The Hob's Bargain(36)

"... evil," spat Poul. I looked at him and saw only the mountain that rose behind him, the morning light highlighting the high ridges, the west-facing slope in shadows.

"The hob," I said numbly.

Poul looked taken aback. "The Hob? What does the mountain have to do with anything?"

I shook my head. The realization of what I could do began to make my heart pound. "No, not the mountain."

Briefly I saw again the face I'd seen only in visions. I pushed Poul aside and sprinted to the inn's stable, where I'd been keeping Duck when I wasn't using him for patrolling.

I grabbed his bridle, which I'd had mended, and slipped it on without bothering to take Duck out of his stall. He accepted the bit with his usual phlegmatic good humor, watching with interest as I scrambled to find a saddle big enough to fit him. The stable boy had been drafted to patrol, so the people who kept their horses here (Wandel and I) had to tend them themselves.

Not knowing how long it would take me to find the hob, I couldn't ride him bareback, as I usually did. Climbing mountains without a saddle would be miserable after a while. I cursed the time it took me to locate the one I'd used on the trip to Auberg. As I picked it up, the crossbow swung from its usual perch on my back, caught by a swaying stirrup. I was so used to wearing it now, I hardly noticed it, large as it was. But mindful of the task I'd chosen for myself, I set it in the saddle's place. Weapons wouldn't further my cause. If I ran into anything unfriendly, I had Duck and my knife.

By the time I mounted and set out of the barn, the elders' meeting had broken up and any number of people saw me leave. Duck caught my excitement and arched his neck, blowing like an eager stallion faced with a mare. I had to hold him back to a trot as I wove in and out among the people, ignoring their questions.

No one had said anything about raiders at the town bridge, so I assumed they would be concentrated at the eastern end of the valley for a while. I couldn't explain the urgency I felt, even to myself. It was a desperate conviction that I'd happened onto the only thing that could keep the tide of fate from turning against Fallbrook.

Duck's hooves clattered on the cobbles of the bridge as I settled him into a slow, easy trot he could maintain for a long time. Like everyone else, Duck had been honed by the necessity to survive this spring, but unlike many of our horses, he seemed to thrive on it.

The fields were barren of villager or raider, and even the songbirds seemed to have deserted the area. When I looked back from a higher place on the road, I could see a scavenger bird circling just beyond the manor house. Grimly, I turned Duck off the road and onto the narrow track Kith had taken me on this spring. The ground was rougher than the road had been, but Duck's steady trot didn't falter.

I watched his ears, trusting to his keener senses to let me know if any of the raiders were nearby. When he stiffened and brought both ears up to attention as we passed the sprite's castle Wandel had been so impressed with, I shifted my weight back to stop him. He didn't like stopping there, and let me know it by snapping his tail and dancing in place.

I took a deep breath because the raiders didn't bathe much. Since Kith had pointed it out to me, I'd smelled out several scouts whom I wouldn't have seen. Over the scent of hot, sweaty horse and hot, sweaty me, I could smell something sweet and aromatic.

Duck flattened his ears and bolted forward, making me glad I'd bothered with the saddle. He crow-hopped twice before settling into a thunderous gallop that took us well away from the clearing. I let him have his head. Whatever had startled Duck couldn't have missed the racket we'd made leaving; it would be best to put some distance behind us.

At last we came out from under the trees. As I rode beside the bits of cliff that had fallen here and there, I wondered exactly how I was going to attract the hob's attention.

He knew the moment she rode onto the initial slopes. It was the first clear communication from the mountain he'd heard since awakening, and it felt like coming home. He left off chasing the latest of the hillgrims who'd invaded his territory. They'd keep running anyway, never knowing he'd quit because they'd never seen him in the first place.

"Why did you summon her?" he asked out loud, just to hear the sound of his own voice.

The mountain couldn't form its thoughts the way the hobs did... had - not yet. Instead, it pushed until he understood what it wanted. The first part was easy. The woman had come for a hob's bargain, and the mountain wanted him to give her one...

"No," he barked, feeling his ears flatten and his tail twitch like a cat's. Instantly he was drowned in the flood of a millennium of loneliness. Tears rose to his eyes.

"All right," he said, at last. "All right, just don't expect me - or them - to like it."

The mountain had an idea about that, too.

When I first realized someone was pacing beside Duck, it startled me. Duck and I were still climbing the foothills, and there was a hooded man walking beside us as if he'd been there forever.

He was average in height, a little taller than I was, but so wide he looked shorter. I thought at first he might be stout under his cloak. A brief observation of his movements proved he didn't sway like a fat person. He walked like... I tried for a comparison, but the only one I could come up with was Kith - but this man must have weighed half again what Kith did. The cloak he wore was an odd touch. This was high summer, far too warm for such a heavy garment.