Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar Read online

  Ree thought that Lenar didn’t really understand why little Garrad couldn’t come over every day, either, because it wasn’t Lenar who had to haul the little imps out of—among other things—the chicken coop, the water trough, the barn feeding trough, and every mud puddle they could find. That enviable task fell to Ree. There wasn’t a fence, tree, or building on the farm that Meren couldn’t climb, and if he could help or carry little Garrad with him, he would.

  Which was why this warm summer night, while Amelie and Jem laid out the table and Garrad talked with Lenar and Loylla, Ree watched Meren play-wrestle with little Garrad, and made sure he was between the two little boys and the fence. At least today the worst they’d suffer was grass stains on their oldest clothes—worn, patched clothing that was kept just so the two of them could get themselves dirty without ruining good clothing.

  A blur of movement at the edge of his vision caught his eye, and he reached out, catching Damncat before the gray-and-white menace could join the fun. “Oh, no you don’t.” He held the cat close and made eye contact. “You want to play with them, I get to trim your claws.”

  The cat might not understand the words, but he understood tone and scrambled for Ree’s shoulder instead. One of the other damncats—another gray and white, with the lanky build of an animal partway between kitten and adult—took great care to groom itself. As if, Ree thought with a wry smile, it hadn’t been considering joining in the play fight a little before. One of Damncat’s siring, of course—Damncat sired most of the kittens at the farm these days. He sired smart, troublesome kittens, the best hunters and mousers in the region.

  Ree suspected some of them had thumbs, although he’d never quite figured out which ones. There were just too many damncats.

  The warm weight of Damncat leaned against his head, and the cat started to purr. Ree reached up to scratch the animal without looking away from the rolling, squealing little boys. I make a terrible wild beast, standing here petting a cat while minding two little boys. Not that anyone from outside the valley would realize that was what he was doing. They’d think I was watching my dinner and playing with my snack.

  “Ree!” Jem called from the back door. “Dinner’s about ready.”

  “I’ll get the boys in,” he shouted back.

  He and Jem shared all the farm chores between them these days, what with Amelie spending each morning at the manor, learning how to be a lady, and Meren too young to help much. But when it came to herding small boys, Ree had the advantage over Jem, lacking the family’s quick temper.

  Moving carefully so he didn’t throw Damncat’s balance off, Ree bent and grabbed the straps of a small pair of overalls, and hauled the wearer out. Little Garrad, halfway through a pretend “wild animal” growl.

  Meren started to protest but stopped when he saw where his playmate was, safely held in Meren’s Papa’s arms. “Time to wash up and get into your good clothes, boys. Come along now.” Shepherding two little boys was a lot more difficult than dealing with the goats or the cows, Ree had learned. It got worse the older the boys got; he hoped they’d start getting more sense before he couldn’t keep up with them. Having to climb to the farm roof once or twice a day was one thing. Having to do that and save the goats from boys who wanted to ride them and race them was something else again.

  Still, he got them washed and into their good clothes—pants and shirts, although they both went barefoot. It wasn’t worth trying to keep Meren in his shoes in summer, and trying to get little Garrad to do something Meren wouldn’t . . . Well, that one had the full measure of his father’s stubborn streak.

  He even managed to get the two sets of blond curls tamed and turn the pair of them over to Jem with time to get himself changed.

  Everyone else was at the table when Ree entered. They’d set it up with the best tablecloth and the best plates and all, and Melie had arranged some flowers from the garden in a bright blue vase she’d bought at the Three Rivers fair.

  It might not be a proper feast, but it looked right homey to Ree. He smiled and took his seat, nodding to Lenar and Loylla. “Did anything come of that last message you sent back east? About being confirmed as a Lord?”

  Lenar chuckled. “Either I’m not that important, or some clerk is having fits.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that much, so long as the taxes go in. I’ve got the records and the receipts from Karelshill, so any investigation is going to look someplace else.” He covered his wife’s hand with his much larger one. “The Empire’s pretty flexible, Ree. If it works and the taxes keep coming, no one’s going to argue with my position.”

  Ree nodded and didn’t argue. Lenar had been a soldier before coming back to his old home with enough gold to build himself a manor, and he knew how the nobles and all did things. It would be nice to know Lenar was properly the local Lord, but if he didn’t think it mattered, it wasn’t Ree’s part to argue.

  Conversation ebbed and flowed while they ate, Loylla mentioning how fast Amelie learned and how eager she was to know everything she needed to know, and Ree giving Jem a look that said he knew Amelie was learning as fast as she could so she didn’t have to be at the manor house. Not that she disliked Lenar or Loylla but she loved being at the farm, looking after her flower garden, feeding the animals, and milking the goats.

  Lenar lamented how fast little Garrad was growing—he’d learned to feed himself well enough that he didn’t need someone to help him, and he didn’t even get too much on his face, although the food on his plate was mostly cut small enough for little fingers and didn’t have any gravy or sauces a child could smear himself with—and Jem agreed, complaining that they’d had to let down the legs of Meren’s overalls again so they were long enough to be decent, and he didn’t think they’d last until the tailor came through to take orders for the next year’s clothes.

  “Oh, there’s been some bad hobgoblin problems in Karelshill,” Lenar said after Ree had taken both boys upstairs to sleep; it might still be full light outside, but small boys needed a lot of sleep.

  Jem raised an eyebrow. He was looking more and more like his father: a bit less weathered, and without the beard, but still. “Attacks or just sightings?”

  There weren’t as many hobgoblins these days, but the ones that could breed did, and some of them were vicious. Ree still needed to patrol the forest, although since he’d had to start patrolling on his own, he never went out without a weapon. The snow bears and dire wolves were the worst.

  Lenar sighed. “Attacks, son, bad ones.” He nodded in Ree’s direction and got the frown that said that he was worried about Ree. His voice boomed, too, which is how you knew that Lenar cared. He cared enough to yell at you. “You be careful out there, you hear. Don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea about you being like them. What I hear is that something’s organizing them, using them to attack. Maybe softening them up for something else.”

  Ree winced. “That would take magic, wouldn’t it?” His tail twitched and whipped against his leg. Most of the time his tail was just fine down one pants leg, but when he was worried, it tried to lash and made it look as though he had a snake trapped in there.

  Lenar scratched his beard. “That’s what I hear. I’m not so sure . . .I mean . . .no offense, Ree, but say someone like you, only with bad intentions, got hold of some cubs. You could raise yourself a hobgoblin army that way.”

  Jem made a sound of protest but stopped at Garrad’s soft, “He’s right, Jem. Ain’t nothing that says being mostly human means being good.”

  Ree nodded. “Yeah, I know.” There had been too many nights when he’d lain awake wondering whether he was human and what part of him made him fit to be with full humans. And some nights he was sure he wasn’t. Sure he wasn’t good enough to deserve someone like Jem, who could have had anyone he wanted.

  “It wouldn’t even have to be a hobgoblin,” Garrad said. “It could be someone who didn’t have any reason to care about other people . . . You wouldn’t even need to be a hobgoblin to do that, although
it would be harder. Humans can stop being human too, you know? I think I might have, a bit, before you and Jem came,” he added, quietly.

  Ree’s claws unsheathed, and he tapped the tablecloth with them. “How much damage was done?”

  “No one dead yet,” Lenar said. “There’s been some stock taken and a few injuries.” He didn’t look happy. “The problem is, there are plenty of people who remember a ‘Hobgoblin King’ who came from up this way.”

  Damn. That ruse, a trick Ree had used to frighten soldiers away, had come back to bite more than once. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been able to think of any other way to get the soldiers to leave and not come back—and they hadn’t come back, so Ree supposed he’d scared them good. It had worked. But he’d still left himself with a nasty mess that didn’t ever go away.

  The warmth of Jem’s hand on his didn’t help. Sometimes he had to remember there were other people and other places outside their special, protected relationship. “I don’t suppose you could tell them the Hobgoblin King isn’t happy about this but these creatures aren’t his or in his territory.” It wasn’t a question—Ree knew very well Lenar wouldn’t be able to convince anyone of that.

  “I’ve tried,” Lenar said, making Ree blink with surprise. Lenar had tried?

  Lenar laughed a little at Ree’s expression. “Of course, I tried, son. I want to keep you from trouble if I can, and Jem too, of course. Only I’m not a diplomat. I’m just an old soldier who got into more than he planned for.”

  Ree nodded. Well. Life, like raising children, was trouble, wasn’t it? But it had his compensations. He squeezed Jem’s hand, gently, making sure his claws weren’t unsheathed.

  The sun was setting when Jem climbed up to the attic bedroom to fetch little Garrad. He returned soon after, grim-faced. “They’re not there.”

  “How . . . They never came through here!”

  “No,” Jem said, his mouth set. “They opened the roof hatch and got out through it. You know Meren did that last week. Down the rain pipe to the shed roof.”

  And down the shed roof to the chicken house, where he’d tried to collect the eggs, only got the wrong ones. The poor broody hen would never recover from the shock.

  Ree swallowed. He half stood before he even thought of the words. His mouth was dry. the trouble those two could get into . . . It didn’t bear thinking. If he was lucky he’d just find them trying to ride one of the goats or driving the cow to distraction.

  If he wasn’t lucky . . . “I’ll check the outhouse. Maybe one of them had to go.” And at this time of year neither of them would use the chamberpot. Not that Ree blamed them. He preferred the outhouse even in the cold of winter. He wouldn’t blame them for not coming through here, either, because Garrad was as likely to yell at them as not, in the mood he’d been.

  He doubted he’d find either child in the outhouse, truth be told. There were much more interesting things to do and places to go than the outhouse. But they might have gone there first, and there was a good chance of catching a scent. Besides, he didn’t want to see Lenar’s expression or hear anything Lenar said. His face had clouded when Jem said that Meren had got out that way before. Ree didn’t want to know if he was mad at them for not telling him or mad at Meren. And he didn’t want anyone to be mad at Meren.

  Meren was no more mischievous than any other four-year-old, but taking little Garrad with him . . . that was new. Normally when they were in bed, they stayed in bed, talking and giggling in half-intelligible baby-language, until they fell asleep.

  Ree snatched the belt with his hunting knife and the slingshot on his way out the lean-to, then paused to scan the ground. There wasn’t anything obvious, but he hadn’t expected anything. Neither child was heavy enough to leave much of an impression on thick grass.

  The outhouse was empty, with no trace of either child’s scent—or at least none that Ree could determine under the overpowering outhouse smell. From there, he circled the house, to where the air hatch on the roof was propped open. They’d open that in summer, to let breezes through and keep the house from getting too hot during the day, but it was closed at night to keep insects out.

  Ree had closed both the hatches when he’d put the boys to bed. His throat tightened, threatening to choke him. And realized Lenar was keeping pace with him.

  “I’ll tan that boy’s hide so hard he won’t sit down for a week,” Lenar growled. “He knows he’s to stay in bed once he’s put there. And following that damn hobg—” He stopped, but his glare said everything his voice didn’t.

  Ree didn’t say anything. How could he? Lenar had to be as worried as Ree. Maybe more: sometimes Ree caught Lenar looking at Jem as though he’d never really forgiven himself for losing Jem. Rather than worry at Lenar’s anger, Ree traced the line of the roof with his eyes, to the lean-to and the stone wall butting against it. Oh, yes, an agile little boy could get to that wall without any difficulty. And walk along it, too, until he got to one of the trees with branches hanging over the walls, where he could climb to the ground. The question was, which one?

  Ree hurried over to the wall,and jumped up. He bent to the stone to sniff. “They came this way.” Neither boy had been wearing shoes—for once Ree blessed their dislike of footwear. Once, Ree wouldn’t have hesitated to drop to all fours to scurry along that wall, but he wasn’t agile enough for that any more, and besides, he tried to set the right example for Meren. He tried not to think about proving to Lenar that he was more human than animal. If he said anything now, he wouldn’t like the answer.

  Lenar walked beside the wall, cursing in language fit to raise the dead. It certainly made Ree’s fur want to stand on end.

  Jem joined his father, quiet but just as grim-faced.

  Ree walked so he wouldn’t miss seeing anything, even though he wanted to run. If he ran like he wanted to, he could take the wrong fence, because he didn’t know which way the children had gone.

  A cat screamed in the forest.

  Ree didn’t make any conscious decisions. In the time it took for the sound to fade, he was running along the wall, aware of Jem and Lenar sprinting alongside him on the ground and damncats converging from every direction.

  The cats moved ahead of them in a multicolored furry tide, responding to the distress of one of their own. Where the wall ended, Ree jumped off and followed the cats into the forest. Jem and Lenar didn’t take long to catch up with him.

  They didn’t say anything, not that they’d be heard over the caterwauling that echoed up ahead. And under it . . . growls. Not Meren’s growl. And no human screams. Did that mean the boys were already . . . Ree’s stomach lurched, and he wrenched his mind away from the thought.

  The damn boy knew the forest was dangerous! Why had he come out here?

  A cat’s death scream, then Meren’s growl, shrill and childish, but dangerous too. He’d growled like that when he’d saved Amelie from a dire wolf.

  Ree raced around a massive oak and all but ran into two snow bears, one batting ineffectually at the snarling cats attacking it. The other . . . It was covered with cats as well, as though every damncat on the farm had come after the bears. Meren clung to the tree, his weight held by the claws of one hand and both feet. Little Garrad was wedged into the space between Meren and tree, while Meren clawed and snarled at the attacking bear. The bear that seemed to be fighting its own body as it reached for the child.

  Ree caught the first bear’s fur and used that to swing himself between the other bear and the children. If the bear hadn’t been injured—or if the other one hadn’t been trying to fight off the damncats the way this one should have been—both boys would be dead.

  Lenar pushed him out of the way, practically crushing him against the tree. “Get the boys out of here.” Ree didn’t argue. He scrambled up the tree trunk to the first branching, far enough above the bear’s reach to be safe, then leaned down, extended one hand. “Garrad! Come to Uncle Ree.” It took an effort of will to keep his claws in, with the bears and the cats
and the smell of blood.

  “Come on.” Neither child seemed to notice. A bear screamed, dying. Ree dug his toe claws and the claws of his other hand in and leaned lower, and lower, until he could get hold of Garrad’s shirt. “Come on, little man, hold onto me.”

  He pulled, praying that the shirt wouldn’t tear, that he wouldn’t lose his grip. Another bear roar and hot breath against his arm. Ree didn’t dare try to look.

  He wasn’t entirely sure how he managed it, but a flurry of small limbs and some needle-sharp little claws later, Ree sat on the branch with his back against the bole of the old oak and Meren and little Garrad trembling in his arms.

  He didn’t try to move or look, just held the boys close. There was a meaty sound, then something hit the ground, hard, and Ree heard scurrying and distressed meowing. The lament in the cats cries made Ree’s eyes burn.

  “Well.” Lenar sounded grim. “Now we know something is using magic.”

  Meren whimpered and tried to bury himself in Ree’s shirt.

  It took a while to get the boys calm enough that Ree could hand them down to Lenar and Jem. By then, Lenar had dragged the dead bears far enough away that they wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention, and Jem had lined up the sad little bodies of three of the damncats.

  More than a few of the other cats were hurt, but they weren’t letting Jem get close. Getting back to the farm just gave Ree more reasons to worry: Little Garrad was acting like any small boy who’d just had the fright of his life, but Meren didn’t seem to be . . . well, there.

  He wasn’t crying, wasn’t screaming, he just lay limply in Jem’s arms and stared at something no one else could see.

  It was full dark by the time they got in, and Loylla was pacing the kitchen looking pale and frightened, but she’d boiled up water and had bandages out in case they were needed, and she didn’t hesitate when she saw Lenar and little Garrad, just ran to them and embraced them both without a care for the blood spattered over Lenar’s shirt.