The Hob's Bargain(23)

By the time he said "Enough," I was so tired that I stumbled while walking back to the fire. I knew if I just sat down, I was going to have some really stiff muscles in the morning. Maybe if I walked it out, they'd only be very stiff.

"I'll get some more firewood," I said, turning away from the fire. "What we have won't last the night."

"Best do that, I think," Kith said. "Wandel and I'll see about dinner."

"I thought the woman should do the cooking," said Wandel, teasing but still half-serious. He hadn't eaten what I could cook over an open fire.

"We'll cook," replied Kith, who had.

As soon as I was out of sight, I stopped to tie my boots. I could hear them talking... about me. A well brought-up person would have left.

"She startled me when she spoke to your elders," commented Wandel. "I've never seen her as a forceful sort of person. She's always in the back of the room, never speaking unless someone asks her something."

"Not talking when the men talk," agreed Kith. Was that sarcasm I heard in his voice? "Like a good little village woman." Yes, it was sarcasm.

"I've seen your village women. Most of them don't act like that." Wandel half-laughed, no doubt picturing Melly or the smith's wife.

"Hmm," grunted Kith. "Let's say her father's idea of a good village woman. Or her mother's. I'd guess it goes back to when Quilliar died - her brother."

"When you killed him," said Wandel. It surprised me that he knew that; he hadn't been in the village then.

"He was my best friend," replied Kith obliquely.

"I wondered about that." The harper grunted, and I pictured him tossing a chunk of wood into the fire. "From what I know of Moresh's berserkers, I wouldn't have thought you could act against orders."

"Neither did Nahag, or else I'd have been executed in Quill's place."

"So you think Aren's been trying to hide what she is so she doesn't get singled out by the bloodmage or the villagers?"

Yes, I thought, it had been hide or die.

"Hide from herself most of all, I think. It is hard to accept being different, hard to have people avoid looking at you, and still believe in yourself."

Yes, you'd know about that, wouldn't you Kith? I thought.

His voice changed a bit, becoming almost playful. "I do know that every time I saw her playing the grateful, submissive wife to that arrogant pup she married - "

Arrogant? I tried the word on Daryn. It didn't fit.

"I wanted to shake her. I kept waiting for her to wake up and put him in his place the way she always did Quill and me when we ganged up on her."

Perhaps it was Kith's voice that told me. It was just a shade louder than it needed to be. Perhaps it was the "arrogant"  -  Kith had liked Daryn as well as the next man. Kith knew I was listening.

"Daryn was just nicer than you two were," I said.

"If you'd waited on us hand and foot, we'd have been nicer, too," called Kith without pause. I heard Wandel's snort of surprise.

I laughed and set off, pushing the moment of self-examination behind me. When I'd traveled a bit, I stripped off my clothes and washed off the trail sweat in the shallow water of the stream. I used my tunic to wipe off, then dressed again. I pulled the tunic over my shirt, disregarding the dampness. It would dry before I got back to camp.

I walked for a while without collecting any wood. The way back would be soon enough - no sense carrying it any farther than I had to. The late afternoon had the peculiar yellow tint that happens only in the spring when the afternoon clouds gather threateningly in the sky. The shadows were deep, but where the light touched down, the colors were dazzling.

For the first time since Daryn died, I felt at peace. I knew Moresh wouldn't be back to kill Kith. Time would heal him. With aid from Auberg, the raiders would be driven away.

I stopped in a small clearing and decided that if I went any farther, Kith and Wandel were likely to come looking for me. I turned around and stopped abruptly. Standing on a downed tree, only a horse length from me, was a... well, a creature.

I felt no fear, only a surprised kind of delight. If he had been standing on the ground, he would have come up to my shoulder. The wildling was a fragile-seeming thing, his feyness blending into the odd light as if he, not I, really belonged to this world. His arms and legs were slender, almost spindly. The bones of his ribs and shoulders were clearly visible, though his belly was round.

He had the proportions of a child, his head too large for his small body. His skin was the warm brown of stained oak. If there were claws on the ends of his fingers, those fingers were long and slender like those of a great lady.

He wore only a pair of roughly made hide shoes and a loincloth. His pale, ash-gray hair was braided in complex patterns with colorful beads woven here and there.

His eyes were large, even in the oversized, inhumanly round face. Wide gray irises gave a strange beauty to something that might have been grotesque. His mouth balanced his eyes, being wider than any I'd seen on a human face. As I watched, a smile lit his eyes and touched the corner of his mouth.

"Hob?" I asked softly, half raising my hand to him.

His smiled widened, exposing the sharp, interlocking teeth of a predator. Before the significance of that registered, he launched himself at me. His arms closed with viselike strength on my shoulders as his head darted for my throat.