The Hob's Bargain(77)

Careful not to go too fast and get ahead; they might give up...

Intense red-hot agony as an arrow took Caefawn in the knee. His fall twisted the arrow inside the wound, which popped and cracked heartrendingly.

Daryn sat on Ducks back, shaking his head.

"You should have told me your nature before I married you. I would have known then that you would be the death of me, for that is the nature of all your breed."

I tried to talk, to explain that it was not my fault, but somehow the mounted figure turned into Poul cradling a wrapped infant in his arms.

"My son," he said proudly, dismounting and walking closer so that I could see what he held.

When I reached out to open the blankets, there was nothing but the tiny skeleton I'd last seen in Auberg.

Ani came from behind me, pushing me away. "Let me tend the child now, you'll make him cry."

I tried to explain that there was only a skeleton inside the blankets. But before I could finish, she turned back to me. The flesh peeled away from her face.

Poul cried out in horror and ran from her, leaving me alone with his dead wife. My sister.

"It's fine, dear," she said calmly, patting the blanketed baby that rattled every time she touched it. "I'm dead, too. Eaten by the pikka."

Rain began to pour down, slicking my hair to my head.

"Here," said Caefawn, his left leg scarlet with blood from knee to boot. "He won't cry if I hold him."

The arrow was still there in his knee, and it wiggled when he walked.

"Let me get that out for you," I said, kneeling in front of him.

"No!"

But I had already taken hold of the arrow and pulled it out. Lifeblood pooled on the floor and wouldn't stop, no matter how frantically I tried to seal the wound with Caulem's green tunic.

Caefawn reached down and touched my face. "Be at peace. Never you mind, sweetheart. Just remember my name is Neklevar; it means "light in the darkness." Someone should remember the name of the last hob."

"What does Caefawn mean?" I asked, hands wet with his blood. I took one red finger and traced it down my cheek, drawing one of the runes Wandel and I had found carved into a rock on Hob's Mountain.

He touched the rune gently, then his hand fell strengthless to his side. "A caefawn is a trader who tricks people out of their money. He sells a pot for a copper, but when you take it home, it turns into a feather and flies away."

Caefawn turned into a falcon and took flight, spraying me with blood. I followed him, running as fast as I could. But there was no sight of him when I came out of the trees and into a clearing. The earth spirit's snag sat there with the spirit upon it.

He leaned down toward me and said, "What are you doing here?"

I knelt before him, covered in the hob's blood, and lifted my hands. Blood pooled in my cupped palms and dripped to the ground.

"I see you've been busy, speaker," said the earth spirit, leaning nearer. "Look at what you've become."

I cried, for he said what I already knew. The tears turned to rain and thunder, and I became a pikka, feeding on the bodies of my dead.

I awoke in the early dawn with the taste of fresh blood in my mouth, and threw up on the ground. Shaking, I opened Duck's stall and took a mouthful of water from the bucket suspended on a hook near his manger. The wailing in my mind continued unabated.

Luckily I hadn't fouled my clothes. Ignoring the noise in my head, I used a forkload of hay to clean up the mess I'd left. I was just finishing when Kith walked through the door.

"If you'd asked, I'd have loaned you Torch," he said.

My mind was too busy to allow for clever replies, so I just nodded and leaned against the wall. I must have looked really bad, because he walked up to me and put his hand on my face.

"Not sick," I said, "just tired." My face felt stiff, and my mouth felt cold and slow. I wanted to bathe the stink from my soul.

"Rescuing Poul from a... what was that word? Pikka?"

I nodded, regretting it almost immediately. The movement brought a rush of pain to join the shouting.

"Merewich swears it's a wolverine, though he's never seen one with curly, black fur."

I grunted this time; it was safer than moving my head.

"Where were you going in such a hurry that it couldn't wait for the rain to let up?" He stepped close to me, touching my collarbone with his hand, staring into my eyes. I wondered if my pupils were pinpoints like the fetch's. "Aren, what's wrong?"

I don't know what I would have told him, but just then the alarm bell rang. Kith hesitated, then turned on his heel and ran.

I could just manage to walk, if I did it slowly. I set the pitchfork aside and picked up the cedar staff from where it had fallen on the ground while I slept. One end was black with dried blood.

By the time I left the stable, there was a fair crowd around the bell. I edged toward the front. Merewich, looking old and frail, stood several paces before the villagers. Behind him, Koret waited silently.

Facing them... us, was Rook mounted on a big, nervy gray. On each side of him were two men, also well mounted. Rook had a nasty cut on his lower lip and a bruise on the side of his face.

"... bought our services in the war," he explained. "But the lord was killed, and the side we fought for was losing. The other side had no need to hire, and ours had no money. We knew - the captain knew - if we continued, we'd be dead in a month at the outside. So he took us raiding."