Hob Goodfellowe

Soon enough, they started to pass small knots of people talking together, then a few more, and then suddenly they were deep in a crowd. All around them people were eating and drinking. Conversation and half-halting songs lilted and drifted. Caewen almost wanted to scream at them all, run, run for your lives, but she…

In sight of Samarkarantha’s tent now, they could see that it was lit from within. The glow through the cream and light red-brown canvas made it stand out against its neighbours, which were all darkening as the dusk was coming down. Overhead, the sky was still full of a deep luminous light. A few tattered…

They stepped gingerly between the sleeping men and women, at the same time doing their best not to get caught on the thorns of the briar tangle. The leaves and stem of the plant were a strange mottle of emerald and grey, and the spines were not the small hooked jabs, like on a natural…

Caewen did. The creature’s breath smelled like wet moss and heather on a winter’s morning, when the frost was just lifting. She dashed her lips with a touch of wet tongue and said words into Caewen’s ear. Strange words. Old words. And true. So very true. Caewen felt her eyes widen. She heard the ancient…

“Really? What did the moot ever do for you?” “That’s not the point. A lot of people are going to die if we don’t do something.” “Hur. We’re going to die if we don’t do something.” Caewen walked tentatively to the tent opening. The dull-eyed, blank-faced mob was still gathered about the tent. She thought…

A few moments passed before Caewen’s was able to settle her thoughts sufficiently to make any sense out of what she had seen in the flames. Of course, she tried to explain it all at once, but the words came out jumbled and wrong. She got the times and places mixed up. Her sense of…

Caewen was a small child, no more than five years. Her heart was beating with fear–almost fluttering, mothlike. Her father was calling to her. The wicked man from the hilltop was walking down his path, coming to the village. Was he was looking for fresh servants, or on some other errand? She darted away, and…

Sorry for the delayed post this week. It is the first week of the second semester at uni, so things have been quite hectic… -oOo- Caewen shook her head. “Calm down. Nothing. Clearly, the tent can’t harm things that are enduringly magical. Probably, it can only snuff out fleeting spells.” “How do you know that?”…

As one, the crowd moved forward, blank of expression, their movements marked by the jerkiness of puppetry. Their eyes had a slight grey sheen, and an odd flickering of light and shadow too, as if they were all staring into the sun through a cloud of passing starlings. “Dapple…” said Caewen. “Dapplegrim.” She moved the…