Page 42 of Ties of Bargains

Harm coughed, glancing at Val as if he wasn’t sure what to do.

“Yes, yes, now we really must be going.” Val fumbledfor the door’s latch, but as soon as she released Daisy with one hand, the dog nearly ripped out of her grip. Val quickly returned to clutching the dog with both hands.

Harm hurried past her and opened the door.

Val dragged Daisy out the door, across the porch, and down the steps to the ground. Harm all but threw himself out the door. He skipped the steps entirely and jumped straight to the ground.

The old crone stood in the doorway and waved to them, three of her black cats twining around her feet. “Listen to an old wise woman, dearie. Don’t let a man like that slip through your fingers. Nice ones come around only once in a pink moon.”

Now it was Val’s turn to cough. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

One of the cats slinked a little too close to the edge of the porch. Daisy lunged with such force that she pulled Val right off her feet.

Harm dove and got a grip on Daisy as well before the dog made it up the steps to reach the cat.

The crone’s mouth puckered as her cat clawed its way up the side of her dress to perch on her shoulder. “One last piece of advice, dearie. Perhaps consider getting a cat. They are far less trouble.”

With that, the old woman retreated into her house, her cats following with their tails up in the air. As soon as the last one was inside, she slammed the door, and the chicken cottage lurched into motion. It trundled with the same gait as a chicken as it pounded down the gravel road.

Harm gave a shudder as he brushed black cat hair from his breeches. “I know it was my idea last night, but can we avoid staying with crones from now on?”

“Agreed.” Suppressing a shudder of her own, Val released Daisy. The dog gave a few last parting barks at the rapidly disappearing house before she set to work sniffing at their surroundings.

Val stood to better assess their location. The fields around the road appeared virtually unchanged from the night before, except that one of the fields contained wheat instead of corn.

A distant smudge of white blurred in the distance to their right while, directly in front of them, a line of trees cut across the horizon from one end to the other.

Val pointed in that direction. “Looks like the house took us straight north during the night rather than veering at an angle across the Harvest Court as we’d planned.”

“Is that good or bad?” Harm spun on his heel on the road, the gravel crunching, as he, too, took in the scenery.

“Good, mostly.” Val set off down the road, as it went in the same direction they needed to go. “It saved us two days of walking in the Harvest Court, but we’ll need to take a day cutting through the Goblin Court instead of going straight into the Court of Stone. The Goblin Court is safer than the Harvest Court, so it isn’t a great loss to change our route.”

Val hadn’t planned to go this way since it would have added an extra day of walking. But since the chickenhouse had done the walking for them while they slept, she could tolerate this change of plans.

“I’ll take safer.” Harm strode at her side along the road, his arms swinging easily. He absently reached out and brushed his hand over the pink tops of the wheat growing alongside the road.

“No! Don’t!” Val grabbed him and hauled him away from the wheat field, the force of her movement making her stumble closer to the field herself.

Something clutched her leg. Before she could shake it off, more things swarmed up her legs, and she was yanked off her feet.

Her back hit the ground, knocking the breath from her body, even as she was zipped into the wheat field by the many, many hands gripping her. Wheat lashed her face, the stalks scraping against the back of her neck.

The glittering cord tied to her wrist snapped tight, jerking her arm nearly out of its socket. Harm gave a yell from somewhere behind her before there came anoomph.

Something brown flashed by her, then there was a shriek and a growl from somewhere ahead. A few of the hands left her legs, but not enough to even slow the breakneck pace.

Val lifted her head and tried to squint into the wheat whipping her face. Little goldenthingshad a hold of her legs as they raced through the wheat field. They seemed to be somewhat humanoid but also stalky with golden skin and rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth that were too big for their mouths.

Grain sprites.

Val tried to sit up enough to bat at them, but she couldn’t move between the force of their dragging and the cord just about yanking her left arm off.

“Val!” Harm shouted from somewhere behind her, but Val couldn’t crane her head around enough to see him. “Lean left!”

Gritting her teeth, she tried to roll in that direction. She shoved with her elbow, which only succeeded in digging a furrow into the dirt. She tried to lift one of her legs, but there were too many grain sprites clinging to her.

Something tall and leafy rushed toward them.

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