The Hob's Bargain

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.