Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

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.