The Book of Swords. Gardner Dozois

he had heard before and perhaps that was what he always replied to it.

      Carber sent runners through the village, calling the folk to gather in the fish-smoking shed. Taura felt childish satisfaction when he ordered Kerry to take up his watch. She followed the crowd to the shed. Several families were already sheltering there. They had a fire going and had set up makeshift households in different parts of the shed.

      Had her mother thought of coming here? At least they would still be a separate family, a household. They would still have had Papa’s sword.

      Carber tipped over a crate for the messenger to stand upon, as the villagers gathered in the barn-like shed that always smelt of alder smoke and fish. The folk trickled in slowly and Taura could see the stranger’s impatience growing. Finally he climbed onto his small stage and called for silence. “We dare not wait any longer. The Forged will be returned to your village at any time now. That we know. It is a pattern the Red-Ship Raiders have followed since they first attacked Forge and returned half its inhabitants as heartless ghosts of themselves.” He looked down and saw the confusion on the faces that surrounded him. He spoke more simply. “The Red Ships come. The raiders kill and they plunder, but their real destruction comes after they have left. They carry off those you love. They do something to them, something we don’t understand. They hold them for a time, then give them back to you, their families. They will return tired, hungry, wet, and cold. They will look like your kin and they will call you by name. But they will not be the folk who left here.”

      He looked out over the gathered folk and shook his head at the hope and disbelief that his words had stirred. Taura watched him try to explain. “They will recall your faces and names. A father will know his children’s names and a baker will recall her pans and oven. They will seek out their own homes. But you must not let them into your village or homes. Because they will care nothing for you, only for themselves. Theft and beatings, murders and rape will come with them.”

      Taura stared up at him. His words made no sense. Other faces reflected the same confusion, for the man shook his head sorrowfully. “It’s difficult to explain. A father will snatch food from his little boy’s mouth. If you have something they want, they will take it, regardless of how much violence they must use. If they are hungry, they will take all the food for themselves, drive you from your homes if they wish shelter.” His voice dropped as he added, “If they feel lust, they will rape.” His gaze roved over them, then he added, “They will rape anyone.”

      He shook his head at the disbelief on their faces. “Listen to me, please! Everything you have heard about the Forged, every rumor you have heard is true. Go home and fortify your homes now. Tighten the shutters on your windows, be sure the bars on your doors are strong. Organize the people who will protect this village. Assemble them. Arm yourselves. You’ve set a watch. That’s good.”

      He drew breath and Taura called into the pause, “But what are we to do when they come?”

      He looked directly at her. Possibly he was a handsome man, when he was not cold and weary. The tops of his cheeks were red and his dark hair lank with rain or sweat. His brown eyes were agonized. “The people who went away are not coming back to you. The Forged will not change back into those people. Ever.” His next words came out harshly. “You must be prepared to kill them. Before they kill you.”

      Abruptly, Taura hated him. Handsome or not, he was talking about her father. Her father, big, strong Burk, coming back from a day’s fishing, unarmed and unprepared to be clubbed down and dragged away. When her mother had screamed at her to run and hide, she had. She’d been so sure that her father, her big strong Papa, would fight his way clear of his captors. So she had done nothing to help him. She’d hidden in the thicket of the willow’s branches while he was dragged away.

      The next morning, she and her mother found each other when they returned to the remains of their house. Gef had stood outside their burned home, wailing as if he were five instead of thirteen. They’d let him stand and weep. Both Taura and her mother knew there was no getting through to her simple brother. In a light drizzle of freezing rain, they’d poked through the scorched timbers and the thick ash of the fallen thatch that had been their home. There had been little to salvage. Gef had stood and bawled as Taura and her mother had poked through the smoldering wreckage. A few cooking pots and three woolen blankets had been in a heavy cupboard that had somehow not burned through. A bowl and three plates. Then she’d found, sheltered beneath a fallen timber and unscorched, her father’s sword in its fine sheath. The sword that would have saved him if he’d had it with him.

      Worthless Jelin now claimed it as his. The sword that should have been hers. She knew how her father would have reacted to her mother’s bartering the sword for shelter. She pinched her lips tight as she thought of Papa. Burk was not the kindest, gentlest father one could imagine. He was, in fact, very much as the king’s man had described a Forged man. He ate first and best at their meals and had always expected to be deferred to in all things. He was quick with a slap and slow to praise. In his early life, he’d been a warrior. If he needed something, he found a way to get it. She knew a tiny flame of hope. Perhaps, even Forged, he would still be her father. He might come home, well, back to the village where their home had stood. He might still rise before dawn to take their small boat out to …

      Oh. The boat that now rested on the bottom, with only a handspan of its mast sticking up.

      But she knew her father. He’d know how to raise it. He’d know how to build their house again. Perhaps there might be some return to her old life. Just her family, sitting beside their own fire in the evening. Their food on the table, their beds …

      And he’d take back his sword, too.

      The king’s man wasn’t having a great deal of luck persuading the village that their returning kin should be barred from the village, let alone murdered. She doubted he knew what he was about; surely if a mother remembered her child’s name and face, she would remember that she cared about that child! How could it be otherwise?

      He soon saw he was not swaying them to his thinking. His voice dropped. “I will see to my horse and spend one night here. If you want help to fortify some of your homes or this shed, I’ll help with that. But if you will not ready yourselves, there is little I can do here. And yours is not the only village to be Forged. The king sent me to Shrike. Chance brought me here.”

      Old Hallin spoke up. “We know how to take care of our own. If Keelin comes back, he’ll still be my son. Why wouldn’t I feed him and give him shelter?”

      “Do you think I will kill my father because he behaves selfishly? You’re mad, man! If you are the sort of help King Shrewd sends us, we’re better off without it.”

      “Blood is thicker than water!” someone shouted, and suddenly everyone seemed angry at the king’s messenger.

      His face sank into deeper lines of weariness. “As you will,” he said in a lifeless voice.

      “As we will indeed!” Carber shouted. “Did you think no one would look in the panniers on your mount! They’re full of loaves of bread! Yet seeing how devastated we are, you said nothing and made no offer to share! Who is heartless and selfish now, FitzChivalry Farseer?” Carber lifted his hands high and cried out to the crowd, “We ask King Shrewd to send us help, and he sends one man, and a bastard at that! He hoards bread that would ease our children’s bellies and tells us to slay our kin. This is not the help we sought!”

      “I hope you touched none of it,” the man replied. His eyes, so earnest before, had gone distant and dark. “The bread is poisoned. It’s to use against the Forged in Shrike. To kill them and put an end to the murders and rapes there.”

      Carber looked stunned. Then he shouted, “Get out! Leave our village now, tonight! We’ve had enough of you and your ‘help!’ Begone.”

      The Farseer didn’t quail. He looked out over the gathered folk. Then he stepped down off the crate. “As you will.” He did not shout the word but his words carried. “If you will not help yourselves, there is nothing I can do here. I’ll be on my way. When I have finished my tasks at Shrike, I will come back this way. Perhaps by then,