The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part two

The Innkeeper would say something about the horse, or about Chance. They would talk of his having ridden north on the back road. Jinian would evince disappointment. “Well, the man will have traded the horse by the time I could catch up to him tomorrow. Ah, well. I will not worry on it further.” And then she would take herself off upstairs.

Behind her in the common room, the Bonedancer would snarl at Karl Pig-face. Then, if all went as I thought it might, they would decide to ride out after the man and the horse with the nubby shoes to catch him before the trail was lost. If they hurried, they would say, they might catch him as he slept somewhere, and find they had captured Peter without further effort. I went over this scenario in my head several times, finding it both likely and satisfying. Some time went by. I began to doubt and fidget, never ceasing to chew away at the work I was doing. The moon rode at my back, curved as a blade. In the dim light I saw the shadows at the turn of the road, then heard the clatter, clatter of the bones as they rounded the corner. They had a lantern, for the Bonedancer led them in a puddle of yellow light, Karl trudging sullenly beside him with the others. Then Karl’s head came up.

“I Read him,” he whispered excitedly. “Petey Priss. I Read him. Not far off. Near us. Oh, what a fool to go sleeping by the road! He’s close ahead of us.”

“Well then, walk quiet, little Rancelman,” a whispered reply from the Bonedancer. “At the end of this tunnel here we’ll spread out and seek him. Then you’ll be paid as promised and a good job done.” I saw the gleam of moonlight in their eyes, then lost the light as they entered the tunnel, Gamesmen first, bones after.

Only then did I shut my mighty grole mouth and let the grole innards grind. In the two hours which had passed, I had managed to add enough bulk to grow a man and a half high and nine men long. I had made a believable tunnel. One without an end, unfortunately for those who entered.

I lay there in the darkness, a great, black bowel in the night, trying to decide whether I felt sadness over Karl Pig-face. I decided that he was more digestible to me dead than alive and hunting me. When I had finished the light metal in the bones (delicious to a grole¾they taste with their stomachs, I learned) I pulled the net and gave up bulk, having first heaved myself out of the defile and onto a broader patch of ground. What was left was only a long, vaguely cylindrical pile of rock and some powdered ores. So much for one more of Huld’s reaches in my direction. I was not fool enough to think it was the last or the strongest. Next time would not be this easy.

Next time, I thought, he may send a Game I cannot win.

* * *

6

The Grole Hills

* * *

SINCE JINIAN HAD ALREADY SPOKEN to the Innkeeper about buying horses, it was she who went to the beastmarket the following morning to get mounts for us once again. Silkhands assured me it was wisest in any event, for Jinian had been reared at the southern end of River Jourt, where horses are a religion and a way of life. The whole town was talking of the Bonedancer, visits from such Gamesmen being unusual in Three Knob, and it took her some time to accomplish her business. Meantime, Silkhands and I finished our breakfast, and I taxed her with being a mope and poor companion. Truly, she had been growing quieter and sadder with each step of our journey.

“Oh, Peter,” she sighed. “This traveling about is worse than I remembered. I have grown used to luxury at Vorbold’s House. The beds are soft, the rooms warm. There are good cooks in the kitchens there, and excellent wines in the cellars. It is a quiet, interesting life, and one need not fear being taken by Ghouls or pursued by monsters. I have grown soft and unwilling to bruise myself upon stones.”