Hob Goodfellowe

They rode together on Dapplegrim’s back, the boy behind and Caewen in the front, with Fleat gliding along beside them. Every hour or so, he would circle back, sailing out of sight, only to return some time later. After the third or fourth of his sorties back, he returned with as dark a look in…

He saw the hard expression of her face, the cold angry look in her eyes. She was staring fixedly at Athairdrost, and there was perhaps even a gleam of enjoyment in her eyes. He shifted uncomfortably, without saying anything. Eventually, it was Dapplegrim who interrupted her. “Caewen.” She looked at him. “The knights aren’t going…

She looked at him, then back at the circle. Then she looked at him again, searchingly. Her eyes seemed to settle on something. Her expression changed from wrinkled-up thought to a clear smile. “I have it.” She carefully pulled a single hair from her head, between finger and thumb, and laid it inside the circle….

She looked at him narrowly and then waved a hand at one of the nearby paupers of the court–a hunched and much put-upon looking man-servant, bent-backed with rheumy old eyes and skin splotched by liver spots. His lips were wet and loose, and his hair thin and grey. “Make that man rich enough to buy…

They stood quietly and eyed each other for a time in silence as their respective allies took themselves off to safer distances. The young woman spoke up when the herald started to move off. “No. We need some closer witnesses.” She suggested that a few meagre servants–the wine-bearer and herald, court fool, the peasants and…

A black silhouette had appeared at the foot of the hill. It seemed to have simply manifested out of the air. Or perhaps it had stepped out of a shadow cast by one of the larger stones? It was difficult to make out any detail, but Athairdrost could not break the court if there was…

The Blade Henge ran in two rows of sharp rocks along the ridge of a steep and narrow hill. The hilltop was deeply grassed, wind-torn and lonely. The stones themselves were so dark a grey as to be almost black, and they were knife-like in shape, thin and angular–like flakes of obsidian chipped out by…

What fools would leave a grove of magic skulls intact? That Athairdrost would likely have known if the ropes were cut was momentarily forgotten in the boy’s mind. He was angry. He stood, fuming in the unpleasant glade, listening to the hollow slap and clatter of the skulls. He looked at them. It took him…

The boy took to a run. He tore along the stream bank, crashing through the wet ferns and down the slippery muddy slopes. His calves were soon on fire. His lungs felt as if they were barely drawing new air at all. His windpipe burned. He could feel his heart beating harder and harder. There…

Dapplegrim sailed like a spirit risen from a battlefield grave, and landed with a resounding thud of hooves not more than a few paces from Athairdrost. The prince looked up. His face was wrenched by sudden fright and shock. He looked for a moment like some frightened half-grown gangly youth. But then he mastered himself…