Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

It had taken the soldiers three days to get to the farm, and each day smoke pillars had risen up from the valley bringing with them a smell of unclean smoke. When he climbed the trees near the farm, Ree knew the soldiers were burning out places. And the column in which they moved grew, with long lines of people tied up behind the soldiers. Slaves or prisoners, didn’t matter which. Even children were tied up and dragged along, little ones, barely able to walk.

Garrad snapped at Ree when Ree couldn’t eat and said they would be all right. But it seemed to Ree no better than a magic incantation, and everyone knew magic wasn’t much good anymore.

Jem and Garrad approached the soldiers—Garrad doing his best to limp, Jem supporting him solicitously. The leader of the soldiers didn’t dismount. He stayed atop his big gray mare, glaring down at them like a man who knows a put-on when he sees it.

He looked like one of those big mean bastards, built solid, like Garrad’s outhouse, and he sized up Jem and Garrad like a trader checking furs. Or—and the older memory made Ree swallow and wipe his hands on his pants—like some of Ree’s mother’s customers when they looked at him, back when he’d still been human. Before she’d shooed him away to avoid his being sold to some of those that preferred boys.

The commander’s metal armor glinted in the sun. About half of his soldiers had the same armor, the others a mix of metal and leather, but all of them had swords, and some of them had long bows. They weren’t Imperial soldiers—those all had metal armor—but they moved like men who’d worked together and knew their strength.

The big one grinned at Jem, licked his lips, and then looked at Garrad. Before he could say anything, a different man rode into Ree’s view. This one wasn’t a soldier. He was dressed like Ree’s idea of a lord, only he didn’t have a sword. Instead, he had a big leather bag, and he held a rolled paper in his hand.

“Is this the farm of Garrad Lenar’s son?” He spoke as if he smelled something bad, all thin and whiny.

Garrad nodded. “It’s my place. And you’d be?”

The man sniffed. “We represent the Grand Duke Parleon, who owns this land.”

“Really?” Garrad leaned forward on his cane. “Last I heard it belonged to the Emperor. Emperor Melles, so I heard.”

A few of the soldiers looked at each other. They must not have expected to hear anything about the Emperor here.

“Times have changed,” said the unarmored man. “My Lord Parleon holds here.” He unrolled his paper and glared at Jem. “According to the records, you have no dependents.”

Garrad shrugged. “That paper of yours is a bit out of date. My boy in the Imperial Army, he sent me his son to look after me.” He nodded to Jem. “He’s a good lad. A bit sickly for soldiering, what with the hacking cough and all, but he helps.”

Jem was skinny enough, but he couldn’t disguise his height. He couldn’t fake a cough, either. Jem was no good at lying.

The next thing the man said was all about taxes and fines and things, but it sounded to Ree more like he was looking to plunder as much as he could and was trying to claim as much wealth as the soldiers could carry off. It made no sense. In Jacona, the merchants and shopkeepers might complain about Imperial taxes, but Ree had never heard of their taking a man’s whole living.

Ree remembered all the people tied up behind the soldiers and wondered if this Grand Duke just wanted to control everyone so he could have his own friends take the land and live off it without working for it, like the bandit lords the traders talked about. He must be dressing it in all this talk of tax.

Garrad didn’t look happy about it. Jem held his head down, so Ree couldn’t see his expression. When the long list finished, the old man grunted. “Go get them snow bear furs out of the barn, lad.”

Jem left Garrad leaning on his stick and rushed into the barn. He didn’t talk, just picked up the three cured furs and carried them off.

“Snow bears?”

“Hobgoblin critters,” the old man said with a shrug. “They look sort of like bears, and they come down off the forests each winter since the magic storms.”

The soldiers and the official looked startled when they saw the sparkling white fur piled high in Jem’s arms.

“Pretty, ain’t they?” Garrad grinned. “Fit for a king, I’d reckon.”

The official ran one hand over the fur. “How . . . how many do you have?”

“We got three over from last winter,” Garrad told him. “You want to go hunting ’em, forest’s right there. We only ever see ’em in winter, and you can’t tell they’re there till they attack. Something magic in the fur, I reckon.”

The official frowned. “And you kill them.”

Garrad snorted. “One of them comes at you, you kill it or it kills you. Ain’t saying it’s easy, now.”

A few of the soldiers chuckled. Ree supposed they understood.

The man must have decided, because he nodded, then said, “That will suffice. Take the furs and secure them. The boy joins us. He’ll be trained and fight in my Lord’s service.”