The Hob's Bargain

in spasms close to sobs. I was so powerful that I didn’t even need to fear a creature such as she.
    What I held imprisoned in my mind tainted me until I wanted to wash in the waters of the river, though I knew I would never be clean again—because I wanted the power I held, wanted to roll in it and throw it into the faces of those who’d killed Touched Banar. Here , I wanted to say, here is what you should fear, not the poor god-stricken man whose worst deed was less than a dust mote to my mountain .
    The trapped spirits moaned, but the fetch laughed with my laughter while tears slid down my face.

    T ORCH WAS SWAYING WITH WEARINESS WHEN I BROUGHT him back to the stables in the dark. I wasn’t any better. The spirits under my control wailed and shrieked pleadingly until I wanted to scream at them to be quiet.
    Instead, I curried and rubbed Torch until he was clean and dry. I led him to his stall and grained him. I sat down on a bench and leaned against Duck’s stall. Daryn’s red gelding blew gently in my hair before wandering back to the shadows of his straw-filled box.
    Though I fought against sleep, fearing the trapped creatures would escape, my eyes closed…
    â€¦running through the trees in the dark, faster than humanly possible, the pounding of feet, pulse, and the mad joy of the chase. Ah! This was more gloriously fun than anything he could remember in a long time. Ducking roll to dodge an arrow from nowhere that sent him halfway to the bottom of the mountainside he’d been climbing—all the better to avoid capture.
    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.

    D ARYN SAT ON D UCK’S BACK, SHAKING HIS HEAD.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œMy 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.
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œHere,” 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.
    â€œLet me get that out for you,” I said, kneeling in front of him.
    â€œNo!”
    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.
    â€œWhat 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