The Hob's Bargain

time I cocked the bow, but it was not effortless and I wasn’t as fast as I should be. The crossbow was not as quick as a longbow, and Kith, using one of the stirrup-drawn wooden bows, could outdraw me even with only one arm. But I could shoot almost as far as a good longbowman, and I hit what I aimed at.
    â€œDamn it, girl,” bellowed Koret, reaching for my bow, but a shout near the northeastern corner of the crowd stopped him.
    There was a shift in the people as they turned to face the enemy gradually emerging from the side street Belis had come from only a few moments earlier. Someone called an order; children began to filter in from the edges to gather under the bell podium. All at once the relative hush of night gave way to the roar of battle.
    Koret charged down the ladder, drawing his sword and leaving me to shoot at will. I loosed a bolt at another movement in the shadows.
    Finally, from the darkness of the side street, a swarm of…something boiled into the street. In the uncertain light, I couldn’t see them well. Better, I thought, if I didn’t.
    As ferociously as the villagers fought, we could not press back the tide of creatures. They were smaller than a man—I could see that much—perhaps only half as tall, though wider in the shoulders. Like a plague of locusts, there seemed to be no end to them.
    They weren’t hillgrims. If they had been, there would have been a lot more villagers lying in the mounting pile of bodies. Instead of the graceful movements of the grims, these new creatures moved with the stolid slowness of a great bull. Their arms hung almost to the ground, muscular and wickedly powerful—but mercifully slow. The villagers quickly learned to avoid the blows, and after the first few minutes I didn’t see anyone fall. All the same, they pressed the villagers back by sheer strength of numbers.
    Before I ran out of quarrels, Manta dashed up the stairs with two handfuls of bloody shafts.
    â€œHere,” he said shortly. “Koret sent these, says to stay where you are. You’re doing more damage here than you would in the thick of things.”
    He was gone before I could thank him. The arrows were warm and damp, and I wished for my gloves, which were, I supposed, somewhere in the inn with my clothes.
    In the end it was the sun that saved us. As dawn began to show over Faran’s Ridge, the creatures turned and sped away faster than they had come.
    Spent, I slipped from my post on the railing. Laughter came unbidden—for once my sight had been in time. Just this once—but it helped make up for all the other times when I’d been too late. It was quiet laughter with a slightly hysterical touch, so I let it drift to silence beneath the soft moaning of the wounded lying in the streets.
    I wiped my bloody hands on the tail of my borrowed nightshirt. It was unmannerly to stain someone else’s clothing, but I couldn’t bear the feel of the blood any longer. My hands ached from setting the goatsfoot. Training made me load the crossbow once more before I climbed down the stairs to see what it was I’d been killing.
    Geol the cooper was surrounded by a group of people trying to stanch several wounds. Talon the smith sported a nasty gash on his forearm that he was awkwardly trying to bandage. Before I could offer my help, his wife bustled up to him. The bootmaker, Haronal, had a throwing ax embedded in his skull.
    I didn’t see any of the creatures bodies. At last I saw Koret kneeling beside a shuddering form near an alleyway, and went to him. The body was one of the things we’d been fighting.
    It was vaguely human in feature, more so than the hillgrim. Standing, it (or rather he—the creature wore no clothes) might have been waist high. Curly, dark hair covered his head and the lower part of his jaw. His features were manlike, except he had no eyes. A horrible wound opened his belly, revealing internal organs.
    â€œIs this what attacked you on the Hob?” asked Merewich, who’d joined us.
    I shook my head, staring at the dying creature. If it had been human—a raider, maybe—I’d have been down on my knees holding the wound together and calling for someone to sew him up. It wasn’t human, but it wasn’t…Before I could decide if I wanted to try to save it, it died.
    â€œMaybe the hob will know what he was,” I said hollowly.
    â€œWait until you see this,” said Koret