Close Kin (22 page)

He went back to the men and
discovered that they had a probl
em. It
seemed that butchering the horse wasn't nearly as big a chore
as killing
it. Untrained in magic, they lacked the power to fell a big animal.

"Rowan, you
do it," said Thorn. "Your Hunting Spell works
better than mine or Willow's." But Rowan didn't
look pleased at the
compliment.

"Oh, no," he said firmly.
"Not after what happened last time." Willow made a face. "Was
that disgusting!" he said. "And then we still had to whack it to
death with a stick."

"Then we'll
start there this time," decided Thorn. "Willow, go
get
a log from the woodpile." The elf boy obediently went off and returned
with a decent-looking club. "Now whack him with it," directed their
leader.

"What, me?" asked the boy,
his face a picture of distress. "Why do I have to do it?"

"Because I'll
whack
you
if you don't," threatened Thorn.

But Willow didn't
make any move toward the horse. To him, it wasn't a friendly servant. It was a
huge, frightening beast with four hooves and big teeth. Thorn watched him with
a thoughtful frown.

"Rowan, maybe you and I could
work killing spells at the same time while Willow hits it with the log,"
he said.

"And maybe we could manage to
kill Willow that way," replied Rowan. He turned, his eyes bright, and
patted Seylin on the shoulder. "I know who can kill our dinner for
us," he suggested. "He knows all about horses." Seylin just
frowned at him. He'd been expecting this.

"Seylin, you kill it,
then," directed Thorn, "if you really think you can do it."

Seylin crossed his
arms and studied the animal. He liked the
horse,
and it wasn't going to be his food, but he knew how to kill it humanely, and he
couldn't leave until it was butchered. He sighed and stretched out his hand.

"Don't you dare! You kill that
horse and I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!" Seylin froze
in complete astonishment. It wasn't -- no, it couldn't be

"A human!" shouted Willow,
and they all turned to look. Emily
stood up
from behind a large rock. She was pale and grubby, and she
had circles under her eyes. Seylin had never seen
a sight more beautiful.

"Em!" he
cried. "What are you doing here?"

Emily walked toward
the group, her face uncertain.

"Seylin, I
know that you had wanted -- and I didn't -- Well, I
just came to say that if you'd rather marry one of these
elves, I under
stand."

"He
certainly wouldn't want to marry you," scoffed Irina.
"You're
so ugly."

Emily's uncertain manner fell from
her. "Looks aren't everything," she snapped.

"Yes, they
are!" insisted Irina hotly. "Aren't they?" she added in a
puzzled
tone, looking to her companions for support.

"Em," said Seylin,
"what about Thaydar?" Of all the questions running around in his
brain, this seemed the only one worth asking.

"Don't be
absurd!" exclaimed his sweetheart. "After all the times
we've
quarreled, I can't believe you really thought I meant that!"

Seylin's world
became a bright, shining, happy place. He walked
over
to her in a kind of dream.

"You're
not married to Thaydar?" he asked. Emily just smiled at
him,
and Seylin's world reached perfection.

"You're
going to marry a human?" exclaimed Willow in disgust.
Seylin
tore his eyes away from that smile to look at the boy.
"She has elf
blood," he said loftily.

"Ugh!
A half-breed," sneered Willow. Now Emily looked at him.

"I may be a half-breed,"
she said tartly, "but I'm not wearing my last eighteen meals on the front
of my shirt." Irina gave a happy giggle.

"You ought to change her into a
rabbit, Thorn," pointed out
Willow,
scowling fiercely. "You always do when they find our camp."

Thorn shrugged. "She's Seylin's
business," he muttered. But
Seylin had
seen Sable's astounded face. He didn't want to wait
around for
questions.

"I'll get my
pack," he told Emily. "We're leaving."

"Hey!"
said Thorn indignantly. "What about the horse?"

"You want to eat him. Kill him
yourself," replied Seylin, disappearing through the door.

Emily came up to the
horse, glaring at the silent elves.

"And is it a nice horse?"
she crooned, scratching him under the halter straps. "We don't want to be
dinner for nasty elves, do we? Imagine eating a horse!" she exclaimed.
"How disgusting!"

"Imagine marrying a
half-breed," sneered Thorn. "How disgusting.

"I wouldn't marry you, either,
you horse eating bully!" cried Emily. "I'd slit my throat first."

"I'd help you," promised
Thorn. He crossed his arms, very annoyed. He wanted to kill the horse now just
to upset her, but
Rowan had disappeared, and
he didn't think Willow and he could
do it alone. "You'd make a nice
rabbit," he mused darkly, watching her stroke the horse.

"Look what I've found,"
called Rowan. He returned from the
forest,
dragging something with him, and Emily turned with a gasp.

"Richard!"
she cried. Rowan had him by his white hair. The
boy gave her an encouraging grin, and the elves blanched
at the sight
of his one fang.

"Good evening, sirs,
ladies," said the boy, bowing as far as he could without losing hair and
tugging at his forelock politely. Irma let out a shriek of revulsion, and Richard
sighed resignedly. That
always happened. But
Sable came forward to look at him and let out
a bloodcurdling scream.

"Thorn! He's a
goblin! He's a goblin!" she screamed.

"Don't you
touch him," shouted Emily, darting forward to try to loosen Rowan's hands,
but he caught the neck of her cloak and held
her
off from the captured boy.

"You stay out
of this," he advised.

Thorn held out his hand to begin his
Rabbit Spell, but Sable clutched his arm in a frenzy of terror.

"Don't, Thorn, don't!" she
begged. "There'll be more! They're always together, and you'll bring
revenge if you hurt him. We can't fight, we have to leave now, we have to get
away before the others come!" She caught his hand, risking life as a
rabbit herself

Thorn shoved
her away, trying to concentrate on his rhyme, but Seylin ran up and reached out
his own hand in a protection spell. A
bubble formed in the air around the goblin child,
wobbling in a
shiny globe and prying Rowan's
fingers free from his hair.

"Let them go, Rowan," he
warned. "We'll just leave. We don't want a fight." He walked through
the group, concentrating on the
spell.
Rowan released the two outsiders as Thorn struggled with the
hysterical
Sable.

They might have
gotten safely away, but Willow looked down at
that
moment and realized he was still holding the club. As Seylin walked by him, he
swung it up and hit Seylin over the head.

The bubble
around Richard's body popped with a sigh, and
Seylin fell unconscious to the ground. So did Rowan. So
did Thorn.
So did Willow. Grotesque shapes
jumped from hiding and raced
toward the
group. Seylin's agreement with the goblin King was over.

Sable crouched on the ground by Thorn's
side. She heard shouts,
exclamations, Irina
screaming frantically, and then her screams sud
denly cut off. She saw the shadows of the newcomers pass to and fro
on the snow around her, but she forced herself
not to look up. It was
the end of everything, the end of her life. She
didn't want to see it.

Father was
right, she thought. They all were right. I should have
been safely dead long ago, and I wouldn't have had to
live through
this. Now I'll be tortured and used
in horrible magic because I was cowardly and weak. A shadow fell across Thorn's
quiet face and across the snow around them.

"Don't worry," said a good
natured voice, low and rich. "We didn't hurt him. He's just
sleeping."

Sable went
rigid. The voice was talking to her. She stared at the
snowy
ground, clinging to her life, her world. No one had grabbed her and dragged her
away yet. She was still free.

"You gave
him good advice," continued the voice thoughtfully.
"He really should have listened to you." The
voice was almost in her
ear. A goblin, right
behind her. Sable's nerve broke, and she abandoned her old life. She made a
scramble for freedom, but an arm wrapped around her waist before she could even
stand up.

"No, no," protested the
voice, "you have to stay with me," and
Sable was lifted off her feet by big silver-gray arms. The next thing
she knew, she was carried up to that traitor elf,
the one who had lied
and brought the goblins here. He was struggling to
sit up, his face very white, and some huge, strange form was doctoring the
wound on his head.

"Sorry,
Seylin," it said. "Orders. We had to let him hit you."

Sable looked
away from that evil creature, its hideous striped face
and gnarled hands. Look at the trees, she told herself
Look at the
sky. Don't give
them the pleasure of making you scream. The mon
ster who held her knelt down on one knee and seated her
on his other
knee.

"Seylin,"
said the rumbling, good-natured voice. "Do you have
a
prior claim to this elf bride?"

Seylin turned away from Katoo's
ministrations and caught sight of Sable staring out over his head as if he
weren't even there.

"Oh, no!" he cried.
"Oh, poor Sable! She's had a horrible life, Tinsel. Be nice to her."

"I will," promised Tinsel.
"I'm always nice," he added with perfect truth. Seylin watched the
handsome silver-haired goblin touch the elf woman's scarred cheek.

"Did that rabbit-lover hurt
her?" he asked with an unaccus
tomed
frown. Seylin flinched as Katoo rubbed the healing salve into
his wound.

"No,"
he answered. "She did that herself so she wouldn't have to
marry
him."

"Makes
sense to me," commented Tinsel. "I didn't care for him,
either.
But maybe you'll like me better. Right, Sable?"

Hearing her name, Sable slowly turned
her head and looked up
at the monster that
had trapped her, at the wide chest draped in
black, the broad metal colored face, the hair glittering in the
starlight
like the forest after an ice
storm. And, looking down at her, dark
blue
eyes just like her own. Elf eyes, captured and locked up in a gob
lin's
face.

The big monster
smiled down at her, and Sable's nerve broke again. She made a lunge to escape,
but there wasn't the slightest
chance of
freedom. She mastered herself once more and froze, star
ing out at the trees, and Seylin could have cried
at the expression on
her face.

Thaydar came up,
his arms full of unconscious Irina and his
green
cat-eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Seylin," he said, kneeling
down and lowering his bundle, "do
you
have a prior claim to this elf bride? Marak said it would be best
for
the kingdom if his lieutenant married one of the captured elves. The importance
of the position, that sort of thing," he explained modestly.

"But, Thaydar," protested
Seylin angrily, "Marak promised me no raids for brides!"

"Oh, absolutely," agreed
Thaydar. "We weren't dispatched for that at all, just to protect Em and
her goblin escort and bring them safely back home. But Marak
did
say
that if we didn't catch up to
them in time
to prevent their contacting
you, and
if you were to suffer
any sort of harm in a fight, we should be
prepared for the eventuality
of taking brides, so he picked me for Irina
and Tinsel for Sable.