"So thee has found thy strength…," the Hobnag muttered, facing him cautiously now.
Chest heaving, hurting sharply with every gasp, Rossamund caught his breath.Though the shadowy hint of its face was a dismal blank, the young factotum somehow perceived a kind of bafflement in the wretched thing.
"I want food, not fighting," it seethed, and with that it sprang nimbly away and hared across the flank of the hill, attempting escape between the stones.
Mindlessly, Rossamund dared his strength and with an almighty heave flung the crown-piece at the retreating creature, throwing it astonishingly far to catch the Hobnag a glancing cuff upon its hip. An audible crack! broke the night quiet and the wretch tumbled to the mold, pitching head over end to disappear among the grave-markers. Seizing a caste of Frazzard's powder, Rossamund hurried as fast as his own bashed body would allow through the tall slender crownstones like some avenging heldin glorified so often in his old pamphlets. Not far on, where he thought he saw the nicker fall, he found the crownstone piece, but the Hobnag was gone. He spied a glimpse of it, staggering through the stones toward the iron-bound entrance on the opposite side of the hill.
"What good does it do to make everymen your prey?" the young factotum cried futilely after it.
"Humbuggler!" he heard it hiss at him in turn. Struggling over the iron-arched gate, the thing was gone into the night.
Rossamund thought to follow it, but he did not have a single notion what he would do if he caught up with the creature. To kill in the passion and mayhem of a fight was one thing, to destroy by cold choice another, and that he did not think he could do.
His perception swam and oblivion crowded.
Something sharp and deep hurt in his right side.
His back pained.
He knelt for a moment in the graveyard soil and took as deep a breath as his aches would allow.
A terrifying, reedy wailing, an alto voice of sorrow and rage rose and fell on the shifting airs.
Then silence.
No other sound punctuated the quiet, that complete and buzzing silence that seemed to follow every fight; even the crickets were still.
Anxious to get back to Craumpalin waiting so stoutly, Rossamund clambered to his feet, gathered up the fallen crown-piece in one arm as if it were a light thing and went to the partly exhumed grave. Hastily kicking the new-turned soil back into the hole, Rossamund refused to look too closely at the ashen dome of the putrefying head poking through where the Hobnag had been digging. Evidently, the dear departed were humed here feet-first too, just as in Winstermill, but that was already more than he wanted to know. Returning the crownstone piece to its original stump, he gingerly scaled the wall and returned up the hill and back to his watch.
All twinges and stabbing aches, he looked to the slow-spinning heavens; the Signals had barely moved. From when he left till his return and the great struggle for life and limb in between had taken little more than one quarter of an hour.
At the camp, he found Craumpalin sitting in a sagging huddle propped against the musketoon and nodding in sleep, unmolested and serene. With a wry sniff, he thought to wake the old salt, tell of his exploits and receive some skillful care.Yet what was there to say? Smiling ruefully to himself, he left the old fellow to his slumber.
Probing his flanks and chest, he sought the manner of his injuries for himself. No cuts or gashes, no blood, just a very sore trunk. Fossicking a gray vial of levenseep from his stoup, he took a swig. His mouth was filled with a taste like fallen leaves that spread an inward cheer, dulling pain, lifting weary thoughts. Invigorated, the young factotum sat cross-legged by the landaulet's rear ladeboard wheel with the musketoon across his lap.To the soft sounds of Europe's regular slumbering breaths and Craumpalin's restless grumbles, he settled himself and-almost as if nothing untoward had ever happened-waited for his stint to end.
14
Gregorine(s) common name for gater and parish border warden in the rural parts of the central Soutland states; also gregoryman, and so called because they serve as protectors. In the Grumid lands they are sometimes named bindlestiffs-a term usually retained for more vagrant types in other parts of the world-for the time they will spend patrolling their parish boundaries, living rough. Traditionally employed as protectors against the nickers and bogles, in safer parishes gregorymen often become more concerned with the small disputes of parochial parish pride as small regions vie and squabble with their neighbors like full-grown states.
Phoebe's thoughts were on setting and Maudlin was glimmering verdantly in heaven's acme when, in the small of the night, Rossamund and Fransitart finally changed watches.
The old salt readily accepted Rossamund's story of his confrontation with the Swarty Hobnag. "Methinks, lad," he said, gently examining Rossamund's torso for the nature of his hurts, "that on the next occasion, ye come rouse me out whene'er there be an enemy in sight. I would rather ye stayed hale an' let yer enemy go free on the breeze than have us towin' ye home with yer stern-lights stove in an' yer rudder shot through."
Rossamund had no response to this. He peered at Fransitart's haggard, sea-scarred dial and wrestled inwardly if this was the moment to tell him of the Lapinduce. The longer left, the harder to do. Is this how his master carried the secret of his own origin for all that time?
Doting just a little, the aging vinegaroon poured him a tot of claret. "It does me old wind good, though, to see ye win the day," Fransitart said with a chuckle, ending the awkwardly extending pause. "At but half their ages ye're already accomplishin' the feats of them heldin-swells ye always love to read on."
"Well… I…," Rossamund mumbled, sipping his claret awkwardly. Using his satchel as a pillow he stretched out, wrapped once more in the blanket. Part of him wanted sleep, but his heart still hurried and his thoughts still jumped with the lingering, passion of the fight. "Master Frans, what is a humbuggler?"
Huddled cross-legged nearby, musketoon now in hand, the ex-dormitory master seemed to start and took a moment to answer. "Not a very pleasant word, is what it is, lad. It's the foul name given to a blaggardly cove who acts the opposite of what he says."
"A hypocrite?"
"Aye, that's the one; a hypocritactical cur…" Fransitart regarded his young companion closely. "Don't ye be fret-tin' for what ye are, Rossamund; ye're exactly what ye're s'posed to be, just as Providence determines for each o' us. The sleep of the victor is for ye now, lad. Turn to your hammock else ye'll be shot through and sinking tomorrow."
Content to accept the simple honest refuge of Fransitart's wisdom, Rossamund let his head sag under the sway of the claret.What was left of the night was of jabs and tweaks and swirling dreams of monsters rushing at him: horn-ed things, slavering corpse-things, great ettin-beasts coming at him over and over. To the lowing of distant cattle, the four adventurers got under way early. Before going on, Craumpalin had bound Rossamund's still aching chest in a bitter-smelling brew. "This will seep into bone and gristle and give thee ease," the dispenser insisted, wrapping him so firmly the young factotum had difficulty bending. Aboard the landaulet he was unable to slouch or slump or sag but was forced to sit as straight as the Branden Rose herself; he felt sorely used and most definitely shot through.