The Hob's Bargain

"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.