Hob Goodfellowe

Caewen wrapped her arms around herself. She hunched her shoulders. There was a painful need to do something. Cry. Scream. Run around madly. But she couldn’t bring herself to do anything. Half of her was gone, and the sudden hollowness was awful. She felt as if she might never dream again. Never again idle away…

I cannot do it, she thought. I will step out of the illusion and reveal myself. I will give myself to him with the bone relic in my cupped palms. But I must not. She screwed her eyes shut and felt her jaw clench. The pain in her body and mind was now beyond bearing….

The door flung itself open and swirls of snow-glittering wind pushed into the cosy room, groping and feeling at the surfaces. They looked as if they were hands of darkness and ice, but as they crept closer to where Caewen and Cag-Mag sat, the old witch said simply, “No. Not here. Not in my house.”…

“He is ancient,” said Cag-Mag, “and if he had a name, it is forgotten. He was a mortal man once, and a sorcerer of great power. But do not conjure up in your mind’s eye some vision of an enchanter in silks and velvets: this was long, long ago. Think of a sorcerer robed all…

“Well? Are you going to stand about like last year’s scarecrow, or will you come in? Make a decision. Be quick about it.”  Caewen half-expected the door to open on its own, but it did not. She looked over her shoulder. Three feral shapes lurked themselves into view. They were mere silhouettes of darkness, outlined…

She stopped and glanced around, working her lungs to catch some breath back. “What are you doing,” hissed Fetch. “Their hunting beasts will be running this path in moments. Whisper me another spell. There are banks here, with steep sides. Can we set a trap?” The track was somewhat sunken here, with earth cuttings on…

The sun had softened away westward and the last rays of day were setting the horizon to licks of flame along the under-edges of those heavy clouds that had blown in. It was prematurely dark on the trail now. In those places where trees were thicker, the air itself was a blackness, and all that…

After a week of travel by foot, Caewen was growing suspicious of her shadow. Not the shadow gliding beside her, stretched against grassy slope or dirt-trod path. That shadow was as soft and reassuring as it ever had been, a fellow traveller, the two of them alone on the road. No, rather, she was increasingly…