Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

The soldiers came closer. A spot of light danced erratically on the skewed beams near Ree’s head. One of the soldiers had unshielded a night lantern. Though Ree knew he could not be seen from the ground, he had to fight the urge to run, to escape. To hide in a hole and be safe.

Heart pounding, he waited until the lantern was lowered and its light aimed away from his hiding place. Slowly, he crept out of his hiding place. Balancing his feet on crossed beams, he shifted quickly, feeling the slight shift of the wood beneath him, and leaping before the minimal movement turned to a rolling fall. He skipped and tiptoed and leaped till he reached a hole, barely big enough to let a slim rat-boy through.

Stretching his arms up to the hole, he balanced on one foot. As he lifted himself by the strength of his arms, the log rolled beneath him, and a shower of rubble trickled beneath.

“Up there!” The light of the lantern hit Ree.

Ree pulled himself up, pushing his head through the hole. He had to escape, to get away from the light, away from discovery.

“Outside, quick! It can’t get far!”

Ree squirmed through the gap, pulling himself on his aching arms, feeling the jagged edges of the hole scrape his fur-covered body.

“Quick,” a soldier shouted beneath.

Ree skidded down the sloping roof, twisting around to get his feet under him. A second from a precipitous fall, he managed to jump onto the next building. For a heart-stopping moment, he hung in the air, then his fingers latched onto the wooden eaves of the building across the lane.

His claws extended, instinctively, and dug into the wood. His feet scrabbled for a hold.

He heard shouts behind him. Strength he didn’t know he possessed infused him. He pulled himself onto the steepsloped roof. Scrabbling up it, he panted. His heart hammered in his chest. His throat ached with dryness.

At the top, he held on, his claws fully extended, biting into the age-softened wood. He eased himself down the shingled roof. His chest hurt. He swallowed. Once. Twice, trying to summon moisture onto his panic-parched tongue.

He’d survived. He was alive. But he was alone and unprotected. Where would he go now? The abandoned warehouse had been the closest thing he had ever had to a home. Well, the closest thing since his mother’s home.. . . .

Ree banished memories of a beautiful woman dressed in silks—of perfumed rooms—of her laughing. Her laughter had never been for him. Nor had there been any true joy in it. It had been a sham deployed in the service of the men who paid her. And more often than not Ree was locked out of her rooms while she entertained clients. Until . . .

Ree blinked to clear his burning eyes. His mother’s home had never been home. His mother had never been a true mother. And besides, that was all done and over with. That was the other Ree, the human—the boy. The clawless, furless creature who was as nothing to this Ree. . . .

He swallowed hard, wishing moisture away from his cheeks. He was no weak human. Not anymore. He would not cry. He would think. The warehouse could not be the only available shelter in this town. He had to lose the soldiers, and then he could think about what to do next. At least climbing down to the ground was easy.

Streets here were swept at least once each day by one of the work gangs. With his night vision, Ree could scamper through them as if it were full daylight. He hardly thought about where he was going. And perhaps that was for the best. If he had nothing in mind and just turned on whim, the soldiers would find it harder to follow him. It would be harder to anticipate random movements.

Their voices grew fainter till even his enhanced hearing could hardly pick them at all. Ree breathed deeply. It was working.

As he came to a narrow lane between overarching buildings, he slowed down and looked around. His mad turnings had brought him to one of the tenement districts, where the shabby buildings leaned so close to each other they almost touched above the lane. Black alleys barely wide enough for a hand cart separated the buildings. The sun never reached the mud beneath.

He lifted his feet off the dismal muck and sighed. He needed to pick his way more carefully now. He had already trodden in more than enough to leave a scent trail even a human could follow.

Lifting his foot, he shook off the worst of the filth. These lanes had never been paved. They went from ice in winter to mud in summer, and since the magic died they had more than just mud and ice in them. He had been born somewhere like this. He’d played in these streets—or walked forlornly along them—when his mother locked him out of her rooms.

Ree crept slowly through the darkness, listening, listening. His enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of people in their houses—whispers, conversations, a sleeper turning in bed, a child crying forlornly.