Cold Days by Jim Butcher Read Free Book Online Page A

been no . . . attaching. She’s been doctoring me.”
    Sarissa arched an eyebrow at me, and then said to the Gruff, “It was Mab’s price.”
    “Ah,” the Gruff said. “A heavy burden obligation canst be, for Winter and Summer alike.” He glanced aside at me. “Does he know of thine—”
    “It hasn’t come up,” Sarissa said.
    “Ah,” Eldest Gruff said, raising his hands. He had weird nails. They were hoofy. “I will then follow the course of silence.”
    Sarissa inclined her head. “Thank you.”
    “Of course.”
    Two more figures approached us, both of them over seven feet tall. I’m not used to being the shortest person in any given conversation. Or even the shorter person. I can change lightbulbs without stretching. I can put the star on the Christmas tree without standing on tiptoe. I’m like the Bumble, but with way better teeth, and I didn’t like feeling loomed over.
    (Which probably should tell me about the kind of effect I might be having on other people, sort of generally speaking, and especially when I gave attitude to power figures who were shorter than me, but that kind of crystallized moment of enlightenment probably wouldn’t be helpful in winning the evening.)
    The first was depressingly familiar. He was dressed in hunter’s leathers, all grey and green and brown. There was a sword with a hilt made from some sort of antler at his side. It was the first time I’d seen him wearing something other than a helmet. He had shaggy, grizzled light brown hair that fell to his shoulders. His features were asymmetrical but, though not handsome, contained a certain roguish charm, and his eyes were an unsettling shade of gold-green. I didn’t know his name, but he was the Erlking, one of the beings of Faerie powerful enough to lead the Wild Hunt, and he was the reigning ruler of the goblins.
    (Not like the big ugly dimwit in the Hobbit. Real goblins are like mutant Terminator serial killer psycho ninjas. Think Hannibal Lecter meets Jackie Chan.)
    Oh, and I’d insulted him once by trapping him in a magic circle. Faeries large and small hate that action.
    “Gruff,” said the Erlking, tilting his head.
    Eldest Gruff made a small bow in reply. “Lord Herne.”
    “Know you these children?”
    “Aye,” said Eldest Gruff. He began making polite introductions.
    I studied the man standing beside the Erlking while he did. He was a sharp contrast. The Erlking was huge, but there was something about him that suggested agility and grace. It was like looking at a tiger. Sure, it might be standing there all calm and relaxed at the moment, but you knew that at any second it could surge with speed and terrible purpose and that it wouldn’t give you any warning before it came at you.
    This man wasn’t a tiger. He was a bear. His shoulders were so broadly proportioned that he made Herne look positively slender by comparison. His forearms were nearly the size of his biceps, and he had the kind of thick neck that you see only in power lifters and professional thugs. There were scars all over his hands, and more on his face, all of them faded away to ancient white lines, like those you see on some lifelong bikers. He wore a coat of mail of some kind—a creature of Faerie couldn’t abide the touch of iron, so it had to be made from something else.
    Over the mail he wore a long, open coat of scarlet, trimmed in white fur. It was held in with a wide black leather belt. He had such a barrel of a chest that even a modest bit of stomach was a considerable mass on his huge frame. His gloves were made of black leather trimmed with more white fur, and they were tucked through the belt, right next to the very plain and functional hilt of an unadorned broadsword. His hair was short, white, and shining clean, and his white beard fell over his chest like the white breaker of a wave. His eyes were clean, winter sky blue.
    I lost track of what Eldest Gruff was saying, because my mouth was falling open.
    The second man noticed