The Hob's Bargain

"Why not leave the lands to the wildlings?" I said. "There were other places to go."

He shook his head. "The wild was growing, pushing mankind back. I don't know how it was other places." He gave me a wry smile, acknowledging his tie to the mountain. "But here mankind was dying."

I walked with him, thinking about what he'd said. But I was also thinking about the arm slung so casually across my shoulders. Being courted by a hob wasn't as different as it could have been. But it was different enough, for me. I gri

So I didn't tell Koret the hob knew where the raiders were most of the time. When I patrolled, Caefawn joined me as often as not. Sometimes the earth spirit's shaper came, too, never in the same shape twice but never again in the body of anyone I knew. When I wasn't patrolling, the hob continued my lessons. Sometimes I wasn't certain whether he was teaching me, teasing me, or courting me—often as not, it was all three.

"Come on, then, the raiders aren't going anywhere today," he said, pulling me proprietorially in the direction opposite from the one I should be going.

"And how do you know that?" I asked, though I fell in beside him willingly enough.

He gri

"Did you talk to your 'acquaintances' about the thefts in the village?"

"None of them admit to it, though that's no surety. If you could talk the people into leaving something out for the little folk, it might go better for them."

"Better for whom, the little folk, or the villagers?" I asked. "The widow Shona left a handful of cookies out last night, and this morning something had unwoven the better part of the blanket she was working and tracked blue dye all over the walls and ceiling."

The hob chuckled. "I'll look at it. Happen I'll recognize the footprints."

We crossed Fell Bridge. There was no guard there. The hob had advised against it, saying the raiders were unlikely to harm the crops before harvest, or to take any of Albrin's livestock out of the valley. What went missing could be retaken closer to a time it would be of use. Put up a few herdsmen with the animals to guard against predators and give them orders to run at the first sight of the raiders. Koret had agreed. The raiders seemed to have the same philosophy, for no one had seen them on the manor side of the river since the last attack.

"Where are we going?" I asked, climbing over a stone wall that divided one pasture from another.

"To the bogs," he said. "I'm hoping to find a few noeglins or maybe a will-o'-wisps. You'd like the will-o'-wisps: when they sing, the flowers bloom even at night."

We found a large rock to sit on by the edge of the Fell bogs. The air was damp and chilly despite its being summer. The bog smelled of rotting vegetation and sweet bogflower.

"It'd be easier to do this inside the marsh," Caefawn informed me. "But then we'd get wet and smell like a bog for days. We'll try for noeglins first. They're about as strong as ghosts, and guaranteed to fight you with anything in their power. They'll be good experience for you."

We sat for a while. His tail snuck around my waist. I pried it off and set it politely between us with a pat. I hadn't realized just how strong his tail was. If he hadn't let me, I'd never have gotten it off.

"Is the rock uncomfortable?"

I quit twitching my hips. "Quite. So how do I call a hooglin?"

"Noeglin," he corrected. "Hmm, this might be a problem. I'll try to describe it, and we'll see what happens. Think of a creature formed from the stench of the swamp. They aren't too intelligent, nor yet too—" He broke off abruptly and pointed.

In the dark, only its movement allowed me to see the creature scuffling about the edges of the swamp. It had a dark, furry pelt and looked almost bearlike, but was much smaller. It might have been the size of a herd dog.

"Pikka," said the hob when it was gone. "They're a true animal, but I'd be careful just the same. They've a nasty temper—I'd rather face a bear than a pikka. Most times a bear will leave you alone."

"They use magic?" I asked. Otherwise, why would they come back after the bonds were lifted? I'd certainly never heard of a pikka before.

The hob nodded. "For stealth, mostly. A pikka can slip into a herd of sheep and eat a lamb lying beside its mother without disturbing any of the sheep."

"Caefawn," I asked, "where are they all coming from—the fairies and such? Spirits are immortal, and I know how you survived—but what about the pikka and earthens?"

"The guardian spirits like the earth spirit, mostly, I suspect." His tail slipped off the rock, almost as if it were accidental. I gave it a suspicious look. His eyes crinkled, but he kept his mouth seriously straight as he continued. "I suppose a few of them were here anyway, just hiding. The only time you'll ever find a dwarf is when he wants you to. The earthens are a manifestation of the earth spirit—not really creatures in their own right. Most of the things the village has been seeing lately are under the earth spirit's guardianship. Except, of course, the winkies that tangled the nets and made Cantier so angry. They belong to the river guardian."

"The mountain had only you?"

"Of my kind," he replied.

There was something in his voice. Pain, I thought, or at least sorrow, so I changed the subject. "Hooglins are formed from the stink of the swamp…"

The hob settled more comfortably on the rock. "Noeglins are mischievous. One of their favorite tricks is to creep up behind some poor unsuspecting traveler and scare the bejeebers out of him."

"Like a hob-of-the-bog?" I suggested.

He cleared his throat, so straight-faced I worried he was offended until he spoke. "Well, hobs don't generally eat their victims… unless they're hillgrims. Hillgrims taste really good raw, but they're best when cooked for a day in a pot with onions and butter." His tail now rested on the rock again, this time on my right (the hob sat on my left).

"How can they eat if they don't have a body?" I looked at his tail suspiciously, but it lay virtuously still.

"Very few creatures are pure spirit," he said seriously. "Ghosts are, and poltergeists. But all things are tied more strongly to either body, soul, or spirit. The ones you can call are tied strongest to the spirit. Sometimes, like the noeglins or the earth guardian, they can put off and on the physical body as easily as I shed my cloak."

"So you call them spirits, even though they have a body?"

"And a soul, most of them." He nodded. "There are three types of living creatures: mortals like humans and dwarves, soulfuls like hobs and cats, and spirits like the guardians and noeglins."

"Cats?" I said.

A flurry of sticks flew at us out of a growth of bog-weed. They hurt when they hit—and most of them hit. Caefawn snarled, startling me, for he sounded like a wolf and I'd been thinking of him as though he were human, despite his talk of eating hillgrims. Overlaying the smell of the bog was a acrid smell. After a moment I couldn't smell anything else.

"Right," the hob said after the deluge was finished. "There's a noeglin. You need to keep him from hurting you and get him out into the open."

"Come here, you nasty noeglin," I coaxed. A speaker's voice seemed to have some power with the earth spirit and the ghosts. Maybe it would work with a noeglin.

"Here I be," said a soft, sibilant, hate-filled hiss. Then, like the ghost, it attacked my mind.

It was easier to fight than the ghost had been, though the noeglin didn't attack in precisely the same way. I tried to block his advance into my head. It seemed to work best when I envisioned something solid.