The Hob's Bargain(6)

He swallowed and looked uncomfortable. "Poul, he was with us, too. We left him and his da there to take care of things, but we were afraid, from the direction the raiders were taking, that they might decide to hit you up here before they left off."

I nodded dully. Ma, Ani, and her unborn child were dead, too.

"There's no one farther out than us," I said, telling them nothing they didn't already know. My voice was slurring, but I didn't care enough to correct it. "The old place up on the hill has been vacant since old man Lovik died of lung fever last winter. They didn't take much more from our place - just the pony, really. And Gram's silver mirror." I hadn't looked for it, but it must be gone, too.

"How is it that you escaped?" asked Kith suspiciously.

His harsh tones pulled my attention to him. I'd grown up with Kith, fished with him when we were children, danced - and flirted - with him before he'd been called to war. When he'd come back to us, he'd come back with a loss that was more than his arm...

"Time for you to go home, can't fight with one arm. Too bad, really, you'd become quite a soldier..."


I swallowed, forcing Lord Moresh's voice away, knowing that they were all watching me. I'd never had visions like this before, as if all I had to do was think of something and the sight grabbed it for me.

"It was stupid," I said, finally. I knew another time I'd have been angry and hurt at his suspicion. "I was starting down the stairs to the cellar to get some salt pork for... for Daryn's lunch when I heard them outside. So I hid down in the cellar with a rug over the trapdoor. I waited until it was quiet before I came out."

I walked past them then, to the wagon. I think Albrin asked me something, but I couldn't focus on it. I lifted up the quilt - it wasn't one of Ma's, she never used flowers in her patterns.

I stared at the bodies lying in the wagon. Death had marked them so they didn't look like the people I had loved. Someone had closed their eyes, but I tucked the horse blanket over Daryn's head anyway, climbing on the wheel to get close enough to do it. Then I covered them back over with the flowered quilt.

"I think I have some information that the village elders need to hear," I said, stepping down from the wagon.

"About the raiders?" asked Kith. "From what you said, you didn't even see them."

"Mmm?" I looked up at him. If I'd told Daryn about my vision, he might still be alive. I'd promised to tell him about my sight if something bad happened. An atonement I couldn't make now except by proxy, with the village elders standing in Daryn's stead.

I even had a good reason to do it, to take my punishment. Magic was loose in the mountains again. I could feel the pulse of it under my feet. I didn't know exactly how it happened, or why. But Gram's stories had always ended...

The old woman smiled at the children who were bundled in quilts on either side of her.

"But someday," she said, "someday, the magic will return. And with it will come the white beast, the sprites, and the giants. The gremlins, the trolls, and all that is fey."

"But Gram," piped the boy, "won't they be angry?"

If Quilliar had been right, Fallbrook needed to be warned.

I spoke quickly, hoping no one had noticed my lapse. "The quickest way to the village is back to our - to my home and down by way of the path next to Soul's Creek to the river."

"What do you want to talk to the elders about?" pursued Kith doggedly.

"I have the sight," I said.

There, it was said, never to be taken back. I could not have more effectively set myself apart from the villagers if I had slit my own throat. I couldn't bring myself to care. I would tell the elders, and pay the price they demanded.

The numbness that had protected me since I climbed out of the cellar was fading, being replaced by pain so great it made me want to scream. No one left of my family. No warm husband to huddle beside when I awoke to a crisp, spring morning - never again.

I had done my screaming in the cellar. I turned back down the trail toward - well, it didn't seem like home anymore. It had been that for - I glanced unobtrusively at the sun - only a little more than a day. The numbness settled back down again, like a soft quilt protecting me from the cold.

"What did she say?" asked one of the men I didn't know very well. I thought his name was Ruprick.

"She's in shock," said Albrin shortly. "She doesn't know what she's saying."

Kith's yellow gelding passed me and moved to block my path. Kith sheathed his sword and held out his hand. There was nothing in his face, but when I took his hand, he swung me up behind him, much as he had done in those long-ago days when I'd been his best friend's little pest of a sister.

His horse, Torch, danced a little, throwing me forward and giving me an excuse to press my forehead against Kith's back. If I cried, I could trust him not to tell. Though he'd become wary, behaving as if we all were strangers to him, he wasn't a stranger to me. I knew he could be counted on to keep secrets.

The group was slowed by the oxen, and Kith ventured ahead now and then, sometimes leaving the trail entirely. I could tell he was looking for signs of the raiders, though their trail had turned west just past the croft, away from the village. I hadn't seen any sign of them after that. Since Kith remained silent, I assumed he hadn't either.