Ghosteria Volume 1: The Stories (Ghostgeria) by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Lee, Tanith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Immanion Press
Published: 2014-09-19T21:00:00+00:00

A Night on the Hill

At the end of the yellow afternoon, Hone walked out of the waste and saw the village lying before him on the slope under the hill. The hill he had seen for some miles, he had made it his landmark. It looked softer and greener than the rocks of the desert he had been travelling for three days, and this was so. It was a verdant hill, covered by woods, and underneath the village basked on the bank of a little river, painted houses and vineyards, and goats in the meadow.

Hone was a big man, tall, brawny and fat, and though there was no hair on his head and he had no eyebrows or lashes, a beard sprouted from his face and hung to his belly, full of things he never bothered to comb away. He wore a bandit’s case of leather and brass; in his belt were three knives of varying and exaggerated size. Now Hone grinned, and his six remaining front teeth put the watchers on the village street in mind of a happy hungry jackal.

“Hey you!” shouted Hone. “Fetch your headman!”

And when response was not immediate, he strode up to the nearest villager and belted him senseless with his brass-knuckled fist. The others of course ran to do Hone’s bidding.

Hone looked round. He was thinking over to himself all the good things that were obviously on offer here. He had found villages like this in the past, and he always enjoyed a long and prosperous stay. Some even had treasures in gold and jewels tucked away, in their temple perhaps, (Hone was neither religious nor superstitious.)

Back came the mobile villagers with their headman, who had a small ruby in one ear.

“You’ll give me that,” stated Hone, pointing.

The headman, already sweating and swallowing, inquired why he should.

Hone, instead of knocking him over, encircled the headman’s shoulders with one meaty arm. In a friendly tone, he set about enlightening him. “You see, dearie, if you and yours don’t do exactly as I say, my mates, who are a few days behind me on the road here, will make a nasty mess of you all when they arrive. That’s if I don’t make a nasty mess first. And Hone tweaked the headman’s nose playfully, causing it to bleed. “Got a daughter?” he added.

“Two,” choked the headman. He appended carefully, “Sir.”

Hone asked their ages, plumpness, and at the reply his grin broadened.

The surviving villager said, “This gentleman and his mates have obviously come here because of the hill.”

Hone reckoned he was quick, and life had never lessoned him otherwise. Now he turned, and in the westering rays of the sun, squinted at the wooded slopes above the village. He noticed that none of the goats grazed there, though the grass was lush, and that no part of the hill had been cleared to make a field or vineyard. There were no tracks. The houses stopped in a row at the hill’s foot. But for now he only said, “What’s for dinner?” And urged them to lead him somewhere for a feast.

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