“Mama put me here so the soldiers . . . Mama . . .” She cried, big wrenching sobs.
Ree sighed and picked her up. She didn’t weigh much, and he’d carried Jem before, and he was stronger than someone his size should be, but he’d hurt if he had to carry her far. She buried her face in his shirt and kept right on crying.
In the end, Those Damn Kittens calmed the girl down. Three of them had crept into her lap, purring and tumbling, and she’d calmed enough, watching them, to tell Ree and Garrad her story.
She was the youngest child of the village mayor, and named Amelie like her mother. Mama had put her in the cellar because she thought her being so pretty might tempt the soldiers. But the soldiers had taken everyone and burned everything, and Mama . . . She’d eaten some stew, petted Those Damn Kittens, and finally fallen into an exhausted sleep.
Ree and Garrad had gotten her into a makeshift bed under the eaves, then come back to sit by the fire.
“All of ’em?” Garrad asked softly.
Ree nodded. “Jem—” He said. His hands clenched, his claws extending and digging into his palms. “He saw it. He’ll see it. He’ll get used—”
The old man nodded, and sighed. “I don’t know what to do, son.” He closed his eyes. “Seems like no matter which way we turn, there’s damn soldiers in the way.”
“Yeah.” Ree might be able to survive in the forest, but not as a person. Here he belonged. He’d helped make that chair and the matching one where he sat. There was new plaster in the bedroom that he’d put on, and the roof was weathertight because of the many times he’d been up there fitting new shingles and looking for ones too old and dried out to use any more. His humanity was tied to these and to Jem in the kitchen, cooking, and to Garrad making jokes about teaching Jem to shave because he couldn’t call both of them Fur Face.
Why didn’t one of the bad hobgoblins like the snow bears go after the soldiers and kill them all, and let Jem escape back home.
But that wasn’t right. If they were grabbing boys like Jem, that meant a lot of the soldiers were boys like Jem. And besides, if there was one thing Ree knew, all the way from Jacona, before the changes, it was that you didn’t sit around waiting for someone to solve your problems for you.
That reminded him of the way hobgoblins were hunted, how much they scared people in the city, where they had guards and soldiers to protect them. Wouldn’t people out here be even more scared of creatures like him?
“Granddad? You remember when we arrived here?” Garrad looked away from the fire and gave him a sharp look. It had to irk the old man to remember how helpless he’d been.
“You were scared of me, because I’m a hobgoblin, right? And you couldn’t stop me.” He remembered Garrad’s frightened eyes.
A little life crept back into the old man’s face. “I remember all right.”
“How scary do you think a hobgoblin could be? At night?”
Garrad laughed, that short, harsh bark of a laugh that seemed to dare the world to argue with him. “Pretty damn scary, I reckon.”
Ree crept toward the soldiers’ camp, his heart and chest tighter than a miser’s pocket. His fur prickled with every hint of breeze. He moved by animal instinct. Stealthily. He’d never thought there’d be a day when he’d thank the Little Gods for being part cat and part rat.
He’d taken off his clothes and hidden them in the forest not far from where the soldiers camped. This was just himself and his claws. And a lantern, to use later.
One of the soldiers walked past, boots stomping within inches of Ree’s face. He held his breath until the man moved on before he inched forward again. Every sound he made seemed unnaturally loud, every rustle of grass and trickle of dirt like an avalanche. His breath was like thunder to his ears. But the soldiers didn’t hear him and didn’t see him.
He found Jem lying pale faced and exhausted, wrapped in a thin blanket. Ree guessed they worked the boys hard, but there was no excuse for the big bruise darkening one side of his face and the way he lay huddled as if afraid. He wasn’t the only boy like that, and the soldiers must have been scared they’d run away, because they tied all the boys up at night, the same as their prisoners.
Soil and grass slid under Ree’s stomach and tickled his nose. Just as well it was night, because he could see much better than any human. He hoped he could scare them so they ran all the way back to their fancy Grand Duke and never, ever came back.
Ree slid his way to Jem and up alongside him. Carefully, he started to untie Jem’s hands. The way Jem started when he woke, and bit back a scream, made Ree choke on anger.
“Ree?” Jem barely breathed his name. “They’ll kill you!”
“We’re leaving. We all are.” When he’d decided that, Ree didn’t know, but he wasn’t leaving anyone for those bastards. Not even if he had to kill again. He gestured with his head. “Can you get them free?”
Jem nodded. His lips went tight, and his eyes narrowed. He looked so like Garrad that Ree’s eyes burned.
“Good. Warn them about me.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ree grinned. “What do you think? Big, terrifying hobgoblin come to eat them for dinner.”
Ree shielded the lamp before he lit it. It was one of the old ones from when there was magic, with glass behind the metal shutters and a lighter that you pushed to make a spark. There wasn’t any magic in the lamp, but it had taken a mage to make the lighter.
The click of the lighter seemed awfully loud.
None of the soldiers heard it.
Ree wiped his hands on his fur. He was sweating, and his skin prickled. He had to scare the soldiers so much they left their captives where they were.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and let out a hollow roar that could have come from one of the snow bears.
Soldiers stumbled up and moved a bit like bees, only with torches and weapons and looking for something to kill.
Ree caught the handle of the lantern with his claws and raced to the next place he’d chosen: a cluster of boulders not far from the woods. He let loose a second roar before he’d come to a stop, then darted back into the woods to get to his third place.
Another roar sounded, this one from the other side of the soldiers. Ree’s heart jumped in his chest, then he grinned. Jem must have decided to help.
The ruin of an old building was Ree’s stage; all that was left of it was half a wall that he could stand on. He hung the lantern and unshielded the side he needed, then stepped into its light. The effect on the soldiers was better than he’d dared to hope: They cringed from his hugely magnified shadow.
A whole chorus of roars erupted, some of them—to Ree, anyway—sounding like they came from little children.
Ree breathed in deeply and bellowed, making his voice big. “Begone! This is my territory!”
He didn’t expect them to break and run right then, but they did. Maybe the shadows from the rest of the ruins made him look scarier, or maybe it was all the howls and roars coming from everywhere around the camp.
There were a few screams, too, men, not women or boys. Ree dropped back out of the light and shielded the lantern and tried to ignore the way his stomach knotted up. If some of the people who’d been chased out of their homes and . . . hurt wanted to pay back some, well, it wasn’t any business of his.
He leaned against the ruined wall, shuddering. This wasn’t over, not by a long way.
A shape loomed out of the shadows. A meaty hand grabbed for Ree’s throat. He ducked aside, gulping. It was the big one, the commander.
Ree’s lips drew back in a snarl, and he launched himself at the soldier. The man wasn’t in his armor, just a shirt and pants, but he had a sword in his right hand. That wouldn’t matter if Ree was right up close.
He caught the man’s shoulders, digging his claws in while he arched his back so he could get his legs up and use the toe claws where it would hurt most.
The big bastard made a sound that might have been a scream, and Ree heard metal hit stone. His nose wrinkled at the man’s smell of sour beer and worse. His toe claws got a grip, dug in.
The man grabbed at Ree’s chest, trying to pull him away. That let Ree use his right hand to dig his claws into the man’s eyes, his throat.
