The Hob's Bargain

The gist of the song was that there was a rich farmer who owed his success to the hob living in his barn. The farmer, due to his wealth, found himself a wife from a well-to-do town family. They lived happily enough until the hob surprised her in the barn. They disliked each other on sight; she tried to rid the barn of the hob, and the hob tried to rid the fanner of his wife. The wife was clever, but the hob was more clever still: everything she tried to do to him, he turned back on her. At last the fanner stepped in, kept the hob, and got rid of his wife. With the help of the hob he found a farm-bred wife who put out milk and bread every night for the fey folk, and they all lived happily ever after.

The most interesting feature of the song, as far as I was concerned, was the detailed description of the hob: a little man with skin like old oak, eyes blue as the sky, and a head too big for its body. It sounded like my attacker, but…

"So," said Wandel, finishing the last chord with a flourish, "the creature who attacked you could have been a hob."

"No," I said, suddenly remembering something. "I named the wildling that, just before it attacked me. Then after… someone—I remembered the dark gray skin and red eyes of my vision yesterday and a tone of dry disgust—"someone said, "That's not a hob, Lady."

My arm was stiff and sore the next morning. When Wandel offered to saddle Duck as well as Torch and the Lass, I let him do it and helped Kith pack camp—or at least watched while Kith did all the work, offering unsolicited advice until he threatened to toss his shovelful of dirt on me rather than the fire pit.

By the time Wandel had tied the small shovel behind Torch's saddle, I was starting to feel better. Mounting was awkward, and Kith gave me a sympathetic glance.

"Well, at least it doesn't hurt you when you do this," I groused as I found my stirrups.

"Yours will pass," he replied softly.

"You're not going to make me feel guilty when I feel so bad are you?" I whined.

He laughed. "Let's go."

After the first few miles, my arm subsided to a dull ache that I could ignore. I noticed Kith wasn't nearly as nervous today, and I wondered if the thing that had attacked me had been following us. With it gone, there would be nothing to set off his magicked senses. Maybe, I thought, but it was more likely that the day had relaxed him as much as it had me. It was hard to worry about wildlings with sharp teeth with the sun shining on your back.

It was warmer today than yesterday, and the scents of the early spring wildflowers were almost erotic in their fullness. The horses were feeling it, too; the Lass had managed to bite poor old Duck twice. He, for his part, seemed to take a masochistic interest in her. He kept trying to sneak closer to her when I wasn't paying attention. If he hadn't been a gelding, I would have thought he was courting the mare. Even Torch, the old campaigner, was dancing a bit more than usual.

It was late afternoon when we started down the slopes of the Hob into the valley where Auberg lay, about the same time that we'd made camp yesterday. From our vantage point, the town didn't look nearly as large as I remembered it—but it had been several years since I'd been there. As we started down the side of the mountain, I saw the bones of a winter-killed wolf stretched under the green foliage of a wild lilac. The climate was warmer here than it was in Fallbrook, and the lilacs were in full bloom.

The pastureland crept up the sides of the foothills of the Hob, and soon we were traveling along a shepherds' track between the rock walls that fenced the pastures. Generations of farmers had combed the rocks from the land and used them for fences and buildings, leaving behind land well-fenced and less rocky. Land that once had been poor had become, over centuries of management, rich and fertile.

The grass in the pastures here were already three times as long as the grasses in Fallbrook's fields. Even the pastures that had been recently grazed were longer than…

Torch halted, giving the Lass time to aim a nip at his rump—though even she wasn't so bold as to actually bite him.

"What's wrong?" asked Wandel before I could.

"You tell me," answered Kith, his gaze drifting around the valley spread below us.

I followed his gaze, looking for something—but there was nothing to be seen.

"Faran's breath!" I swore, standing in my stirrups for a better view. There was nothing to be seen.

"Where are the cattle?" asked Wandel. "These are cattle fields, you can see where they've grazed—but they're all gone."

"No sheep either," added Kith softly. "Nor any people. We should be able to see the men in the fields and the people going in and out of town. Look down by that little croft. There's laundry hung to dry and half of it swept loose from the pins."