With Kiv and Chaska laying two oak barrow-stakes under the legless peddler’s granite base and the Stone Shepherd heaving from the top with its calloused horn-hands, they rolled Master Hobb onto a flat, sunny slab beside the cairn in less than two minutes. The statue immediately settled half an inch into the dry moss with a contented-sounding crunch of gravel and went completely still in the warmth.
“Hah,” the shepherd grunted, shaking granite dust from its horn-knuckles and sitting down on its haunches like a fat mountain dog. “Two levers and an extra pair of boots. That would have taken me till dinner-time by myself. Have you got a bit of salt turnip in that cart, or is it all dry meal and rocks?”
Ysabet untied the ration sack with her left hand and offered two thick slices of salted dried turnip and a lump of coarse rock-salt. The shepherd took the turnip with its left horn-hand, popped it down into its square-toothed mouth, and used its right horn-hand to tuck the rock-salt behind its ear for later.
While it chewed, its rectangular yellow eyes drifted over Pip, who had crouched down on the gravel four feet away, watching the ten fingers on the deity’s horns curl and uncurl with undisguised fascination.
