The Hob's Bargain

TEN

I wiggled onto my stomach to get away from the raiders' camp. The earth guardian's shaper, who wore the body of an old, old man with none of the infirmities such a body should have, wiggled with me. I wasn't sure if the earth guardian sent him to watch over us, or to keep the shaper out of trouble.

The hob moved much more quietly than either of us, his gray coloring and brown clothes blending into the early morning light so well, that he almost disappeared in the grasses without magic.

The raiders had chosen to hide their camp in the trees, reasoning that if we couldn't find it, we wouldn't be sneaking up on them from the forest. Even so, they would keep a heavy guard on that side of the camp because the trees afforded an attacking enemy good cover.

We'd sneaked up on them from the field side because they wouldn't be looking for trouble from there, and because we had the hob's ability to hide in plain sight. I'd decided to count sleepers for Koret, so we'd have a better idea of the number of raiders. There were fewer than I'd expected.

We were almost safe when it started to rain again, making the mud…

… soft under my fingers. Hunger was hard in my belly. I looked across the field of sleeping men and smiled in anticipation of the blood that would flow. I heard a snigger beside me and turned to hush that one. If they didn't hear us until we were upon them, there would be better eating. On the other hand, fighting was good, too. I remembered the feeling of bone breaking beneath my fingers and the feeling was good.

Caefawn's hand was hard over my mouth and his body covered mine, holding it still. I struggled underneath him, but he was amazingly strong. None of the bits of training Koret and Kith had given me had any effect at all.

Behind the hold of his hand I screamed in frustration, and a little in the age-old fear of a fish caught in a net. If he didn't let me up to warn them, the raiders whose camp we'd been spying on were going to end up di

I resorted to an old trick I'd learned when Quilliar used to cover my mouth. Caefawn's hand was locked under my chin, but I managed to stick out my tongue anyway. His hand tasted of mud and rotting leaves, but my resolve was rewarded when he pulled it away in instinctive revulsion. The mud removed the last lingering taste of remembered blood, but I wasn't sure it was really an improvement.

I spit out a piece of grass and grunted, "Get off me."

He rolled off. I gathered my legs under me, and sprinted back to the camp we'd just left. We'd almost made it back to the trees, and the first stretch of field I ran over had been turned by Daryn's plow, but hadn't been harrowed to smoothness. Plow horses didn't have much trouble with the ground, but people did. I fell twice, but used the momentum to roll again to my feet.

"Ware, to arms, to arms," I bellowed. If I was gri

As I pelted across the smooth part of the field, heading toward the rise where their camp was, it occurred to me that ru

I had time, ru

"Beware, hillgrims," bellowed a deeper voice just behind me.

It wasn't the hob, so it must have been the shaper. I glanced to my right and was treated to the sight of a hundred-year-old man ru

The men were on their feet and armed as I topped the rise. Most of them were looking at me—the moon was still old enough so they could see me in its light—so I pointed frantically behind them.

"The west, the west!" I screamed.

But from the swearing begi

Unfortunately, two of them remained. One of them was staring at the old man, who grabbed a stout stick from the woodpile and jumped over an empty cooking pot half as high as he was, all the while howling madly, "Hillgrims! Hillgrims! Fun to kill hillgrims!"

The other took a step closer to me, sword at the ready. "You?"

It was Quilliar. The other Quilliar.

I nodded. When he didn't strike immediately, I headed for the woodpile, too.

Quilliar was still waiting when I turned, his sword blocking the other man, who apparently had recovered enough from the sight of the shaper to decide I was a threat.

"Why did you warn us?" Quilliar asked.

Why indeed? Because I trusted Caefawn's judgment, I'd come to accept that the village might need them to survive. Acceptance was a long way from risking my life to save them. They'd killed my family. When I thought of it, I knew I would kill the raiders I'd killed again if I were given the chance. Why fight for them, then? The answer, when it came, bothered me. I shoved it to the side and gave them a simple answer they could accept.

"Have you ever seen a hillgrim?" I asked, an arm-long stick in each hand. "If you had, you wouldn't ask me. Besides, I suspect our village and your company are going to need each other once the wild fully recovers. The hob tells me that goblins and trolls are hard to fight."

He weighed my answer, then turned to the other man. "She's with us. At least for now."

He was right. I would welcome the chance to die for the village because I didn't believe they'd ever let me live with them. A sort of variation upon the adolescent theme of "I'll die, and then they'll be sorry." I would always be alone.

I heard the shaper's howl again and, involuntarily, I gri

I started toward the sounds of battle, more because I was distracted by my thoughts than because I was eager to fight. Because something had occurred to me.

I had never really been alone. Why had I thought that Quill and I were the only ones hiding what we were?

Fallbrook and Beresford both were thick with magic. There wasn't a family in either village who didn't have a near relative taken by the bloodmages in the last three generations. I could even make a fair stab at guessing who the village mageborn were: the ones who hated me the most. I'd felt so alone after Quilliar died. It hadn't occurred to me that I wasn't.

I darted around a tent and found a raider struggling with a hillgrim on his back. He'd dropped his sword and was trying to pry it off, but the 'grim had locked its jaws in the thick leather of a gaudy protective collar the raider wore around his throat.

My weapons were too stout to do what I intended, so I grabbed a pair of wooden tent spikes set nearby. Stepping behind them both, I slid my chosen weapons between them. I braced the free end of each stick against the raider's leather-armored back and used the leverage to force the hillgrim to break its hold or let my sticks crush its throat.

It released the raider, reached behind, and grabbed me across the shoulder, wedging its claws in the soft flesh under my arm.