolingly, trying to ignore the noeglins’ presence in my mind.

  “Come on, Torch,” I said. “It’ll get worse before it gets better.”

  So I called the widdles from the gardens and houses, the afanc and fuath from the river, and the frittenings and groggies from the woodlands. Locking them in their own cells in my mind until I thought I might go mad with the screaming, the piteous weeping, the insidious seep of evil.

  The sun finished its run in the west, and the weariness of its setting bore down upon my shoulders. But Fallbrook couldn’t afford to have me give in to fatigue.

  The last of the groggies left my sight. Dizzy with the taste of power, unable to concentrate from the noise in my head, I turned toward Torch and stumbled forward. I didn’t see the woman holding his reins until I was near to touching her.

  She stood in the open, letting the pale light from the moon touch her face so I could see it better. Her face was ashen, the stubborn mouth tight with fear and sorrow. Her eyes held a wildness, like a trapped wolf. There was something strange about those eyes, and I stared at her until I picked it out. Her pupils were pinpoints, though the night should have opened them until her dark brown eyes were black as night.

  I recognized her, of course. “Fetch,” I said, though for some reason it was hard to twist my lips around the word.

  She smiled, putting Torch’s reins into my hand. As soon as the reins left her hands, Torch’s ears flattened and his eyes rolled so that I could see the whites. He pranced until I stood between her and him, but he was too well-trained to pull against the bit, though he shook with fear.

  “I waited for this,” she said, sliding the hand that had held the reins to my cheek. She stepped nearer and pressed her body against mine, her mouth to my mouth, kissing me wetly. “Waited to find you tired and alone.” She whispered it in a lover’s voice against my lips.

  I stood stiffly in her embrace. “Oh, sister,” I said, fear tightening my spine. Belief and fear were her weapons: fear of death and pain. “You mischose your time.” And I took her with the knowledge I had gained this night. I stole her essence and locked it with the gates of my mind. It was easy because I feared myself far more than I did her.

  I was becoming a bloodmage. I’d come to understand it wasn’t just the deaths that made bloodmagic so foul, but taking without repayment or consent.

  I gave her the same direction that I’d given the other spirits this night, and she replied, “I am with you.” Then she faded into nothing.

  I mounted Torch and he caught my fear, dancing and snorting until I thought I’d never get him headed home. I could hold nothing more. The meeting with the fetch left me shaking in spasms close to sobs. I was so powerful that I didn’t even need to fear a creature such as she.

  What I held imprisoned in my mind tainted me until I wanted to wash in the waters of the river, though I knew I would never be clean again—because I wanted the power I held, wanted to roll in it and throw it into the faces of those who’d killed Touched Banar. Here, I wanted to say, here is what you should fear, not the poor god-stricken man whose worst deed was less than a dust mote to my mountain.

  The trapped spirits moaned, but the fetch laughed with my laughter while tears slid down my face.

  TORCH WAS SWAYING WITH WEARINESS WHEN I BROUGHT him back to the stables in the dark. I wasn’t any better. The spirits under my control wailed and shrieked pleadingly until I wanted to scream at them to be quiet.

  Instead, I curried and rubbed Torch until he was clean and dry. I led him to his stall and grained him. I sat down on a bench and leaned against Duck’s stall. Daryn’s red gelding blew gently in my hair before wandering back to the shadows of his straw-filled box.

  Though I fought against sleep, fearing the trapped creatures would escape, my eyes closed…

  …running through the trees in the dark, faster than humanly possible, the pounding of feet, pulse, and the mad joy of the chase. Ah! This was more gloriously fun than anything he could remember in a long time. Ducking roll to dodge an arrow from nowhere that sent him halfway to the bottom of the mountainside he’d been climbing—all the better to avoid capture.

  Careful not to go too fast and get ahead; they might give up….

  Intense red-hot agony as an arrow took Caefawn in the knee. His fall twisted the arrow inside the wound, which popped and cracked heartrendingly.

  DARYN SAT ON DUCK’S BACK, SHAKING HIS HEAD.

  “You should have told me your nature before I married you. I would have known then that you would be the death of me, for that is the nature of all your breed.”

  I tried to talk, to explain that it was not my fault, but somehow the mounted figure turned into Poul cradling a wrapped infant in his arms.

  “My son,” he said proudly, dismounting and walking closer so that I could see what he held.

  When I reached out to open the blankets, there was nothing but the tiny skeleton I’d last seen in Auberg.

  Ani came from behind me, pushing me away. “Let me tend the child now, you’ll make him cry.”

  I tried to explain that there was only a skeleton inside the blankets. But before I could finish, she turned back to me. The flesh peeled away from her face.

  Poul cried out in horror and ran from her, leaving me alone with his dead wife. My sister.

  “It’s fine, dear,” she said calmly, patting the blanketed baby that rattled every time she touched it. “I’m dead, too. Eaten by the pikka.”

  Rain began to pour down, slicking my hair to my head.

  “Here,” said Caefawn, his left leg scarlet with blood from knee to boot. “He won’t cry if I hold him.”

  The arrow was still there in his knee, and it wiggled when he walked.

  “Let me get that out for you,” I said, kneeling in front of him.

  “No!”

  But I had already taken hold of the arrow and pulled it out. Lifeblood pooled on the floor and wouldn’t stop, no matter how frantically I tried
to seal the wound with Caulem’s green tunic.

  Caefawn reached down and touched my face. “Be at peace. Never you mind, sweetheart. Just remember my name is Neklevar; it means “light in the darkness.” Someone should remember the name of the last hob.

  “What does Caefawn mean?” I asked, hands wet with his blood. I took one red finger and traced it down my cheek, drawing one of the runes Wandel and I had found carved into a rock on Hob’s Mountain.

  He touched the rune gently, then his hand fell strengthless to his side. “A caefawn is a trader who tricks people out of their money. He sells a pot for a copper, but when you take it home, it turns into a feather and flies away.”

  Caefawn turned into a falcon and took flight, spraying me with blood. I followed him, running as fast as I could. But there was no sight of him when I came out of the trees and into a clearing. The earth spirit’s snag sat there with the spirit upon it.

  He leaned down toward me and said, “What are you doing here?”

  I knelt before him, covered in the hob’s blood, and lifted my hands. Blood pooled in my cupped palms and dripped to the ground.

  “I see you’ve been busy, speaker,” said the earth spirit, leaning nearer. “Look at what you’ve become.”

  I cried, for he said what I already knew. The tears turned to rain and thunder, and I became a pikka, feeding on the bodies of my dead.

  I AWOKE IN THE EARLY DAWN WITH THE TASTE OF FRESH blood in my mouth, and threw up on the ground. Shaking, I opened Duck’s stall and took a mouthful of water from the bucket suspended on a hook near his manger. The wailing in my mind continued unabated.

  Luckily I hadn’t fouled my clothes. Ignoring the noise in my head, I used a forkload of hay to clean up the mess I’d left. I was just finishing when Kith walked through the door.

  “If you’d asked, I’d have loaned you Torch,” he said.

  My mind was too busy to allow for clever replies, so I just nodded and leaned against the wall. I must have looked really bad, because he walked up to me and put his hand on my face.

  “Not sick,” I said, “just tired.” My face felt stiff, and my mouth felt cold and slow. I wanted to bathe the stink from my soul.

  “Rescuing Poul from a…what was that word? Pikka?”

  I nodded, regretting it almost immediately. The movement brought a rush of pain to join the shouting.

  “Merewich swears it’s a wolverine, though he’s never seen one with curly, black fur.”

  I grunted this time; it was safer than moving my head.

  “Where were you going in such a hurry that it couldn’t wait for the rain to let up?” He stepped close to me, touching my collarbone with his hand, staring into my eyes. I wondered if my pupils were pinpoints like the fetch’s. “Aren, what’s wrong?”

  I don’t know what I would have told him, but just then the alarm bell rang. Kith hesitated, then turned on his heel and ran.

  I could just manage to walk, if I did it slowly. I set the pitchfork aside and picked up the cedar staff from where it had fallen on the ground while I slept. One end was black with dried blood.

  By the time I left the stable, there was a fair crowd around the bell. I edged toward the front. Merewich, looking old and frail, stood several paces before the villagers. Behind him, Koret waited silently.

  Facing them…us, was Rook mounted on a big, nervy gray. On each side of him were two men, also well mounted. Rook had a nasty cut on his lower lip and a bruise on the side of his face.

  “…bought our services in the war,” he explained. “But the lord was killed, and the side we fought for was losing. The other side had no need to hire, and ours had no money. We knew—the captain knew—if we continued, we’d be dead in a month at the outside. So he took us raiding.”

  Rook took a deep breath and continued. “It was something he’d done before, though not recently. There were enough former bandits in our midst that those of us who wished to protest were outnumbered. There weren’t many.” His horse shifted restlessly.

  “Bastards!” spat Talon. The smith broke free from the crowd and took several running steps forward. “Killed my brother, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Kith slipped out of the crowd behind Talon and touched the big man on the shoulder, whispering something to him. I couldn’t tell what it was, but Talon relaxed a little. Perhaps Kith had blamed Banar’s death on the wildlings.

  Rook’s gray tossed his head, dancing a bit. When Rook saw Talon had finished, he continued in the same calm voice. “When he saw this valley, the captain decided we’d stay here. It was small with few defenses. He fancied himself lord of the manor, I think. Before anyone could change his mind, the earthquake hit, and we were trapped here.”

  “If we agree to accept your offer, what guarantee of behavior do we have?” asked Merewich in the long silence following Rook’s narrative. “Many of us have lost family to you.”

  “The hob suggested we camp outside the town for now,” replied Rook. “We’ll send no more than two men at a time into the village unless there’s an alert.”

  “At which time you fight for us,” Merewich stated, the doubt in his voice obvious. “Let me ask those whose families suffered the most from your predations. Jarol? You lost your brothers in the fighting at the manor.”

  “Aye,” replied Jarol’s laconic voice from somewhere behind me. I was dizzy, so I didn’t turn to look at him. “But I’ve another brother, a wife, and two children. Happen I would be happy if the fighting stopped.”

  Jarol was a mild-mannered farmer, slow to anger. A clever man, too. I wasn’t surprised by his reply. Nor would Merewich have been. That Merewich called upon him told me the headman wanted this truce, and was too smart to jump enthusiastically at it until the village was behind him.

  “Aren?” asked Merewich without looking at me.

  He took me by surprise, for I’d no idea he’d noticed me—besides, who would listen to me? “About what, exactly? I just got here.” The spirits I held, sensing my preoccupation, chose to fight for their freedom again. I could have drawn on the strength of one and held them all. I felt the power gathered for the asking, but I chose not to ask. Instead, I drew on the remnants of stubbornness that were all mine to use.

  “Aren?” Merewich frowned, turning his head.

  Kith shouldered his way to my side and gripped my arm, but I shook him off irritably. “They’ve come to ask for truce,” he said. “Their captain is dead, deposed by this man.” He nodded toward Rook.

  “She’s the one who warned us when the creatures attacked us from the hills,” said Rook after a moment. “It’s because of her actions I thought we stood a chance of sharing this valley.”

  I nodded my head. That was right. Silly me, they’d killed my family and…I bit my lip to clear my head. The impulse to cry “Kill them all” came from the blood lust of those I held and not from any need I had for revenge. Revenge I would save for the bloodmage. At that thought the spirits grew silent, but there was an eagerness now in their waiting stillness.

  For now, I had to think. I was a speaker; that should mean something here, too. If only I could think clearly. I had a talk with Kith once. He’d said something about the men he’d fought with….

  “Fighting men learn to follow the man who leads them—not just orders, but obedience.” My voice was slurring a bit, and I had to overpronounce everything so my audience could understand me. “They have to know what he wants and do it before he asks—otherwise they will die.” That much was true. “They cannot afford to ask themselves if what he wants is right or wrong, not if they want to survive. If they cannot fight together, they will die. Just like Fallbrook.”

  Poul’s mother was there, and I met her gaze. “The deeds of the mercenaries must fall upon their captain’s back.” Each person is responsible for his actions, I thought. But there was too much guilt here. If we didn’t give some of it to the dead, we would all drown in it.

  I took a deep breath through my nose. “Their captain was a raveni
ng beast—I saw him slay one of his wounded out of hand. The mercenaries had to follow his lead. Would you blame a herd dog for following the directions of the shepherd?” I looked at Rook. Who would have named a blond man for a raven? Perhaps it was all the sparkly things on his clothes. Steady, Aren, I thought, keep your mind on the business at hand.

  “This man is a decent man. I have seen that.” I paused, looking at the smith’s wife, Poul’s mother, and the others who’d been in the yard when I’d killed the pikka. “You all understand what it is to do a wrong thing because you feel you must.” Suddenly I was so tired I could barely form the words. “Let us have peace.”

  There had been magic in my words, but I couldn’t tell if it had done any good. I was too tired to worry about it.

  Merewich called another’s name, but I didn’t hear who it was. Merewich would make peace if the villagers let him. I worked my way through the crowd toward the stable.

  The morning sun was rising, and I had a place to be.

  TWELVE

  I saddled Duck, fumbling with the knot of the cinch. My fingers were clumsy, so finally I took the saddle off altogether. Holding the spirits seemed to be affecting my coordination; moving was like wading through deep water.

  Slowly, I climbed the side of the stall to mount. Duck gave me an odd look, but stood patiently while I steadied myself on his back. If I had thought I could walk to the far end of town without falling, I would have. Riding was better than walking, but only a little.

  Death, murmured the things that I held. Death.

  Now, when they pushed and tugged at the barriers I’d drawn around them, it was with eagerness for the kill rather than anger at being captured.

  I bent and picked up the cedar staff that leaned against the stall. Duck sidestepped abruptly so I didn’t fall off. I wondered how much of the weakness I felt in my knees was due to what I planned and how much to lack of food. I didn’t remember eating since yesterday morning, but every time I thought of food, I could taste the blood of my dreams.

  Outside the stable, the loud sound of men’s voices tried to draw my attention. But that part of the village’s survival was Merewich’s; I had other work to do. The sun had continued on its journey; I must have been in the stable longer than I had thought. There wasn’t much time now.