The Hob's Bargain(30)

A soft lullaby filled my head. The breeze died, but the cradle still rocked. I watched as a mother sang her babe to sleep. The dead woman looked up at me and smiled - a simple, uncomplicated smile - and raised a finger to her lips, protecting the sleep of a child who would never awaken.

I walked out of the house and shut the door gently behind me with a hand that shook. It hadn't felt like a vision.

Sweat gathered on the small of my back. I knew I should have gone on and searched for the larder, but it was beyond me. Perhaps Kith could have done it, but not even the power of old taunts was going to make me go into another house.

Kith came out of a house on the other side of the narrow lane, and looked at me. Something in my face must have shown how I felt, because he crossed the street and frowned.

"What?" he asked.

"Well," I answered, smiling grimly, "at least we know we don't have to search for babies left unattended. The one in there was only a few days old, and the spell took it as surely as it took larger creatures." I decided not to mention the ghost.

Kith closed his eyes briefly and nodded. "I have enough food for the journey if there aren't many more people than it appears. What you have should fill in the gaps." He gave me a look that told me what he had found hadn't been much better, then he chose to change the subject. Soldiers were probably good at avoiding unbearable things. "I see you found a crossbow."

I gave it to him, and he looked it over closely before returning it. "Steel bow," he said. "They're expensive. My own is a composite, easier to draw but less range. Most of the weapons like this belong to noblemen - Moresh has one. I wouldn't have thought a town this size would have a weapon of such quality. It's too bad we can't use it."

"What do you mean?"

He set the bow on the ground, holding onto the stock first, then bracing it against his shoulder. He ran a finger down the stock and showed me two black metal pegs, one on each side.

"This was meant for a goatsfoot. You'll not be able to draw it by hand."

"A what?" I asked, trying to picture how a goat's foot would help to draw a bow.

"Goatsfoot," he repeated. "It's a device that you hook under the string and over the pins." He fingered the pegs he'd shown me. They didn't look like pins to me. "Then you pull it back. The extra leverage allows you to draw the bow."

I opened the leather bag and pulled out the contraption it held. "Is this one?"

He took it from me. "That makes this bow a lot more useful." Kneeling, he pressed the toe of his boot to the bow, holding it steady as he showed me how the goats-foot cocked the bow.

The back of my neck crawled suddenly, and I glanced behind me. But the houses all stood empty.

The sun was low in the sky when we finally set out from Auberg. It had taken longer than I'd expected to collect the two men who were out. Then the Beresforders had a bunch of livestock - cattle, sheep, pigs, mules, and a few horses (including Danci's dun) - in a larger paddock behind the inn. At least Wandel had worked the magic of his charm on the Beresforders: there wasn't a grumble among them at the hurry. And everyone except Danci avoided me as if I had the pox.

Once we set out on the road, the animals gave us little trouble, seeming almost as relieved as I to leave Auberg's shadows behind them. By the time we reached the lower slopes of the Hob, the children began to play and laugh.

Danci deposited her youngest in Kith's lap without asking and rode her horse to me.

"I hadn't realized what it was doing to us, staying there among the dead," she said.

I watched Kith struggle to hold the squirming toddler in front of him and guide Torch at the same time. But, interestingly enough, he didn't try to give the boy back.

"It would be enough to give anyone the creeps," I agreed with a smile.

I'd noticed the lift in my own spirits when we rode out of the valley. Comparing the rascal who held Torch's reins while Kith held him with the mopey, whiny child at the inn, I thought it was more than just the silent town that held us in thrall.

"Gram always said death magic leaves its mark on the land."

"Death magic?" asked Danci softly.

I nodded. "I don't think Auberg is a healthy place to be."

The hob heard them before he saw them. Refugees, he thought, watching the ragtag bunch climb out of the shadow-shrouded valley. Looking past them, he wondered what had caused the fog of ill that grew thicker as it stretched away from the mountain. Bits and pieces still clung stubbornly to the party riding onto his mountain.

He was exhilarated from the chase he'd given the pack of grims - they wouldn't be coming back to his mountain anytime soon. He rather regretted that; truth be told, they made great sport. He wished there were another pack around - he was in the mood to play.

The big horse the woman called Aren rode saw him and whickered a greeting, though the one-armed man's dun gelding, who saw him as well, chose to ignore him. Aren looked hollow-eyed and tired.

As suddenly as that, he decided to give her something to think about that might take the shadows from her eyes. He skittered down the tree and wandered among the riders. The knowledge that either Aren or the warrior - both touched by magic - might detect him added to the fun.

Just yesterday he wouldn't have been able to hide himself from any of them in the bright light of day, but the mountain was waking up from its long sleep.