The Hob's Bargain(43)

"Is that why you didn't kill anyone?" I asked.

He smiled, but there was no merriment in his eyes. "I killed a few today, but there aren't so many dead here as are sleeping or wandering. I'm thinking yon village is going to need every head it has to make it through the coming troubles. But it won't work as long as men like the one who chose to kill his own comrade still survive. I can't sort the good from the evil, but there are some helping me who can."

I really didn't want to know, but I had to ask just the same. "What's coming?"

"Ah." The hob pursed his lip. "Now that's something you shall see for yourself, mah'folen."

The sound of hooves on turf saved him from the back of my tongue. I didn't know what mah'folen meant, but it sounded loverlike, too familiar from a man - a hob - I'd just met. I turned to see a white pony jump the low park wall and canter toward us. For a moment the breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. Then it was merely a half-bred pony stallion.

He had straight, almost delicate, legs, but his neck was thick even for a stallion. His nose was convex, making his head appear too large for his body. Brambles were caught in his tail and in his mane, which fell haphazardly on either side of his neck, as if a comb had never touched him.

"Your ride, lady," said the hob with a bow, spoiling it by adding "I hope." He turned to the pony and said a few words in another language.

If the pony replied, I couldn't tell, but the hob motioned me forward. Mounting with my sore knee was even more interesting than climbing trees, but he wasn't tall, so I managed.

"Hold on," warned Caefawn, and sprang forward.

Without his warning I would have fallen as the pony surged forward to follow with a speed that lent validity to my first vision of the animal. This little wildling that looked like a hill pony made the fastest horse Albrin had bred seem a plodding workhorse in comparison. The hob didn't seem to have much trouble keeping ahead of it.

The hob who called himself Caefawn glanced obliquely at the woman who rode Espe. The white beast snorted at him, telling him that he was too slow. The run had been good for Espe. Like Caefawn, the beast needed a good chase now and then to keep life interesting.

He wasn't so certain Aren was better for this day. Perhaps it hadn't been a good idea to bring her with him. Convincing the villagers wouldn't be all that hard. He'd been watching their struggles since he'd become aware of them this spring. They were losing, and losing people grasped at any straw, no matter how strange it appeared to them. Despite their distrust of magic, they would take his bargain and regret it later. He was trying for something better. Aren might be the key to that - or not.

Killing the raiders had done something to her. Remembering the rage she fought with, he hoped it had been the right something. Vengeance was a cold, hard thing.

He'd taken her not to use as a spokesperson in the village, but to see the enthusiasm she'd shown looking at the warning stone on his mountain this spring. Instead, she showed him that she could perform the dance of death with courage. A useful quality, but not much fun.

The way we took wound through the orchard and berry brambles, over fence and hedge. My knee throbbed with every stride, but it was better when the hob and the pony slowed after only a few minutes of running. Never having wandered through the manor's pastureland from this direction, I wasn't certain where we were. Judging from the marshy ground and the thick brush, we might be close to the bridge. If the pony had been as big as Duck, we'd never have made it through.

Gradually I heard the murmur of quiet voices. Caefawn and the pony edged forward until I could hear plainly everything the raiders were saying. They used the king's tongue, not patois - gossip, not orders.

"Where's the capt'n?" The speaker was a boy with a thick southern accent.

"Off looking for some poor fool he can send into that copse to lure the berserker out of there." The second speaker was a man full grown, and his accent reminded me of Moresh and Wandel's. He must be noble-born, or raised among them.

"Why didn't he order us to do it?"

The older man laughed. "Too smart. He knows I'd refuse, and he's not good enough to force the issue - and he can't give the order to you while I'm here. Poor bugger."

"The capt'n or me?" There was a touch of humor in the boy's voice, and the man laughed.

"Neither. I meant the berserker. He's been trained - no way a one-armed man could fight that well without some training. He's got to know he has no chance. There aren't enough fighters in the whole village to push us out now - he'll have no rescue, but he'll take out as many as he can in the meantime."

"If he's no threat, can't we just let him go?" asked the boy softly.

"Not with Sharet as captain we can't." The older man sounded bitter, but after a moment he said, "No, that's unfair. I wouldn't leave him alive either. He's too good. He'd pick us off one by one while we slept. Bet you he's the one who got Edlen and those other fools. Edlen was nigh on as good as me with the sword, and from what I could tell, he didn't even manage to nick his attacker. No, the captain will lure him out in the open and I'll pick him off from a distance."

They were silent for a moment. Then the younger man said, "I wish, sometimes, that I'd never caught the capt'n's eye. That I was still back home herding goats."