Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar v(-103

by Mercedes Lackey

  “There he is!”

  Ree half-scrambled upright before he realized it was Jem’s voice. A moment later, boys—or maybe young men, Ree wasn’t sure—surrounded him, caring nothing for his fur or for anything but that he was hurt and that he’d freed them. The chatter while they unshielded the lamp and bandaged him made him want to be sick. He hadn’t thought it would be that bad.

  “They’ll come back,” he said when the young men quieted down a little. “Maybe not those ones, but others.”

  “Those won’t be back.” Jem sounded grimly amused. “They dropped all their weapons.”

  People gathered now, women and children and some older men who Ree guessed weren’t fit enough to be put into the army. They weren’t scared of him, and they weren’t treating him like some kind of wild animal.

  “What happens when others come, then?” Ree demanded. “More of them, because of the terrible army of hobgoblins that chased those away.” It didn’t matter that the “terrible army” was a handful of youngsters making noises. That wasn’t what the Grand Duke would hear.

  Instead of fixing things, he’d made them worse.

  Jem frowned, but he looked stubborn and determined, not angry. “We’ve got their stuff. All of it. We can fix things so we can keep them away.” He smiled. “You’ll help, Ree, right? You’ll be the fearsome hobgoblin king for us?”

  “I’ll help.” He couldn’t say anything else, really, not when he’d made sure there’d be trouble. “Granddad’s going to complain, but I guess we can feed everyone until stuff can be rebuilt.” Ree bit his lip. “Maybe make walls out of the places they burned, and traps and things.”

  “We’ll manage.” Jem said with a nod. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

  It wouldn’t be easy, Ree thought. Boys who were just about old enough to be men, frightened women and children who’d lost everything they knew . . . No one was complaining, though. Maybe they were just glad to be alive, as he and Jem had been that first night after escaping Jacona. It hadn’t mattered then that they had nothing except each other.

  Now they had something to protect, something to fight for, but they still had each other. Ree caught Jem’s determined look, and Jem smiled. “We’ll look after them, Ree. Like we look after each other.”

  Jem looked like a man. Like a young Garrad. Men protected and helped those in need. Men cleaved to their friends and their promises.

  “Yeah,” Ree said, his heart suddenly easy despite the danger ahead. “Yeah, we will.”

  Matters of the Heart

  by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Sarah A. Hoyt was born in Portugal, a mishap she hastened to correct as soon as she came of age. She lives in Colorado with her husband, her two sons, and a varying horde of cats. She has published a Shakespearean fantasy trilogy, Three Musketeers mystery novels, as well as any number of short stories in magazines ranging from

  Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

  to

  Dreams of Decadence

  . Forthcoming novels include

  Darkship Thieves

  and more Three Musketeers mystery novels. She currently lives with her family in Colorado.

  “Hello the house!”

  Ree jumped when the unfamiliar voice bellowed outside the farm gates. As a hobgoblin, having got himself mixed up with a cat and a rat during Change Circle, he was proscribed in most places. Here, too, though the people who lived near Garrad’s farm had gotten used to him and didn’t fear him. In fact, since he’d helped them escape the soldiers who had come last summer and burned most of the farms around here, Ree had no fear of being seen. Except by strangers.

  He dropped the shovel he’d been using to muck out the goat stalls and, pushing aside the goats, walked out of the stall, locked it, then walked out of the barn and across the farmyard, to where he could get a view of the gate.

  Last week’s snow coated the ground in a thin, brittle shell that crackled under the new boots that hid Ree’s nonhuman feet. The air had a cold, dry taste tinged with the smell of wood fires; that meant it was going to stay below freezing even if the sun was out. Ree’s breath steamed, and he wrapped his arms close around his body.

  The new wall protecting the farm was about seven feet tall, too tall to see past—it was taller than Jem and topped with sharp bits of stone and metal—but the iron gate the village ironmonger had done for them, in gratitude, was big enough to let the donkey and cart through, and they didn’t go outside the farm or the forest without weapons or on their own any more. It was also made of vertical shafts, like spears, and you could see between them. And if you took care to stay kind of to the side of the wall as you looked, no one could see you.

  The three men outside the gate were definitely strangers, all of them on horses. Good horses too, which to Ree were horses no one in the region could possibly afford—tall of leg and sturdy. The man at the front wore fancy armor, the kind Ree remembered Imperial officers wearing, and had what looked like a brand new red cloak over his shoulders. He looked about forty, blond and bearded, with that hardened look all soldiers got sooner or later, and he looked angry.

  “Who is it, Ree?” Jem whispered. He’d come running from where he’d been, near the chicken coop, and skidded to a stop near Ree. He’d gotten a bit taller since last summer, but mostly he’d put on muscle, filling out to match his height. Sometimes Ree felt like a child beside him, even though Ree was older.

  But then, no one knew how Ree was supposed to grow. He was a hobgoblin after all, part cat, part rat and part human, changed by the magic storms. Jem might treat him like a human, and Garrad, the old man whose farm this was and who’d become a kind of grandfather to both of them and who looked enough like Jem to be his real grandfather. Even little Amelie, whom Ree had found after soldiers burned Three Rivers last summer and whose parents had been killed treated Ree like a human, but no one else did.

  They accepted him, even were grateful for the way he’d scared off the soldiers, but his fur, and the tail he kept tucked in his pants, and his claws and cat-eyes made him different. Too different to be one of them.

  “Three soldiers. They don’t look like the other ones that came last year.” Ree whispered back as Jem leaned into him, partly trying to see around him and partly probably instinctive protection against the bitter cold. He indicated the gate. “But they’re not happy, and blondie out there is getting ready to break things if he doesn’t get an answer soon.”

  Jem nodded. He narrowed his eyes at the gate, listened to the way the big man was bellowing and got what Ree thought of as his Garrad look. It was the stubborn, no one makes me do anything look, and it usually meant trouble. Ree had seen it a lot while they helped keep people fed and rebuilt Three Rivers and put a wall around the village so soldiers couldn’t easily burn it out again.

  Jem had been a scared little thing when Ree had saved his life on the streets of Jacona, just about three years ago, but he was almost a man now, and while he would help those who needed it, he did it on his own terms and refused to be pushed around no matter how much bigger or older those doing the pushing might be.

  “Granddad’s plucking the old rooster,” Jem said his voice slightly louder. “He’ll be out as soon as he’s done. Meanwhile, I’ll deal with them.” He walked up to the gate as calm as if he were going to talk to young men from the village.

  The blond fellow didn’t wait for Jem to speak. The moment he could see someone, he demanded, “Where is Garrad? And who are you?”

  Jem folded his arms on his chest, tilted his head up, and gave the blond a frosty look. “Until you tell me who you are, it’s none of your damn business who I am or where he is, stranger.”

  Ree heard the sharp catch of breath and the creak of leather that meant the man’s massive fists were clenched tight enough to strain his gloves. “Get this thing open now, before I break it down.”

  Jem smiled a little. The blacksmith had put special care into the lock and into the forging of that gate and had told them that it would
withstand a small group of soldiers. “Go right ahead and try.”

  “Jem! Ree!” Garrad’s came from behind them, with the short breath that meant he’d been running.

  Ree turned to see the old man hurrying toward them, his walking stick, the one Jem had carved for him two years back, thumping into the ground with every step. He really didn’t need the stick most of the time, but the cold made the ground slippery, and Garrad was all too aware of what falls could do at his age. When they’d met him, he’d been rendered helpless by one such fall. “What’s going on out here?”

  Ree had been looking at the blond and thought he noticed a startled jump at their names, but it was nothing to the way Blondie’s face seemed to melt out of its harsh lines and his voice softened at the sight of Garrad. “Father?”

  Father? It could be. The old man’s son had been conscripted by the Emperor’s army years ago.

  Garrad rocked on his feet, and Ree raced to steady him while Jem kept on giving the blond man his coldest glare.

  “Lenar?” Garrad waved Ree off—with the walking stick, so Ree had to jump out of the way—and scurried to the gate. “Gods be praised, it is you!” He fumbled with the lock that held the locking bar down and nodded to Jem. “Get the gate open, and let him in, lad.”

  Ree helped Jem with the gate, lifting the heavy bar while Jem hauled it open. The blond man, Lenar, gave them a disdainful look, and the other two men got closer to the blond and started to draw their swords when they saw Ree. But they looked at Lenar before they drew them out all the way.

  Lenar didn’t even see them look. He jumped off his horse and hugged Garrad so hard he lifted the old man off his feet. If Garrad’s eyes were a bit too bright, well, Ree didn’t have to say he’d seen it. Not that Garrad would ever admit to it, anyhow.

  Jem caught the horse’s reins while Ree closed the gate behind the other two men. Having his back to them made his skin itch and his fur try to rise, but if this was Garrad’s son, then this farm was his. It wasn’t up to Ree to be inhospitable to Lenar or his guards.

  “Not so close now, you’ll break something,” Garrad protested, and he disguised his wavering voice with a cough. “Now come on inside and tell me what’s brought you back home and all that happened to you all these years.”

  Lenar sounded grim when he said, “Not so fast, Father. What are you doing with a hobgoblin and some other brat here? Who are they?”

  Ree got the gate barred and turned in time to see Lenar posed just as Jem had been shortly before, trading glares with Garrad.

  Garrad grinned grimly, as though this were a game he was used to. “Boys, you get them horses looked after, you hear? The rest of you come on inside out of the cold, and then we’ll talk.”

  Taking all the gear off the horses and stacking it neatly near the barn door took a while, and rubbing the horses down and getting them fed and watered took longer. Jem didn’t say anything, and Ree couldn’t think of anything to say. They’d never talked about it, but Ree had always figured Garrad assumed his son had died. He’d never expected anyone to come back, and Jem made a kind of a replacement.

  He wondered where the son’s return left them. Oh, Jem looked enough like Garrad to really be his grandson, but they didn’t know, and Ree wasn’t anything anyone would want. He was useful, maybe, but that was all. A tame pet, Garrad’s goblin.

  And little Amelie was just another one of their group of waifs that Garrad looked after and tolerated. She’d lightened up some since Ree had brought her here, but men scared her, and a harsh word from anyone except Garrad got her tearing up and clutching at her skirts as though someone were going to do something horrible to her any time. Ree had only ever seen her smile around the Damn Young Cats—they were too big now to be Damn Kittens, although he suspected next spring there’d be more Damn Kittens to make Garrad grumble. Were all of them surplus now that Garrad’s lost heir was back?

  As if thinking about them was a cue, Ree felt a brush of air, then a solid thump on his shoulder. He winced and bit down on a yelp when claws dug in. The Young Damn Cats never could remember that his fur wasn’t as thick as theirs.

  The horse he was brushing down didn’t seem to care that it now shared its stall with a hobgoblin and a cat, or that the cat was complaining to Ree in a thoroughly put out tone. “Yes, yes,” Ree said, hurriedly. “Your mama doesn’t catch enough rabbits, and mice are boring. That doesn’t mean you have to complain so much.”

  The Damn Young Cat added Ree’s indifference to the list of complaints, and Ree paused long enough to pluck it from his shoulder and set it on the floor of the barn. It was the gray and white one he’d rescued from a tree last summer. Of all the Damn Young Cats, this one was the one that got into the most trouble and had to be rescued most often.

  Jem came into the stall, grinning. “Damn cats,” he said. “Anyone would think you enjoyed having them climb all over you.”

  Ree finished with the horse and gave the animal a friendly pat before he left the stall. “Yeah, I know. Portable tree for damn cats, that’s me.”

  Jem was worried, for all he tried to hide it, and Ree didn’t think he was hiding things any better. “We’d better go protect Amelie.”

  Jem caught Ree’s hand for a moment in his now larger, calloused hand. “Don’t worry, Ree. Whatever happens, we’ve always got each other. And when have we ever needed anyone else?”

  It seemed to Ree the house was colder inside than it was out in the snow, what with Lenar’s two companions—guards, actually, since he was an officer and he’d been given a title and enough Imperial gold to buy an estate anywhere he liked—watching Ree as if they expected him to try to eat someone, and Lenar glaring at Jem, Ree, and Amelie.

  Ree didn’t understand why the Damn Cats made it worse, but they did, and Lenar practically accused Garrad of having gone soft in the head, letting those damn cats have the run of the house. To which Garrad—who complained about the cats all the time—had responded that the cats were homey and friendly and got rid of vermin a treat.

  Even the fact that Jem was doing the cooking, quietly getting smoked meat from the cellar to supplement what had been planned as a simple meal of bread and vegetable soup, seemed to set Lenar off. It appeared that cooking was woman’s work, and Garrad should have hired a wench from the village and not have this boy do such things. To which Garrad had boomed that Jem cooked better than any wench he’d ever met. It was true, but hardly a point to argue over. Stubborn and loud sure did run in that family.

  “C’mon, Amelie. Let’s get beds made up for our guests,” Ree said. Poor kid had been sitting in the corner clutching a Damn Cat and was white and terrified. She ran to him, putting a sweaty hand in his and sniffling back tears. Might as well get her away from what would be a huge fight.

  Garrad’s lips were set and thin, and he had the full stubborn on him. Without the beard, Lenar would have been just like him only younger, and Jem was as bad as both of them together, cutting into the smoked meat and glaring at Lenar as if he wished he were hacking into the soldier.

  Amelie clutched Ree’s hand until they were out in the main room, and she needed both hands to climb up the ladder to the loft. Her room was up there, tucked in under the eaves, but Ree figured he’d make up the other bed in the room he shared with Jem anyway. Amelie would feel safer downstairs with Lenar and his guards in the house.

  He pulled out quilts and sheets and blankets from the chests in the bedrooms, enough to make up three beds, and tossed them up to Amelie, then climbed up after her. “What do you think, Mama ’Melie? Should we give them straw beds or make them sleep on the floor?”

  She brightened a little, showing the prettiness her mother had tried to protect when she’d shoved her in the cellar to escape the raid of the soldiers. At six she should have been too young to be in danger, but they’d learned no one was too young. “They should have proper beds, Ree.” Amelie wagged a finger at him. “It wouldn’t be right to make them sleep cold.”

  He grinned and wink
ed. “ ’Sides, if we make them nice, comfy beds, they’ll sleep all night, and they’ll only wake you up when they curse about having to go to the outhouse.”

  She covered her mouth with her hands, almost as if she were scared to smile. “Don’t we have a spare pot?”

  “For three of them? We don’t have one big enough.”

  There was always fresh straw up here; keeping it fresh was one of the jobs that was never finished. The straw in the loft kept winter cold from seeping in through the roof and stuffed the mattresses and cushions. It got used for kindling as well. They kept what they weren’t using at either end of the house, farthest from the chimney in the middle of the loft, and since Amelie’s arrival Ree and Garrad had partitioned off a room for her near the chimney.

  Ree saw no reason not to put the men’s beds as far from Amelie’s room as they could, even if Amelie wouldn’t be sleeping there, though it meant bringing a lantern around so they could see to pull the straw together and tuck sheets around it so each man had a more or less comfortable bed. The thick sheets would stop any straw poking through, and with blankets and quilts they should sleep warm. The room was Amelie’s, and he didn’t want them wandering into it by accident. Not that she had much there. Just a couple of cloth dolls and the few shifts they’d found in the ruins of her once prosperous home.

  “Good enough, do you think?” he asked when he and Amelie were done. She nodded, but she looked scared, and her hands were plaiting her little pinafore.

  “Tell you what,” Ree said. “You sleep in our room tonight, all right? In the other bed. I’ll make it up for you.” With strangers in the house and the way Jem was looking, nothing untoward was going to happen in that room tonight, anyway. Ree saw the relief in her eyes and wondered. She had told him she spied through the cellar lock onto the destruction of her home, but he didn’t know what had happened. Her father and brothers had been killed. Her mother had been killed too . . . but it probably hadn’t been that simple.