SUMMER  -  The Growing Season

FIVE

Sticks clattered together like an odd sort of music, much faster than I'd have thought possible when I started this a couple of months ago. Ah, missed one - this was going to hurt.

"Ouch," I said, stumbling backward out of further harm's way. I would miss the one aimed at my jaw.

Manta stepped closer to see the damage. "I mistimed my pattern," he apologized. "Are you all right, luv?"

"She's fine," said Ice, his brother, coming up behind me. "Raiders don't fight in patterns, anyway. If all you learn is patterns, you might as well be dancing." Despite his brisk words, he pulled my hand away from my face so he could inspect the welt. "Time to put the sticks up anyway. Practice is over."

I glanced around. Sure enough, Koret was stepping up to the upturned manger that served as a podium in the barn. I set my sticks in the open-ended barrel with a dozen others.

My knapsack was nearby with the crossbow next to it.

I was still a beginner with the sticks, but at least I'd been a natural with the crossbow. Though, as Kith observed dryly, it wasn't that hard, just point and shoot. I just pointed better than others. It didn't hurt that the steel bow shot farther than any of the village crossbows, almost as far as Koret's longbow.

By the time I came to the podium, practice had pretty much ended; Ice hadn't been the only one who'd noticed Koret. We were a scruffy-looking lot gathered around the front of the barn.

There were four Beresforders in our group, including Manta and his blue-eyed brother, Ice - whose real name, I had learned, was Eannise. Ice had been made an elder to represent Beresford, though I'm not certain I wasn't older than he was. Manta was older, I knew - but there was something about Ice that made him a man others would follow.

The Beresforders were easy to pick out because, other than Kith and me, the Fallbrook patrollers were boys - the ones who were too old to be content shuffling around town with the women and children, yet not old enough to guard the lands against the raiders.

The far fields had been abandoned more than a month ago; they were too vulnerable to the bandits' attack. We'd fallen back to protecting just the near fields, most of which were grazing lands and vegetable gardens. There wasn't enough grain produced on the land that was left to feed the village through the winter.

A month ago Merewich ordered the two bridges across the river guarded day and night, without actually saying he intended to claim the lord's fields for the village. Hard on his announcement, Albrin - whose lands had been among those abandoned - took over guarding the eastern bridge by Fell Lake, relocating his horses to the lord's grazing fields bordering the swamps. He, his hirelings, and a number of newly homeless men moved into a hay storage barn over the objections of the steward.

"All right now, lads," said Koret in a voice that would have carried over ocean waves. "You know there's been a movement afoot to restrict our patrols to the near fields we are actually guarding. I've talked to Merewich, and we've come up with a few alternatives, so for now your routes are the same. New orders are that if you see a group larger than five raiders, come in directly to report."

"What if they try to hit the town?" Someday I needed to learn how Ice could make his soft voice heard so easily over the shuffling noises of the group. "We lost ten men in that raid on Lyntle's - "

"Eleven," someone added, "Lyntle's son died this afternoon."

Ice nodded but continued without pause. "And at least that many more are injured. That leaves us with less than sixty fighting men in town if the patrols stay as they are."

Koret nodded his agreement. "We've talked to the steward, and the remnants of Lord Moresh's fighting men - there are twenty of them - are staying in the village as of today. They're being mixed with the teams of guards we already have, so there'll be someone with experience fighting in each team. I've pulled Kith from patrol to train them. I don't have time now. As you might have heard, I've begun an afternoon training session to teach some of our women how to defend themselves." He grinned, adding, "Some of the nastiest pirates I've ever known have been women. Look at Aren."

I stuck out my tongue at Ice when he cowered away from me.

"There's a couple of those old beldams I wouldn't want to tangle with," commented someone fervently.

"Women are sneaky," added another.

"Can we defend ourselves against them?" asked a boy.

"I've never managed to," admitted Manta. "But I've never minded losing, much."

The boy puzzled it out, then flushed. "I mean, can we defend ourselves against the bandits?" He blushed again when his untrustworthy voice cracked on the last word.

The people shifted uncomfortably. No one else would have asked the question, but we all waited to hear Koret's answer. Koret knew these things. He had experience.

The old pirate smiled serenely. "Of course." His eyes, I noticed, were very tired. "Aren, stay a moment. The rest of you to your patrols."

He waited until the others had left the barn before he said anything. "Touched Banar was killed last night."

"I know," I said. The smith's brother had been a gentle soul, if simple. I hadn't spoken to him much, but he'd been a fixture at the smithy.

"The official story is that the raiders caught him. Kith found him. He and Merewich brought the body back to the smith. Then Kith came to me and asked me to tell you to stay out of town as much as possible."

"Me?" I asked, surprised.

"You haven't been around town much anyway," Koret said, scuffing a bit of loose straw with the side of his boot. "You might not have heard... There's a group, the last priest's staunchest followers for the most part, who are becoming rabid about anything smelling of magic. They claim it's the village's wickedness that caused the One God's anger and shook the world."

I smiled without amusement, then stopped when it hurt my jaw. I'd forgotten Manta'd hit me. "I know about them. My brother by marriage is one of them. Kith thinks they're responsible for Banar's death? Because of the old tales about changelings?"

Koret met my eyes, not speaking a word.

"I'll stay out of town."

The summer night was rich with the sounds of the creatures who haunted the dark. Crickets sang from the fields, answered by the frogs in the nearby creek.

I stood in the sheltering shadow of my barn and watched the raiders poke around the empty cottage. I had stopped here deliberately, though the route Koret had assigned me actually passed a mile or so below this.

It had been several months since it had been safe to live here - not since we got back from the Hob, as a matter of fact. I'd come back and found traces of the raiders all over. So I lived in a camp just outside of town.

It wasn't the visions that kept me from moving into town. I no longer had to worry about going into visionary fits every time someone asked me a question, not since the trip to Auberg. The visions weren't gone, but the force of them had eased, much as the earth tremors that followed the big one had subsided.

I thought the cause of both was the gradual decreasing of magic to the level it must have been at before the bloodmages locked it away. The magic, it seemed to me, was like the steam trapped under the lid of a pot of boiling water. When the lid was removed, steam billowed out, then subsided to a steady mist.

What kept me out of town was the looks I received whenever I walked down the street. Melry, Wandel, and Kith were the only ones who treated me as they always had. Crusty old Cantier treated me like a long-lost daughter while his wife hung protective charms around her neck and glared when he wasn't looking. Merewich and Koret wanted me to find out what the raiders were doing, but I couldn't see the bandit's camp, no matter how hard I tried. I didn't know why that was. Kith suggested they might have a bloodmage's spell blocking my sight.

Some people just avoided me, sending nervous glances my way when they thought I might not be looking. It was the others I minded most: the ones who crossed the street to get away, then watched me with fear or hatred. People like Poul, my brother by marriage, and Albrin, Kith's father.

I'd thought it was getting worse lately, but I hadn't thought it would go so far as murder. Deliberately, I turned my attention to my former home.

The croft was already showing the lack of care. The first earthquake had pulled a shutter loose from a window; it had fallen to the ground since the last time I'd been here a few weeks ago. The garden fence had developed a decided lean, and I could smell the polecat who'd taken possession of the barn. The farm had kept me sane after my family had died; it hurt to reward it with such neglect. The raiders' presence tonight was a further indignity.

In the months since I'd come back from Auberg, I'd gathered quite a bit of experience watching raiders from the shadows, but it wasn't the same as seeing them here, in my home. I leaned into the roughness of the barn wood. Having something solid against my back helped me stay still. Daisy the cow no longer smelled bad - something had come up here a couple of weeks ago and eaten most of her.

The group of raiders I'd come upon was small - only three that I could see - though I suspected there was another one hidden near the thicket just east of the house. Something had frightened a sleeping bird out of the gorse bush anyway. If I'd seen them before they were so close, I would have avoided them. But they'd come just as I was leaving. There was no sense risking their seeing me by moving about, so I settled down to wait.

There weren't enough men to make a real raiding party - this bunch was probably out scavenging. Since they were doing it at night, they were probably scrounging without permission. Two of the men entered the cottage with a torch, leaving the third on guard just outside the door. I don't know what the one by the gorse bush was doing.

The men were on foot, so their camp might not be too far away - something that would interest Koret. Although we'd found the remains of a number of overnight camping places, no one had been able to pinpoint their main camp. If they had a camp outside the range of our usual patrols, it would explain why we hadn't been able to find them. Kith felt their camp would be some distance from where they attacked, so we'd concentrated our searches in the western slopes. Maybe they weren't as smart as Kith thought they were.

As I sat musing over possible nearby camping sights, I noticed movement in the darkness. It wasn't in the gorse bush, but I thought it might be the same man. I resisted the urge to move to a better location, knowing any movement might give my position away as easily as it had let me see the fourth raider.

A shadow moved near the cottage, and the man on guard disappeared into it without a sound. I stiffened at my post. Whoever it was had moved with amazing swiftness.

One of the men in the cottage cried out, and then the peace of the night dissolved in wild cries and... the sounds of an animal feeding.

It wasn't any of their fellow raiders attacking them, not unless they'd taken to cannibalism. I thought of the thing that had attacked me on the Hob. I'd told Merewich about it, and Koret as well, but no one had seen anything out of the ordinary since.

Well, maybe they'd take out the raiders and leave us alone. My caution increased by the ache that still troubled my arm, I concentrated on being very quiet and stayed in my place until long after the sounds had died away, leaving only crickets and frogs in their wake. Dawn crept out slowly, and in the early morning light, I walked to the cottage and surveyed the area.

The ground, dark with blood, was torn up in front of the door. A few paces away a sword lay in its sheath. Inside the house mere was little more: enough blood to prove both men had died, their weapons, and a well-chewed shoe. I wondered if it had tasted bad.

I started up the trail to the upper field, passing a dark stain where the fourth man had stood lookout. As I came to a switch in the trail, I heard a man cough. Quietly, heart pounding, I darted under the boughs of an evergreen, realizing only after I was there that it was the same tree I'd hidden in the day Daryn died.

I crouched motionless in Caulem's trousers and tunic, staring at a hole that was developing in the trousers' knee. It seemed to take a lifetime for the two raiders to move past my hiding place. As soon as they were gone, I dusted off my hands and set off parallel to the trail at a steady trot.

When I reached the field where Daryn and Father had been killed, I slowed to a walk. I hadn't actually seen it since that day. The plow was gone, but even without it I could tell where they had been cut down. The dirt hadn't been harrowed behind them, and short tufts of wild grass grew awkwardly around the big clumps of dirt.

There was a bench at the far end of the field, a short, sharp rise with a flat area beyond it. It caught my attention because we'd cut a stand of trees there to build the cottage, and the bare area we'd left seemed to be full of trees again.

I walked on, careful to blend in with the woods. After I'd walked to the cornerstone that marked the end of cultivated land, I looked across the field at the bench. From my new vantage point I could see that what had appeared to be trees were tents painted to match the colors of the forest. I'd found the raiders' camp.

I headed back to the village as fast as I could, wishing I were as conditioned as some of the boys (and all of the Beresforders, hillfolk that they were), who could run miles without stopping. The harsh months had toughened me, as they had everyone, but I still could only run a league before stopping.

The path I took brought me behind my parents' house, but I'd been by it so often on patrol that I could pass it with no more than a nod of respect for any unquiet spirit lingering nearby.

I needed to get to the village with my information. There was a bare chance that we could take their camp by surprise and bring the battle to them for once.

Because of the long time I'd spent waiting for dawn to come, I missed my rendezvous with the patroller scheduled to make the next tour of this part of the valley. Since daylight patrols were always on horseback, I'd hoped he might have waited for me, so I could use his horse to get back to the village sooner with my news.

Mindful of Touched Banar's death, I cut through the pastureland, coming into the village by the back way. I had to climb over the shoulder-high wall that gave Fallbrook what little protection it could. Koret's house was not far from the wall, so it was only a moment before I knocked lightly at the door.

Narania, Koret's wife, opened the door looking upset, but when she saw me, she smiled. "Ah, child, you're late in. I'm glad to see you're still in one piece."

I returned her smile, and wiped the sweat from my eyes. "Me, too. Is Koret here? I have some information for him - I found the raiders' camp."

"He was called to a meeting of the elders just a short time ago. For news like that I would think that they'd all be glad to hear from you. Why don't you go to the inn and find him?"

I hesitated. Koret's warning still rang in my ears. I had no desire to head through town in broad daylight. But the raiders' camp was important, and I should tell someone about the creature that had fed at my home. "I suppose I'd better."

I slipped in through the back of the inn. Melly was slicing pork for stew, but she took time to give me a friendly nod. There was no crowd here today. When I walked into the room where the elders were, there were few people there who were not on the council. Whatever it was that sparked this meeting, it must have been bad, from the looks on their faces. Merewich had the acorn, but he stopped speaking when I stepped through the door to stand before the council in the traditional place for a request to address the group.

"Aren," he said, as if women interrupted his meetings every day. Most of the rest of the council looked as if they were too disturbed to object - not a good sign. "Is this important?"

I nodded.

"Speak."

"I found the raiders' camp. It's on the hill overlooking my father's field above my cottage."

Merewich ran a hand over his face, then turned to Koret. "Do we have the manpower to take it now?"

Koret thought a moment, then shook his head. "No. They'll have it moved soon enough anyway. The manor is much more defensible." The weariness on his face went all the way to the bone.

"What happened?" I asked. Their reaction wasn't what I expected for the first chance we'd had to strike back at the bandits. Alarm and fatigue combined to let me speak out of turn. When I had left last night, there would have been plenty of fighters to launch some sort of attack.

"The raiders took the Fell bridge last night," replied Merewich without chiding me. He looked a decade older than he had this spring. "And the manor house as well. As far as we can tell, Albrin and his men were all killed outright. We wouldn't know that much, but one of the manor serfs escaped."

He nodded toward the corner of the room, and I saw a boy of about fourteen, thin and ragged, who was curled in a tight knot against the wall. His eyes were open, shifting from one side to the other. The tautness of his stillness reminded me of last night, when I, too, had sat very still so no one would notice me.

"Has someone told Kith?" I asked. Albrin, I thought, not Albrin.

"I did," said Merewich. "It's hard to tell how he took it."

I nodded and fought tears. If this last spring had taught me anything, it was that I could do nothing about past events. But I can make the present worse, I thought sourly. Well, best to get it over with at once. "Koret, for your count - four of the raiders died last night on my rounds."

"Did you..." began Merewich. He stopped when I shook my head.

"No, it wasn't me. Kith's the only one who can take them out in multiples. I came upon a group of raiders unexpectedly. There were only the four of them, so I took cover instead of sounding the alarm. It was dark, but I heard something attack and eat them." A few of the elders blanched at my bald telling. "I'm not sure what it was. When it was quiet, I came out and looked the area over. I'm not much of a tracker, next to useless in the dark. If you want to send Kith or Red Toam out to my cottage to read the dirt, they might be able to tell you more. If I were to guess, I'd say it was something - something like that thing that attacked me on the Hob."

They didn't like that, but neither did I. We'd all been hoping it had been the only one. No one else had seen anything like it since then.

"Strange how she's the only one who sees them," muttered someone behind me.

Koret ignored the remark. "Is that all?"

I nodded, and turned to leave. As I did, I saw the serf from the manor leaning wearily against the wall. "Let me take the boy out. He looks as if he's ready to collapse. I'll eat my boots if Melly won't take him. She can always use more help around here."

I didn't say Melly was a motherly soul who would take him under her wing, but everyone in the room except the boy knew it. Merewich gave me an approving smile, and I took that as permission.

When I extended my hand to help him to his feet, the boy eyed it warily and slid up against the wall until he stood on his own.

Despite it all, I stepped out of the inn with a smile. Melly could be overwhelming to people who were not used to her, and occasionally to those of us who were. I cherished the look on the poor boy's face as she'd herded him to the bathing room with the determination of a sheepdog at shearing time.

The bright light of day assaulted my eyes after the dim interior of the inn, so I didn't see Poul until I bumped into him. Because of my momentary blindness, I couldn't tell if he stepped in front of me deliberately, or if it was an accident. But if he'd still been avoiding me, he wouldn't have been close enough to bump.

"Witch," he spat, stepping back from me as if my touch could contaminate him.

He had changed even more than I had over the past few months. New gray streaks ran through his beard, which had grown straggly. His hair was uncombed and his clothes ragged. They hung on him because of the weight he'd lost - but everyone had lost some weight.

"Yes," I agreed mildly, trying to step past him. I liked Poul. I didn't want this ugliness, especially not now, while I was so worried about Albrin.

There were several people gathering near the corner of the inn. It seemed to me that they were just curious - though I hadn't been keeping careful track of who belonged to the radical faction. I almost didn't care. I just wanted to find someplace quiet where I could deal with Albrin's death - for I knew that if Albrin wasn't dead, he soon would be.

"Why don't you just use your magic to destroy them instead of us, witch? Or are you helping them? There are evil spirits haunting the old cemetery now - but I don't suppose I need to tell you that." He looked unhealthy under his tan. "If you can see so much, why didn't you see the raiders' attack?"

I remembered the light in my sister Ani's eyes when she looked at her husband, and pushed aside my grief for a moment. Instead of the embittered, angry man in front of me, I saw the tenderness in his face when he held Ani after Kith brought home our brother's body. I saw...

... my father's slow nod of thanks to Kith as he took Quilliar's limp corpse and helped lay it on the couch. Ani buried her face against Poul's shoulder and sobbed silently.

"His neck is snapped. Must have been a bad fall," Father said, not looking at Kith.

"He's been dead for three days," said Kith, wearing the uniform of Moresh's own guard, as he had for two years. He shifted awkwardly away from the family, setting himself apart.

"... 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.

He wore soft leather boots, rough-finished and undyed. His trousers, what I could see of them underneath the cloak, were dark brown, and there was some kind of embroidery on them. The cloak itself was of the same raw leather as his boots, but it was embroidered with all sorts of outlandish things. Minuscule red and black beads were sewn along the hem of the cloak as thickly as ants in their nest.

From his shoulders, strands of much larger red beads, some the size of walnuts, hung down in random lengths. Small, blue-black feathers were sewn into the hood, giving him the appearance of some sort of giant bird. In his left hand he held a wooden staff, dark and dull with age. The hand was charcoal gray and tipped with formidable claws.

I'd slowed Duck to a walk when we started the steep climb, and now I brought him to a halt. The hob, for I supposed it was he, stopped as well, turning to face me.

Under the hood of his cloak, his face was shrouded in shadows that seemed darker than the hood alone warranted. He did not speak, and now that I'd found what I had sought, I wondered if I could make him understand what I needed of him.

Finally, I cleared my throat and began, awkwardly, "My thanks, lord, for your rescue of me when the - "

"Hillgrim," he supplied, his voice as rough and earthy' as the bark on an old elm tree, though his accent was as native as any born to Fallbrook. "Your folks called them hobgoblins as well. But as they're neither goblins nor hobs, I don't use that name. Mucky-smelling things, goblins - though not as annoying as the grims. I am no one's lord. You may call me... Caefawn."

He seemed friendly, though the hillgrim had fooled me in a similar fashion. I frowned at him a moment. Something about the way he spoke the last sentence called my attention to it. He'd sounded amused. "What does Caefawn mean?"

He drew back as if affronted, but there was amusement in his voice when he answered me. "It is who I am, Lady."

There was a story there, and if Caefawn was his real name, I'd eat my cinch. He sounded too satisfied with it. I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering for a moment if I was attributing human characteristics to someone - or something - arguably not human at all. I dismounted in order to give myself some time to think.

"If you are no lord, then I am no lady - call me Aren." I remembered something Gram said to me once, a reason the hob wouldn't give me his name. Names had power, she said, and the wildlings kept their names to themselves.

"Ah, but every lovely woman is a lady in her own right," he said.

I frowned at him. I couldn't afford to have him take me lightly - besides, I didn't like it. The village men talked down to all the women. I hadn't noticed it until they'd quit doing it to me. They treated me as they'd treat a man, even those who were wary or frightened of my talents. "Call me Aren if you want me to answer."

It occurred to me - too late, as usual - that arguing with the hob about names was a stupid thing to do when approaching him for help. I'd come here prepared to grovel, and I would, if he'd quit... flirting with me. No one knew where Kith was.

"Aren, then," he agreed blandly, but I had the impression he was laughing at me. "And Caefawn will do, Aren. It is not my name, but it is indeed what I am." He touched his staff to the ground gently. "You come for the hob's bargain."

"The what?"

"Ah," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Before the king's mages came, claiming this land for whatever kingdom they owed their allegiance, human and hob lived side by side. There were things the humans had that my people did not. For these our peoples would trade. One thing for another, by which bargain neither party was the worse."

"You"  -  he pushed back his hood - "need my help, no?"

I remembered those features clearly, but even so, face-to-face they were shocking. Reddish-brown eyes, cat-slitted and slanted, laughed out of a dark gray face. If he had been a carving, I would have said he was beautiful, but the color of his skin and eyes made it difficult to see past the strangeness. Black hair threaded with silver and white was pulled back into a thick braid that disappeared in the depths of his cloak.

His ears were pointed and large; the right one was pierced several times with a chain that looked as if it were made of tiny wooden lengths woven in and out though the piercings. Three small, red feathers dangled from the end of the chain.

When he smiled at me, I saw his eyeteeth were long, like the fangs of a cat. His ears fanned gently; from the expression on his face, he did it to frighten me - like a child clapping his hands to tease a deer into running away.

The knowledge he was doing it on purpose didn't stop it from being unsettling, but it did make me mad. I felt my jaw jut out in an unladylike fashion that aggravated the soreness from the blow I'd taken in practice last night.

I'd rehearsed this speech all the way here, but I had intended to deliver it in supplicating tones, not bark at him like a territorial dog. "We need your help. There are raiders in the valley, and we can't stop them alone. I don't know what we can provide to you in return, but if you can help us, you are welcome to anything we have."

"Don't promise so easily," he chided, apparently not upset with my tone of voice. "I will talk to your elders before we seal the bargain." He tilted his head and looked out over the valley. "First, I will prove to them that my help is useful."

Duck pushed his nose into the hob's shoulder, bumping him with a strength that would have sent me stumbling forward. Caefawn swayed a little. He scratched the horse under his bridle, then pushed him away gently, murmuring something for Duck's ears alone.

Shaking his cloak back over his shoulders, the hob started back down the trail at a rapid pace.

When he pushed his cloak back, I saw he wasn't fat at all, not even muscularly fat like Koret. He was just broad. The other thing I noticed was that he had a tail. The very end was tufted with long, dark hair, silver-streaked like the hair on his head. The rest of his tail was covered in short silver hair, like a dog's, though it twitched with his irritation like a cat's.

For some reason the tail made him much more alien than the red cat-eyes and the fangs. He certainly didn't look like the hob in Wandel's song.

"Come, now," he said, without looking back. "If we do not use good speed, we won't be in time."

Though he didn't appear to hurry, the pace he set forced Duck into a slithering, sliding descent in order to keep up with him. I concentrated on staying on and bit my tongue against curiosity. It was enough he'd agreed to help us.

At the bottom of the steep section, the hob began to run. Duck snorted and broke into his lumbering canter, but the hob continued to outpace us until my horse sped into a gallop too fast for the rough ground. It was difficult to tell on such terrain, but I thought Duck's gait was choppier than usual. When Duck didn't respond to my weight or the reins, I called out to the hob.

He stopped immediately and waited for us to catch up, patting Duck's foaming shoulder remorsefully before I could speak. "Sorry about that. Been a long time since I ran with horses. This one looks a little lame, eh?"

I'd slipped off as soon as Duck stopped. "Right rear, I think."

The hob was there before me, looking at the swelling on the gelding's haunch, just over the stifle joint. "Faen," he commented, "best to avoid them if you can. Bite worse than a hornet, and they're twice as mean."

"Faen?" I asked.

Caefawn put his hand over the swelling. "Can't do anything for the poison; only time will disperse it. But I can make sure it won't hurt." The bump didn't look as if it changed any after he touched it.

"What is a faen?"

"Little people," he said, surprised. He held up his fingers with just enough space between his thumb and finger for a butterfly to fit into. "Don't remember that they minded humans, though the hob don't have much traffic with 'em. Can't trust them while your back is turned."

"Sprites?" I asked, remounting Duck.

"Hmm, I've heard them called that."

"There's a rock formation, it looks like a little castle - " I stopped speaking to settle more firmly in the saddle as the hob started off again and Duck followed. Whatever the hob had done to the swelling seemed to have worked, because Duck was no longer lame.

"Ah, yes." The hob's gait was slow enough for Duck to resume his distance-covering trot. "I had forgotten they had a place here. Does this trail go close enough to it that you can see them?"

"Yes." I ducked a low branch.

"No wonder they were upset. I'll have a word with them when we pass."

A little earthquake, like those which had plagued us this spring, caused the ground to shudder beneath us. Caefawn didn't appear to be upset by it. He cupped his hands around Duck's head and blew gently into the horse's nostrils. Duck mouthed his bit uncertainly, but his ears came up. Before the last of the vibrations died beneath his hooves, the tension was gone from his muscles.

Duck was far more upset when we approached the sprite's stone court than he had been during the earthquake. After seeing the welt on poor old Duck, I wasn't sure I wanted to get too close to the sprites either.

The hob stopped before we were in sight of the odd miniature building. He said a few foreign words in a courteous tone, waited a moment, then nodded.

"We'll wait here. That one was a guardian, didn't have the authority to let us pass. They're in the process of moving the trail away from their home, but it will take a week or two. In the meantime they're trying to shut down traffic through here. They would let you and me through - but they're not happy about the horse. Ah, here he is back."

The horse in question clamped his tail and shifted his weight, none too happy about the sprites. The hob talked a moment more, then started forward. Duck cringed as well as a big horse could until we were well past the court. I never did see a sprite.

When we came out of the shadows of the trees and into the open area of fields, I searched, but could see no sign of life.

"Be careful," I cautioned. "The raiders attacked on this side of the river last night. The battle was well on the other side of the manor house, maybe a league or so. But their victory there gave them this half of the valley."

"No," said the hob, unconcerned. "They're hunting a few archers and the berserker down by the other bridge."

"Kith?" I asked, forgetting that he could have no way of knowing who it was.

The hob looked at me without slackening his pace and nodded. "The one-armed man."

I shifted my weight forward, and Duck broke into a gallop. As we started to pass Caefawn, he reached out and grasped the gelding's nose, pulling him to a halt. "They'll still be there. No sense killing this lad to get there."

I closed my eyes briefly and nodded. When I looked up, I noticed a paving stone in the middle of the dirt path. Frowning at it, I sent Duck after the hob, who had resumed an easy jog. Scattered cobbles lay on the trail ahead, growing more numerous as we approached the King's Highway.

When we reached the rise before the bridge, I slowed Duck to a brisk walk to allow him to pick his way among the broken cobbles. It looked as if some giant had plowed the highway under. The earthquake hadn't felt that bad to me.

Caefawn slowed with me. "Good. The mountain wasn't certain she could do this, but the bloodmagic seems to be weaker than she thought. Are you any good with the knife you wear?"

I couldn't pull my eyes from the damaged roadway. The mountain had done this? "My knife? No. Kith's been teaching me, but I doubt I'd stand up against anyone with experience."

"You'll do," he said. "When we get to the bridge, we'll let your horse return to his stable, and then you and I'll take care of the raiders."

That caught my attention. I looked incredulously at the top of his hood as I ran through his words again. I thought of several questions, but discarded them before they touched my tongue. "The two of us," I said finally.

He made a noise that could have been agreement, laughter, or both.