and they hadn’t come back, so Ree supposed he’d scared them good. It had worked. But he’d still left himself with a nasty mess that didn’t ever go away.
The warmth of Jem’s hand on his didn’t help. Sometimes he had to remember there were other people and other places outside their special, protected relationship. “I don’t suppose you could tell them the Hobgoblin King isn’t happy about this but these creatures aren’t his or in his territory.” It wasn’t a question—Ree knew very well Lenar wouldn’t be able to convince anyone of that.
“I’ve tried,” Lenar said, making Ree blink with surprise. Lenar had tried?
Lenar laughed a little at Ree’s expression. “Of course, I tried, son. I want to keep you from trouble if I can, and Jem too, of course. Only I’m not a diplomat. I’m just an old soldier who got into more than he planned for.”
Ree nodded. Well. Life, like raising children, was trouble, wasn’t it? But it had his compensations. He squeezed Jem’s hand, gently, making sure his claws weren’t unsheathed.
The sun was setting when Jem climbed up to the attic bedroom to fetch little Garrad. He returned soon after, grim-faced. “They’re not there.”
“How . . . They never came through here!”
“No,” Jem said, his mouth set. “They opened the roof hatch and got out through it. You know Meren did that last week. Down the rain pipe to the shed roof.”
And down the shed roof to the chicken house, where he’d tried to collect the eggs, only got the wrong ones. The poor broody hen would never recover from the shock.
Ree swallowed. He half stood before he even thought of the words. His mouth was dry. the trouble those two could get into . . . It didn’t bear thinking. If he was lucky he’d just find them trying to ride one of the goats or driving the cow to distraction.
If he wasn’t lucky . . . “I’ll check the outhouse. Maybe one of them had to go.” And at this time of year neither of them would use the chamberpot. Not that Ree blamed them. He preferred the outhouse even in the cold of winter. He wouldn’t blame them for not coming through here, either, because Garrad was as likely to yell at them as not, in the mood he’d been.
He doubted he’d find either child in the outhouse, truth be told. There were much more interesting things to do and places to go than the outhouse. But they might have gone there first, and there was a good chance of catching a scent. Besides, he didn’t want to see Lenar’s expression or hear anything Lenar said. His face had clouded when Jem said that Meren had got out that way before. Ree didn’t want to know if he was mad at them for not telling him or mad at Meren. And he didn’t want anyone to be mad at Meren.
Meren was no more mischievous than any other four-year-old, but taking little Garrad with him . . . that was new. Normally when they were in bed, they stayed in bed, talking and giggling in half-intelligible baby-language, until they fell asleep.
Ree snatched the belt with his hunting knife and the slingshot on his way out the lean-to, then paused to scan the ground. There wasn’t anything obvious, but he hadn’t expected anything. Neither child was heavy enough to leave much of an impression on thick grass.
The outhouse was empty, with no trace of either child’s scent—or at least none that Ree could determine under the overpowering outhouse smell. From there, he circled the house, to where the air hatch on the roof was propped open. They’d open that in summer, to let breezes through and keep the house from getting too hot during the day, but it was closed at night to keep insects out.
Ree had closed both the hatches when he’d put the boys to bed. His throat tightened, threatening to choke him. And realized Lenar was keeping pace with him.
“I’ll tan that boy’s hide so hard he won’t sit down for a week,” Lenar growled. “He knows he’s to stay in bed once he’s put there. And following that damn hobg—” He stopped, but his glare said everything his voice didn’t.
Ree didn’t say anything. How could he? Lenar had to be as worried as Ree. Maybe more: sometimes Ree caught Lenar looking at Jem as though he’d never really forgiven himself for losing Jem. Rather than worry at Lenar’s anger, Ree traced the line of the roof with his eyes, to the lean-to and the stone wall butting against it. Oh, yes, an agile little boy could get to that wall without any difficulty. And walk along it, too, until he got to one of the trees with branches hanging over the walls, where he could climb to the ground. The question was, which one?
Ree hurried over to the wall,and jumped up. He bent to the stone to sniff. “They came this way.” Neither boy had been wearing shoes—for once Ree blessed their dislike of footwear. Once, Ree wouldn’t have hesitated to drop to all fours to scurry along that wall, but he wasn’t agile enough for that any more, and besides, he tried to set the right example for Meren. He tried not to think about proving to Lenar that he was more human than animal. If he said anything now, he wouldn’t like the answer.
Lenar walked beside the wall, cursing in language fit to raise the dead. It certainly made Ree’s fur want to stand on end.
Jem joined his father, quiet but just as grim-faced.
Ree walked so he wouldn’t miss seeing anything, even though he wanted to run. If he ran like he wanted to, he could take the wrong fence, because he didn’t know which way the children had gone.
A cat screamed in the forest.
Ree didn’t make any conscious decisions. In the time it took for the sound to fade, he was running along the wall, aware of Jem and Lenar sprinting alongside him on the ground and damncats converging from every direction.
The cats moved ahead of them in a multicolored furry tide, responding to the distress of one of their own. Where the wall ended, Ree jumped off and followed the cats into the forest. Jem and Lenar didn’t take long to catch up with him.
They didn’t say anything, not that they’d be heard over the caterwauling that echoed up ahead. And under it . . . growls. Not Meren’s growl. And no human screams. Did that mean the boys were already . . . Ree’s stomach lurched, and he wrenched his mind away from the thought.
The damn boy knew the forest was dangerous! Why had he come out here?
A cat’s death scream, then Meren’s growl, shrill and childish, but dangerous too. He’d growled like that when he’d saved Amelie from a dire wolf.
Ree raced around a massive oak and all but ran into two snow bears, one batting ineffectually at the snarling cats attacking it. The other . . . It was covered with cats as well, as though every damncat on the farm had come after the bears. Meren clung to the tree, his weight held by the claws of one hand and both feet. Little Garrad was wedged into the space between Meren and tree, while Meren clawed and snarled at the attacking bear. The bear that seemed to be fighting its own body as it reached for the child.
Ree caught the first bear’s fur and used that to swing himself between the other bear and the children. If the bear hadn’t been injured—or if the other one hadn’t been trying to fight off the damncats the way this one should have been—both boys would be dead.
Lenar pushed him out of the way, practically crushing him against the tree. “Get the boys out of here.” Ree didn’t argue. He scrambled up the tree trunk to the first branching, far enough above the bear’s reach to be safe, then leaned down, extended one hand. “Garrad! Come to Uncle Ree.” It took an effort of will to keep his claws in, with the bears and the cats and the smell of blood.
“Come on.” Neither child seemed to notice. A bear screamed, dying. Ree dug his toe claws and the claws of his other hand in and leaned lower, and lower, until he could get hold of Garrad’s shirt. “Come on, little man, hold onto me.”
He pulled, praying that the shirt wouldn’t tear, that he wouldn’t lose his grip. Another bear roar and hot breath against his arm. Ree didn’t dare try to look.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he managed it, but a flurry of small limbs and some needle-sharp little claws later, Ree sat on the branch with his back against the bole of the old oak and Meren and little Garrad trembling in his arms.
He didn’t try to move or look, just held the boys close. There was a meaty sound, then something hit the ground, hard, and Ree heard scurrying and distressed meowing. The lament in the cats cries made Ree’s eyes burn.
“Well.” Lenar sounded grim. “Now we know something is using magic.”
