The Book of Swords. Gardner Dozois

blew a single blast on her whistle, the “maybe it’s danger” signal. The rider halted and stared toward her perch. He did not reach for a bow. Indeed, it looked to be all he could do to restrain the child that he held before him. She stood, rolled her back a bit to remove some of the chill-stiffened kinks, and began the climb down. By the time she reached the ground, Marva and Carber had appeared. And Kerry, long past his time to come and relieve her. They stood with tall poles, blocking the horse’s path. Over the sound of the child’s wailing, they were trying to question him. By their torches, she saw a young man with dark hair and eyes. His thick wool cloak was Buck blue. She wondered what was in his horse’s panniers.

      He finally shouted, “Will someone take this boy from me? He says his name is Peevy and his mother’s name is Kelia! He said he lived in Smokerscot, and pointed this way. Does he belong here?”

      “Kelia’s boy!” Marva exclaimed, and came closer to examine the kicking, wriggling child. “Peevy! Peevy, it’s me, Cousin Marva. Come to me, now! Come to me.”

      As the man started to lower the child from his tall black mount, the small boy twisted to hit at him shouting, “I hate you! I hate you! Let me go!”

      Marva stepped back suddenly. “He’s Forged, isn’t he? Oh, sweet Eda, what shall we do? He’s just four, and Kelia’s only child. The raiders must have taken him when they took her. I thought he’d died in the fires!”

      “He’s not Forged,” the rider said with some impatience. “He’s angry because I had no food for him. Please. Take him.” The youngster was kicking his heels against the horse’s shoulder and varying his now-incoherent wails with shouting for his mother. Marva stepped forward. Peevy kicked her a few times before she engulfed him in her arms. “Peevy, Peevy, it’s me, you’re safe! Oh, lovey, you’re safe now. You’re so cold! Can you calm down?”

      “I’m hungry!” the boy shouted. “I’m cold. Mosquitoes bit me and I cut my hands on the barnacles and Mama threw me off the boat! She threw me off the boat into the dark water and she didn’t care! I screamed and the boat left me in the water. And the waves pushed me and I had to climb up the rocks, then I was losted in the wood!” He aired all his grievances in a child’s shrill voice.

      Taura edged up beside Kerry. “Your watch, now,” she reminded him.

      “I know that,” he told her in disdain as he stared down at her. She shrugged. She’d reminded him. It wasn’t her task to see he did his share. She’d done hers.

      The stranger dismounted. He led his horse into the village as if certain of that right. Taura marked how everyone fell in around him, forgetting to challenge him at all. Well, he wasn’t Forged. A Forged one would never have helped a child. He gave the boy in Marva’s arms a sympathetic look. “That explains a great deal.” He looked over at Carber. “The boy darted out of the forest right in front of my horse, crying and shouting for help. I’m glad he has kin still alive to take him in. And sorry that you were raided. You aren’t the only ones. Up the coast, Shrike was raided last week. That’s where I was bound.”

      “And who are you?” Carber demanded suspiciously.

      “King Shrewd received a bird from Shrike and dispatched me right away. My name is FitzChivalry Farseer. I was sent to help at Shrike; I didn’t know you’d been raided as well. I cannot stay long, but I can tell you what you need to know to deal with this.” He lifted his voice to address those who had trooped out to see what Taura’s whistle meant. “I can teach you how to deal with the Forged ones. As much as we know how to deal with them.” He looked around at the circle of staring faces, and said more strongly, “The king has sent me to help folk like you. Man your watch stations, but call a meeting of everyone else in the village. I need to speak to all of you. Your Forged ones may return at any time.”

      “One man?” Carber asked angrily. “We send word to our king that we are raided, that folk are carried off by the Red-Ship Raiders, and he sends us one man?”

      “Chivalry’s bastard,” someone said. It sounded like Hedley, but Taura couldn’t be certain in the dusk. Folk were coming out of the houses that remained standing and joining the trailing group of people following the messenger and his horse. The man ignored the slur.

      “The king did not send me here but to Shrike. I’ve come out of my way to bring the boy back to you. Did the raiders leave your inn standing? I’d appreciate a meal and a place to stable my horse. Last night we were out in the rain. And the inn might be a good place for folk to gather to hear what I have to say.”

      “Smokerscot never had an inn. Not much call for one. The road ends here, at the cove. Everyone who lives here sleeps in his own bed at night.” Carber sounded insulted that the king’s man could have imagined Smokerscot had an inn.

      “They used to,” Taura said quietly. “Now a lot of us don’t have beds to sleep in.” Where was she going to sleep tonight? Probably at her neighbor’s house. Jelin had offered her a blanket on the floor by his fire. That was a kind thing to do, her mother had said. The neighborly thing to do. Her younger brother Gef had echoed her words exactly. And when Jelin had asked for it, they’d given him Papa’s sword. As if they owed it to him for doing a decent thing. The sword was one of the few things they had saved from their house when the raiders set it on fire. “Your brother is too young, and you will never be strong enough to swing it. Let Jelin have it.” So her mother had said and sternly shushed her when she’d discovered what they had done. “Remember what your father always said. Do what you must to survive and don’t look back.”

      Taura recalled well when he’d said that. He and his crew of two had dumped most of their catch overboard so they could ride out a sudden storm. Taura thought it was quite one thing to surrender something valuable to stay alive and quite another to give away the last valuable thing they had to a swaggering braggart. Her mother might say she’d never be strong enough to swing it, but she didn’t know that Taura could already lift it. Several times when her father had taken it out of an evening to wipe it clean and oil it fresh, he’d let her hold it. It always took both her hands, but the last time, she’d been able to lift it and swing it, however awkwardly. Papa had given a gruff laugh. “The heart but not the muscle. Too bad. I could have used a tall son with your spirit.” He’d given Gef a sideways glance. “Or any sort of a son with a mind,” he’d mutter.

      But she had not been a son, and instead of her father’s size and strength, she was small, like her mother. She was of an age to work the boat alongside her father, but he’d never taken her. “Not enough room on the deck for a hand who can’t pull the full weight of a deckhand’s duties. It’s too bad.” And that was the end of it. But still, later that month, he’d again let her lift the bared sword. She’d swung it twice before the weight of it had drawn the point of it down to the earth again.

      And her father had smiled at her.

      But now Papa was gone, taken by the Red-Ship Raiders. And she had nothing of his.

      Taura was the elder; the sword should have been hers, whether she could swing it or not. But the way it had happened, she’d had no real say. She’d come back from dragging bodies to the pyre, come back to Jelin’s house to see the sword standing in its sheath in the corner, like a broom! She and her mother and Gef could sleep on the floor of Jelin’s house, and he could have the last valuable item her family owned. And her mother thought that good. How was that a fair trade? It cost him nothing for them to sleep on his floor. Clearly her mother had no idea of how to survive.

      Don’t think about that.

      “… the fish-smoking shed,” Carber was saying. “It’s mostly empty now. But we can start up the fires for heat instead of smoke and gather a lot of folk there.”

      “That would be good,” the stranger said.

      Marva smiled up at him. Peevy had stopped struggling. He had his arms around his cousin’s neck and his face buried in her cloak. “There is room in our home for you to sleep, sir. And too much room now in our goat shed for your horse.” Her smile twisted bitterly. “The raiders left us few animals to