The Hob's Bargain

"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, sca

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.