by Tanya Huff
They reached the dock in time to see a small boat bob out of sight around one of the larger river wharfs. The person in it appeared to be attempting to steer with a single oar.
“Why’s she not using mage-craft, then?” Armin wondered.
Best snorted. “She’s Earth-mage, idiot. Made the vine blossom, didn’t she? Nothing she can do about water. A boat that small in water running that fast, that’s like a leaf in a fucking gale.”
“What do we do, Cap?”
Reiter touched the tangle, shoved back into his jacket pocket. “We follow the river.”
* * *
The oar twisted and bucked in her hands, dragged left then right by the river. Mirian fought to keep the tiny boat from running into the end of wharfs, from being smashed to pieces by a log nearly as big around as the boat—escaped from the lumberyards above the town, the deeper part of her mind observed while the surface bits jumped frantically from dealing with one near disaster to the next.
Finally, curving past the center of Bercarit, the river slowed and the oar stilled. Arms and shoulders aching, Mirian relaxed her grip enough to get blood flow back to her fingertips. On the shore to the left, the Lady’s Park slipped past and she realized, given the distance she’d covered, she couldn’t have been traveling as insanely fast as it had felt. As she watched, the rough land beside the park that gave the Lord his due became warehouses, each with their own pier and some with broad double doors that came all the way down to the water and likely hid interior lagoons…ponds…catchment basins? She had no idea what such a thing would be called and, right at the moment, didn’t care.
She jerked as a voice yelled out from the shore, and flattened against the seat as far as her grip on the oar allowed, then straightened, calling herself an idiot. An Imperial soldier wouldn’t call out to her, he’d shoot. Stupid of her to think the city had completely emptied, that all the thousands of people had left. Scanning the line of buildings, she couldn’t see anyone and, whoever it was, they didn’t yell again. If she could have spotted the warehouse worker or even an owner foolishly staying to try and protect his property against Imperial might, she would have landed and told them what she’d seen, and she wouldn’t have been alone any longer with the knowledge that the Mage-pack had been taken.
Except she had no idea how to get the boat to shore.
Tightening her grip on the oar, she swept it back and forth as hard as she could and managed to turn the bow slightly. Relieved by this small indication of control, Mirian sagged on the seat, breathing heavily. It would take some work, but she could…
Three huge, wooden squares rose out of the river in front of her.
The forms for the new bridge.
The newspaper she’d read—had it only been yesterday morning?—said that, with the rough work finished on the piers, the stonemasons would begin laying the dressed stone as soon as the spring runoff ended.
Her boat was at the forms between one breath and the next. Mirian pushed the oar hard to the right. The boat twisted, kept twisting, and slammed into one enormous upright, the impact knocking her from the seat. Struggling against already wet skirts made even heavier by the water sloshing around the bottom of the boat, Mirian heaved herself up onto her knees, grabbing for the wildly swinging oar.
It clipped her on the bottom of the chin. Her teeth slammed together, and she dropped back to the bottom of the boat.
The boat spun again, wood scraping against wood, then bobbed free.
The oar swung past Mirian’s vision one last time.
She thought she heard the splash as it hit the water. Might have been the sound of the water rushing past the cradles.
It seemed hard to care.
Mirian made a face as she swallowed a mouthful of blood, then blinked up at the sky, knowing she needed to sit up but not entirely certain why.
The thing she was lying on dipped suddenly sideways and she got an unexpected face full of icy water.
Boat!
She was in a boat, on the river, on her way to the border and the battle to tell Lord Hagen about the Mage-pack. And she’d lost the only way she had of controlling the boat’s progress. And her head hurt. Gingerly moving her jaw, she swallowed another mouthful of blood, unable to overcome society’s stricture against women spitting regardless of how unobserved she might currently be. The wave that had brought her back to herself had soaked the last dry bits of her clothes. Scrambling back up onto the low seat, Mirian noted how heavy even the finest wool got when wet and how unpleasant it felt against the skin.
With nothing to do but hope, she stayed afloat as the eastern half of Bercarit slid past and tried to make sense of what she’d seen that morning.
She’d heard the empire—so omnipresent almost no one bothered with the full name—had begun accepting women in the ranks because of its need for a constant supply of soldiers. Caught between expulsion from the university and her mother’s social expectations, she’d somewhat wistfully thought that joining the army would solve all her problems. But women of Aydori didn’t go to war. The female half of both Pack and Mage-pack were the last line of defense. In a worst case scenario, she’d been taught that the function of the Aydori military was to delay the Imperial army long enough for the women to get to Trouge. Carved out of the mountain by ancient Earth-mages, history said the walls of the capital couldn’t be breached. Not only would the unpredictable mountain weather keep sieges short, but there were rumored to be secret ways out of the capital and a besieging army would be whittled away, night by night.
For all the years Mirian had been in school, that worst case scenario had involved the Kresentian Empire and the Imperial army.
If a dozen or so members of the Imperial army captured the women of the Mage-pack before they got to Trouge—and killed as many Pack as possible, she admitted even as memory skittered past the bodies lying on the road—then the defense of Trouge would be weakened should Lord Hagen have died at the border.
Emperor Leopald wanted it all, Mirian reflected, holding her wet jacket open and away from her shirtwaist in the hope that one or both might begin to dry. Everyone knew the emperor wouldn’t stop until he had nothing left to conquer.
If Lord Hagen survived the battle at the border, then Lady Hagen in the hands of the emperor was a way to control him.
Unless it had nothing to do with Lord Hagen at all—regardless of her mother’s belief that the world revolved around the Pack Leader—and the emperor had a use for high-level mages. Who he couldn’t allow to use their abilities.
Maybe his scientists had built a machine that could suck the mage-craft out and then feed it into creatures belonging to the emperor, creating super-mages he controlled completely and could use as weapons.
Mirian swallowed another mouthful of bloody saliva and sighed. Maybe her mother was right about novels rotting her brain.
* * *
“Tell her to stop.”
“To stop?” Danika asked. She hadn’t overheard the lieutenant’s name; he hadn’t asked theirs. People had names. Those who intersected with prophecy apparently did not.
The lieutenant gestured at Annalyse. With her hands tied behind her, she leaned on a sapling, trying to stay upright as she retched. All three of the soldiers assigned to her looked disgusted, but the one charged with keeping her moving maintained his hold on her arm. “She has nothing left in her stomach,” the lieutenant sneered. “This is a delaying tactic that will not be tolerated.”
Given the prophecy he followed, he had to know Annalyse was pregnant, had to assume the rest of them were as well. Danika found it hard to believe that five of them traveling together were in a similar condition, but that was exactly the sort of cascading coincidence that Soothsayers relied on. Or caused, according to some philosophies. Given the conversation she’d overheard between the lieutenant and the captain, the men had not been informed about the prophecy they followed. She wondered if they’d be more sympathetic or less if they knew. They could be kinder to their captive
s or use the information against them. Could she risk the latter for the chance of the former?
Hare, the man who never missed his shot, frowned thoughtfully as Annalyse straightened, breathing heavily. Old enough to have a wife and children, it looked as though he suspected the reason behind her illness.
Fingers digging into her arm, the lieutenant dragged Danika around to face him. “Stop pretending you don’t understand me…”
Because, of course, it was all about him.
“…and tell her that if it happens again, we won’t be stopping. I’ll have her dragged all the way to the border if I have to.”
He’d moved close enough that Danika could smell his breath and the stale sweat of a man who’d been in the same clothing for days. Over that, the bitter scent of the bile Annalyse had managed to spew, and, under it all, something pungent in the underbrush that had nothing to do with any of them. The mix of smells combined with the throbbing pain wrapped around her head by the Imperial artifact, caused her stomach to roil in spite of nearly two weeks free of sickness in the morning.
And it was a good delaying tactic, she acknowledged as she threw up on the lieutenant’s boots.
* * *
Tomas remembered the gunner’s wrist in his mouth, tasting salt and blood and gunpowder. Remembered seeing the lit taper fly out of his hand, hearing screams, smelling sulfur…
He could still smell sulfur and gunpowder and charred wood and flesh and blood and horse and shit and urine and ash. But mostly blood. And meat.
He blinked. It was darker than he’d expected.
Although he couldn’t remember what he’d been expecting.
He blinked again, and stared into the face of the Imperial gunner. The man’s blue eyes were open, he had freckles on both cheeks, and he looked surprised. Dead, but surprised.
Lips pulled back off his teeth, Tomas tried to move away. His front feet were trapped under the gunner, but his back feet were free. He drew them up tight against his body and pushed, nails scrabbling against wood. They caught the edge of a board. He pushed harder. Felt something give. Jerked his shoulders far enough into the space he’d made to free his front legs.
The gunner rolled, upper body slamming into Tomas’ shoulder with a squelch of trailing intestines.
The next thing he knew he stood panting in the sunshine, squinting at the pile of lumber and bodies that had once been a wagon and a gun crew. He scrubbed at his nose with both front paws then, low to the ground, tail close to his body, he circled the pile. Stopped and stared again. The blast radius was…
Large.
Beyond the crater, the land bore the marks of the shells that hadn’t merely exploded but had taken off and cut a swath through the lines of infantry, leaving bodies and smoking holes scattered about where the Imperial army had been.
A voice called out over the moans of the wounded and the buzz of flies. Tomas ignored it.
Where the Imperial army had been.
He spun around toward the river. The fighting had moved up into the trees. He could hear the distant sound of weapons.
A glance at the sky told him it was midmorning, maybe later. How long since he’d left Ryder to take out the weapon and…
Ryder!
A wound high on his shoulder sent waves of pain through his body every time his right front foot hit the ground. Didn’t matter. He ran for where he’d seen his brother last.
He scrambled up the rocky slope that was to have given the combined Aydori, Traitonian, Pyrahnian armies the advantage. Scrambled over bodies in Imperial and Aydori uniforms. Found the place he’d last seen Ryder.
Found Ryder…
Part of Ryder.
Parts of the Pack. Cousins.
Whining deep in his throat, he dug at a half-buried leg, the silver fur matted with blood.
He needed hands.
With hands he could…
The flash of pain in his shoulder as he tried to change slammed him to the dirt.
The Imperial army had been using silver. The explosion he’d survived must have driven the silver deep. Twisting around, he licked at his shoulder but couldn’t get to the wound.
He could hear fighting in the distance. He could smell the bits of meat that used to be his brother all around him. He could hear a constant high-pitched litany of loss and despair. Wondered who’d bring a cub to a battle. Realized…Forced himself to be quiet.
He didn’t know what to do.
* * *
It wasn’t thunder in the distance. It so obviously wasn’t thunder, Mirian wondered how they could have ever convinced themselves it was. Each distant boom she could hear in the east shouted out death.
Clutching the left side of the boat, she stared at the shore and wondered if the reinforcements had been in time. Wondered if the Imperial army had been pushed back across the border or if they were even now pressing into Aydori. Wondered if fighting uphill in the woods put an army that marched in straight lines at enough of a disadvantage. Wondered if Imperial numbers would tell as they always had. Wondered if the fighting would come down to the river. Wondered what she’d do if it did.
Wondered how she’d find Lord Hagen in a battle.
In an extended lull in the shooting, she relaxed into the quiet and realized, after a moment, that it wasn’t as quiet as it had been. This new sound reminded her of a winter wind roaring through the trees in the park. But it wasn’t winter and the new leaves on the poplars along the shore were nearly still.
Shifting on the seat, Mirian stared past the front of the boat at the river. The banks rose, narrowed, and the river itself…She squinted, trying to force the distance closer.
The river itself disappeared.
The roaring grew louder, like a storm through the chimney pots.
Rivers didn’t just disappear. That was impossible. Therefore, there had to be a logical explanation. Lower lip caught between her teeth, Mirian glanced over at the shore, back at the river…
If the Imperial army had to fight its way uphill into Aydori, then in order to get to the border the river would have to flow downhill. And water didn’t so much flow downhill as fall.
She had a vague memory of her mother mentioning a recent social column and a report of Lord and Lady Berin picnicking at Border Falls with their household. The writer had gone on at length about how fast and dangerous the falls were in the spring.
The paper hadn’t mentioned exactly where Border Falls was.
Geography suggested Mirian had found it.
Without the oars, she had no way to steer the boat. The only thing she had any command over was herself. Moving quickly, before she could change her mind, Mirian stood, stepped up onto the seat, and launched herself into the river.
She surfaced closer to the shore than the boat, although that could have been because the boat was moving faster now without her in it. Wet wool wrapped around her legs as her skirt soaked up water. Stupid! You should have taken it off before you jumped! The water was so cold it drove the air from her lungs, and she had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her hands felt as though they were covered in a thin layer of grease. Not swimming as much as steering diagonally through the current, she kept her eyes locked on a muddy bit of riverbank and struggled to keep her head above water.
Just don’t panic and you’ll be fine.
She didn’t realize there were rocks close to the surface until her legs slammed into one. The impact spun her around, coughing and choking. A wave closed over her head. If not for her skirts, the water would have tumbled her end over end, but the weight kept her upright enough that when her legs hit another rock, she managed to push off and surface. A glimpse of quiet water between her and the shore, then she was under again.
The next rock she hit, she hit with the entire right side of her body. Before the river swept her away, she managed to get her arm around it, leg bent high, foot jammed into a crack. Pushing off with everything she had left, she rose up out of the water far enough to twist down over the
rock into the quiet pool.
Cold and hurting, she thrashed her way to the shore and flopped out onto the mud.
* * *
Every movement disturbed the flies that covered the dead. Clouds of them rose from where they were feasting and laying eggs to swarm around his muzzle, trying to land in his mouth and on his eyes. Tomas shook his head to dislodge them and wished he could shake a thought back into it. Should he join the battle still going on, deep in the Aydori woods? Or should he join what was left of the Pack in Trouge and bring them—bring Danika—the news that Ryder was dead. She’d need to know. They’d all need to know. The Pack was leaderless now.
Tail clamped tight, he limped back and forth across the scar in the earth that still smelled of his brother, wishing someone would just appear and tell him what to do.
Because Ryder was dead and…
Ears up, he turned toward the river. He could hear voices; two men speaking Pyrahn. Pyrahn soldiers, having run from the duchy with the Imperials on their heels, had fought and died beside the Pack and the Aydori 1st. Maybe these men were wounded. Maybe he could help them. Maybe they’d know what he should do.
It wasn’t easy covering uneven terrain with one front leg unable to bear his full weight, but for the sake of doing something, of doing anything, he managed it. Moving toward the voices, he picked his way diagonally down the slope toward the river, going around obstacles he’d have jumped without thinking another time. At the water’s edge, he turned upstream. The men were no longer talking, but he thought he knew where they were. Or had been. He moved a little faster.
Rounding one of the many stumps created by artillery fire, he saw a pair of old men bent over a body, stripping it of its uniform. An Aydori uniform. The same green and brown Harry’d worn yesterday morning when he’d died standing between Pyrahn refugees and the Imperial army.
