Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

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.

The big man’s choking scream died to a horrible gurgling noise, and he pitched forward.

Ree scrambled to pull away from him and bit back a yelp when he found the man’s sword the hard way. His feet might be tougher than a human’s, but they weren’t horn.

He stumbled away from the wall and loose stone and collapsed, gasping. His foot stung.

“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.”