This timber, though, suddenly heaved, became a struggling, kicking, snarling beast fighting for its life. The woodsman contemptuously turned his back on Simon and moved toward the Sitha, axe raised as though to split timber. I know what these creatures are a-gettin' up to. You're in my bit o' garden, as it were, an' you got no call to be. What he's not is no natural creature, that's sure Get away from here, stranger. You're going to but you can't He's he's a He tried to marshal his straggling thoughts. Kill him? Simon, ill and weak as he was, still felt a cold wash of shock. It is also my feeling that it will not accomplish much-at least for this dead fellow. He turned from kneeling Simon to briefly survey the fallen cotsman.
This is not a good place for crying, the stranger said. You should take this, the little man said, and again his mouth widened in a froggy smile, baring for an instant a palisade of yellow teeth. What do you think, boy? What do you think God'd have us do with sprites an' imps an' devils when we catch 'em? Send'em back to hell with my good chopper, that'll tell you.
GIVE IT TO ME MICHAEL JACKSON SKIN
A large skin bag hung bulging from a shoulder strap, and he held a walking stick that looked to be carved from some long, slender bone. His clothes looked much like a Rimmersman's jacket and leggings of some thick animal hide stitched with sinew, a fur collar turned up below his round face. He was not a dwarf, like the fools and tumblers Simon had seen at court and in the Main Row of Erchester-although big-chested, he seemed otherwise well-proportioned. For an instant the Sitha, injuries forgotten or ignored, stood poised and tense as a startled deer then he was gone, a flash of brown and green that vanished into the trees, leaving Simon gape-jawed and deserted. His cold eyes glinted, stopping the words in Simon's mouth. Holding them like a clutch of long-stemmed flowers, he picked up his bow in the other hand and paused to stare at Simon. He rolled away from the mute hulk immediately, as though burned, and began gathering up his scattered arrows. The Sitha fell to the ground, legs buckling, and tumbled forward onto the motionless woodsman. The stranger had moved toward him to examine the pale arrow, which stood from the tree trunk near Simon's head like a stiff ghost-branch.īut Simon gasped as he scrambled up after the stranger, who moved with surprising quickness, but what about the cottage? I am I am so hungry and there might be foodĪfter a long moment of scraping and rubbing, the slippery knot parted. Simon wiped his nose on the sleeve of his coarse shirt and hic-coughed. The Sitha's thin chest was heaving like a bellows he was weakening quickly. The woodsman now stood at arm's length, swiping at his swirling target, landing only glancing blows but continuing to draw blood. Stop Neither combatant gave him even a flicker of notice.
The Fair One winced as the noose pulled tighter, but made no sound.Īfter the strangest and most terrible fortnight of his life, and after a particularly bizarre day, it should not have surprised Simon to hear a new and unfamiliar voice speaking to him from the darkness beyond the trees, a voice that was not the Sitha's, and certainly did not come from the woodsman, who lay like a felled tree.
Simon, too numb for fear, worked the nicked blade-edge against the knot behind the Sitha's back. As haltingly as a sleepwalker, Simon picked up the fallen axe and traced the taut rope up from the prisoner to where it wrapped around a high limb of the tree-a limb too high to reach. The snaky tunic was laced with streamers of blood, and the feral eyes were dimmed, as though some internal curtain had rolled down to block the light within. When he was able, he stood and turned to the Sithi-man, who again dangled quietly in the noose. His face did have something of the childish about it: the narrow eyes and wide mouth both stretched toward the cheekbones in an expression of simple good humor. No, not a child, but a man so small that the top of his black-haired head would probably not reach much higher than Simon's navel.
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