Around him cooling timbers creaked and settled. The smoke was now more charred wood than charred meat, and he was glad for that. He shuddered again, and his stomach lurched toward his throat. The hazy air stung his eyes and made them burn and tear.
Someone whimpered.
Ree followed the sound to one of the ruined houses. He edged toward it. It had been a big house. The thatched roof was gone, and the walls had fallen in on themselves in a tangle of wood and sun-dried brick, all of it charred and stark. The cellar doors, heavy wooden things with metal strapping, were still intact although the wood was badly burned.
Someone was crying in the cellar.
Ree hauled the doors open and scurried down into the dark, ashy-smelling air below. He could see the mess of everything that had fallen in from the house, but there was a small clear space, and a girl of about six huddled by the wall. She was trying to cry quietly and not really succeeding.
“They’ve gone,” Ree said softly. “You’re safe now.”
She looked up, staring at him. Soot smeared her face, and her eyes were wide and full of fear. “You . . . you’re old Garrad’s goblin.”
“Yep.” Ree didn’t go into the town, ever, only watched from the cover of the forest when Jem was there, but people had caught glimpses of him, and people always talked. “You think he’d keep something dangerous?”
Just as the kitten had, she watched him with big eyes, trying to decide if he was dangerous. He thought of the burned bundles in the street and of Jem taken away by the people who’d done this, and he wasn’t sure he couldn’t be very dangerous. He had to do something, but what?
“Mama put me here so the soldiers . . . Mama . . .” She cried, big wrenching sobs.
Ree sighed and picked her up. She didn’t weigh much, and he’d carried Jem before, and he was stronger than someone his size should be, but he’d hurt if he had to carry her far. She buried her face in his shirt and kept right on crying.
In the end, Those Damn Kittens calmed the girl down. Three of them had crept into her lap, purring and tumbling, and she’d calmed enough, watching them, to tell Ree and Garrad her story.
She was the youngest child of the village mayor, and named Amelie like her mother. Mama had put her in the cellar because she thought her being so pretty might tempt the soldiers. But the soldiers had taken everyone and burned everything, and Mama . . . She’d eaten some stew, petted Those Damn Kittens, and finally fallen into an exhausted sleep.
Ree and Garrad had gotten her into a makeshift bed under the eaves, then come back to sit by the fire.
“All of ’em?” Garrad asked softly.
Ree nodded. “Jem—” He said. His hands clenched, his claws extending and digging into his palms. “He saw it. He’ll see it. He’ll get used—”
The old man nodded, and sighed. “I don’t know what to do, son.” He closed his eyes. “Seems like no matter which way we turn, there’s damn soldiers in the way.”
“Yeah.” Ree might be able to survive in the forest, but not as a person. Here he belonged. He’d helped make that chair and the matching one where he sat. There was new plaster in the bedroom that he’d put on, and the roof was weathertight because of the many times he’d been up there fitting new shingles and looking for ones too old and dried out to use any more. His humanity was tied to these and to Jem in the kitchen, cooking, and to Garrad making jokes about teaching Jem to shave because he couldn’t call both of them Fur Face.
Why didn’t one of the bad hobgoblins like the snow bears go after the soldiers and kill them all, and let Jem escape back home.
But that wasn’t right. If they were grabbing boys like Jem, that meant a lot of the soldiers were boys like Jem. And besides, if there was one thing Ree knew, all the way from Jacona, before the changes, it was that you didn’t sit around waiting for someone to solve your problems for you.
That reminded him of the way hobgoblins were hunted, how much they scared people in the city, where they had guards and soldiers to protect them. Wouldn’t people out here be even more scared of creatures like him?
“Granddad? You remember when we arrived here?” Garrad looked away from the fire and gave him a sharp look. It had to irk the old man to remember how helpless he’d been.
“You were scared of me, because I’m a hobgoblin, right? And you couldn’t stop me.” He remembered Garrad’s frightened eyes.
A little life crept back into the old man’s face. “I remember all right.”
“How scary do you think a hobgoblin could be? At night?”
Garrad laughed, that short, harsh bark of a laugh that seemed to dare the world to argue with him. “Pretty damn scary, I reckon.”
Ree crept toward the soldiers’ camp, his heart and chest tighter than a miser’s pocket. His fur prickled with every hint of breeze. He moved by animal instinct. Stealthily. He’d never thought there’d be a day when he’d thank the Little Gods for being part cat and part rat.
He’d taken off his clothes and hidden them in the forest not far from where the soldiers camped. This was just himself and his claws. And a lantern, to use later.
One of the soldiers walked past, boots stomping within inches of Ree’s face. He held his breath until the man moved on before he inched forward again. Every sound he made seemed unnaturally loud, every rustle of grass and trickle of dirt like an avalanche. His breath was like thunder to his ears. But the soldiers didn’t hear him and didn’t see him.
He found Jem lying pale faced and exhausted, wrapped in a thin blanket. Ree guessed they worked the boys hard, but there was no excuse for the big bruise darkening one side of his face and the way he lay huddled as if afraid. He wasn’t the only boy like that, and the soldiers must have been scared they’d run away, because they tied all the boys up at night, the same as their prisoners.
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.