Hob Goodfellowe

The boy looked around. There were a lot of dead. “Where’s Fleat?” he asked again, more worry in his throat than the first time. The little hobbe was nowhere in sight. If he had survived the fight–if he was alive and uninjured–then he ought have returned. One step out into the carnage. And another. He…

Hobbes were now returning from their pursuit, and were changing back from their feathered owlish forms. It seemed that the chase had been abandoned. The shifting-of-forms meant that a thin cloud of many-hued feathers were falling, all twirling on the wind. Strangely, many of the hobbes were now standing about naked, or nearly-so, barring the…

After a while sitting in the cold winds, Caewen stood. She stretched her limbs as if she had woken from a dream, and moved her attention back to the aftermath of battle. She turned her back to the north, and the shadow-lands of Sorthe. With a half-smile, she stepped away from the cliff. The boy…

“You know,” spoke Dapplegrim. “Lordly sorts can ransomed.” He said this as he watched a hobbe draw a dagger across the throat of a knight: the prone man was outfitted in rich shining grey armour, trimmed with gold filigree. Velvet trimmed his cuffs. Ermine lined his cloak. But the hobbe just calmly proceeded. The knight…

The boy could only stumble to his feet, whilst doing his best not to be ill. The smell of the death-magic remained pungent and pervasive. Memories and fleeting glimpses of the battle were already chasing through the boy, weaving in and out of his mind. He saw in his head visions of dead hobbes, their…

As the boy crouched at the cliff’s edge–unable to take his eyes away from what was about to happen–an odd feeling came over him. His skin pricked. It felt as if all the hair on his head and nape stood straight up. An uncomfortable sensation of crawling spiders ran up and down his arms and…

It was awful. He saw an owl bitten clean in two by the jaws of a draig. He saw hobbes cut down, with axe or sword. The knights were still intent on fighting from horseback–and this alone was helping the other side. It was madness. One horse toppled over completely and rolled back downhill, taking…

The boy walked a few paces off. He took a moment to stop, looked around, and wondered where was the best place to conceal himself. Obviously, he wanted to be able to see the outcome of the fight. He wasn’t planning on fleeing until it was clear that he had no choice. A few of…

Caewen was right. The knights and horsemen made no move for hours. They stood or sat, seemingly sunk into a strangely conversationless, oddly sullen quietude as they waited. At last, when the sun was not much more than a bleeding wound of orange atop the caps of westward peaks, only then did the knights stir…

Mid-afternoon of that day, they passed from dirt and scrubby hill-slopes onto the rocky outcroppings that marked the lower spurs of the mountains. Caewen looked downhill, and said, “It’s no good. They’ll be on us by dusk. Look.” She was right. The draig-riders had not even bothered to sortie over them again. Both of the…