The Hob's Bargain

hillgrim on his back. He’d dropped his sword and was trying to pry it off, but the ’grim had locked its jaws in the thick leather of a gaudy protective collar the raider wore around his throat.
    My weapons were too stout to do what I intended, so I grabbed a pair of wooden tent spikes set nearby. Stepping behind them both, I slid my chosen weapons between them. I braced the free end of each stick against the raider’s leather-armored back and used the leverage to force the hillgrim to break its hold or let my sticks crush its throat.
    It released the raider, reached behind, and grabbed me across the shoulder, wedging its claws in the soft flesh under my arm.
    A crossbow bolt took the ’grim through the skull, about two fingerspans from my nose, with a dull sound. With such a close-up view, I could tell it was from my bow.
    â€œThanks, Caefawn,” I murmured, shaking free of the dead hillgrim.
    Trust the hob to do the most useful thing and grab my crossbow. No doubt he was perched high in one of the trees, killing hillgrims much more efficiently than any of us on the ground.
    â€œThanks, brother,” said the man, whose back was bleeding from the scratches the hillgrim had made.
    He picked up his sword. He turned to me, and his jaw dropped. I tapped him on the head with a spike. Gently.
    â€œClose your mouth and watch your front,” I said, nodding at the hillgrim darting under someone’s legs to attack him. Then, remembering the odd stillness that had held me when the hillgrim had attacked me on the Hob, I added, “Don’t meet their eyes.”
    As I left the raider to aid another man with a similar problem, I called a belated “You’re welcome.”
    This time I didn’t try subtlety, I just jabbed one end of my right spike into the hillgrim’s ear with the weight of my body behind it. The end of the spike was sharp and slid easily for a few inches. I pulled my knife and used the handle to hammer the spike in deeply enough to kill the hillgrim. I had to pry the creature’s jaw open to free the raider, who’d fallen to his face, crying for help from the One God. A true believer, I thought. There were no more unoccupied hillgrims in the immediate area, so I took a good look at the raider’s wound.
    â€œThe One God was with you today,” I announced briskly. “The ’grim got a mouthful of your leather armor, but not even a bit of flesh.”
    He turned over, a lad even younger than Quilliar. The bridge of his nose was freckled. He looked at me for a moment, then took my hand when I offered it, and got to his feet.
    Without a word we both turned back to the fight.
    It didn’t take me long to realize that I was able to help the other fighters because anytime a wildling started for me, it was felled with a crossbow bolt. Caefawn was good; no, better than good, because I was good and he was better.
    I caught occasional views of the shaper in his old man’s body as he put his club to good use. More often I heard him, cackling like a demented fiend and singing nonsense songs in a high, carrying voice. Even to me, who knew what he was, it was uncanny. It didn’t seem to bother the hillgrims, but it was fair spooking the raiders.
    â€œWe need to get out now,” said Caefawn quietly in my ear. “Move slowly, and don’t look anyone in the eye. The hillgrims are retreating and the raiders will notice you before long, so it’s time to go. As long as no one thinks to look for you, he won’t see you.”
    His hand on my shoulder, he guided me around the battlefield. I wished he’d move his fingers so they weren’t pressed to the wound the first ’grim had given me, but I didn’t want to say anything to break his spell.
    The hob’s grip kept me to a slow walk until we reached the cover of the trees. Then he pulled us to a run. Exhaustion from the fighting caught up with me too soon, but the raiders wouldn’t be searching through these woods for a while. At least not until they’d counted their dead and wounded.
    I sat down on a rock that looked smooth enough to be more comfortable than the wet, pine needle-covered ground.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with your arm?” asked Caefawn after studying me a while.
    He didn’t give me a chance to answer, just pulled aside my shirt. Ignoring my yelps, the hob took a look at the cuts under my arm.
    â€œSore,” he determined, “but