by Tanya Huff
“How do you know, Cap? She hasn’t said nothing.”
“She’s been listening too intently for someone who doesn’t understand what’s being said.”
Mirian heard Chard and Armin move away and the captain move closer. She couldn’t stop herself from crying out as he cupped her jaw and lifted her head.
“I’m not hurting you, I…”
Blinking away tears, she gritted her teeth as he tilted her head to better see the bruising under her chin.
“Chard.”
“It wasn’t while we had her, Cap. Must’ve happened in the river.”
“If I find out…”
“It happened in the river.” Chard hadn’t exactly been kind, and he’d had his hand on her bottom as often as the terrain made the excuse plausible, but he hadn’t needed to wait for an excuse and he hadn’t been cruel and he hadn’t looked at her like Best had. Like she was something he’d found on his shoe in the gutter. When the captain frowned, she added, “The current pulled the oar from my hand and it hit me.”
“You speak Imperial very well.”
“My father is a banker.” She paused to wet dry lips. “He says money doesn’t stop at borders.”
He was studying her face, so she studied his. Late twenties, maybe early thirties—he had the look of a life lived hard. Pock marks on one cheek and the thin white line of an old scar through an eyebrow and across his temple—old enough he must’ve been a boy when he got it. His eyes were a sort of mix of blue and gray and his hair a sort of mix of blond and brown. Not mixed the way Pack hair was mixed but lighter where it had been longer in the sun. His face was narrow with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, his stubble darker and redder than his hair. There was a newer scar just visible above the collar of his uniform. His eyelashes were absurdly long and thick and his lower lip had a sort of dimple in the middle of it.
Objectively, he wasn’t unattractive.
Except that he was an enemy who’d taken her captive along with five members of the Mage-pack, killed at least one coachman and two Pack, and it was impossible for her to be objective regarding him. Given a chance, she’d push him off a cliff and laugh as he hit the ground. Well, maybe not laugh, but she’d definitely see it as justice served.
“You saw us take the others on the road,” he said at last. “So you know this has nothing to do with you personally.”
A part of her wanted to tell him that he’d made a mistake, that she wasn’t the mage he’d been searching for. A larger part of her realized that he’d have no reason to leave her alive if he knew his mistake. A very small part looked forward to the amount of trouble the captain was going to be in if he showed up with her instead of a sixth member of the Mage-pack. Her lip dragged as she bared her teeth. “And yet, I’m taking it personally. Funny that.”
Chard snickered.
“Chard, get wood for a fire. A small one. We don’t want to attract attention. Are you thirsty?”
It took Mirian a moment to realize the last question had been directed at her. Pride warred with thirst and, finally, she nodded.
“Armin. Tie her hands around this tree and leave her with a canteen. You’ll eat what we eat later,” he added.
She whimpered as Armin pulled her arms out in front of her body, unable to move them herself. When the captain turned away, a muscle jumping in his jaw, she whimpered again. She wouldn’t be her mother’s daughter if she didn’t know how to use guilt as a weapon.
The water was warm and tasted of the inside of the canteen. It was awkward drinking it around the sapling, but it was still the best water she’d ever tasted.
By the time the soldiers had the fire going, it was full dark. Heavy cloud covered the moon, so even had the captain wanted to keep going, they couldn’t. From the way he kept glancing up at the sky, then back the way they’d come, Mirian suspected he wanted to. Smart man. The Pack Leader couldn’t cross the border, but Jaspyr Hagen could, and once he got her scent he’d be able to follow her to the ends of…
“Captain.” Best had his musket in his hand. “There’s something out there.”
All four of them froze and over the crackling of the fire and the beating of her own heart, Mirian could hear a crashing through the underbrush, a yelp of pain, more crashing, and a big black dog limped into the circle of light on three legs, the broken end of a rope trailing from around his neck. When it…no, when he saw the men, he dropped to his belly and crept forward, tail sweeping the ground.
The gunshot nearly stopped her heart, and she shrieked.
Branches broke. The dog yelped and ran.
Over by the fire, Chard held the end of Best’s musket and glared at him. “It’s a dog, you stupid prick! It had a rope around its neck. Probably some farm dog abandoned when the army rolled past. It broke free and it’s frightened and it came to the fire to find people and you tried to shoot it!”
Best yanked his weapon free. “It could’ve been one of the beastmen!”
“We’re in Pyrahn, and it had a rope around its neck!”
“I didn’t see the fucking rope!”
“I did!”
“You wouldn’t know the difference between a beastman and a dog if it licked your ass!”
Breath coming shallow and fast, Mirian fought with the confining weight of her skirts to put the sapling between herself and the soldiers. The captain turned toward her, noted her reaction to the gunshot, nodded, and turned away. He wouldn’t ask, he’d assume she’d lie, but he thought he could read the truth in her reaction.
“Sit down. Both of you.”
“Captain…”
“It had a rope around its neck, Best.”
“Sir, the size…”
“This close to the Aydori border, I expect large dogs are the rule.”
“You think the beastmen bred with…”
The captain raised a hand. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“No, sir. Me, either,” Best agreed, smirking.
Food kept them quiet. Mirian was nodding off, stretched out by the tree, her head against her arm, when she heard Chard murmur, “Who’s a good dog, then? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Come on, I won’t hurt you.”
The dog was a shadow against the ground, creeping forward toward Chard’s outstretched hand. His eyes locked on the Imperial soldier, he stretched out his neck and took the dried meat from Chard’s fingers. The next thing Mirian knew, he was on his back, three feet in the air, dark lines against the firelight, with Chard rubbing his belly.
“Who’s a good boy, eh? Who’s a good…” He paused when the dog yelped, bending forward. “He’s been shot, Cap. Wound’s up high on his shoulder. Feels like there might still be something there.”
“Leave it.”
Chard paused, his knife already in his hand. “But, Cap…”
“It’s a black dog on a dark night; you try to clear the wound by firelight and you’ll end up cutting off his leg. You can do it at dawn before you send him on his way.”
“But, Cap…”
“You’re not keeping him.”
Mirian laid her head back down again and closed her eyes. She’d need her strength later. She was dreaming about the opera, Captain Reiter singing the tenor role, when a cold nose stuffed into her ear woke her. Best snickered as she jerked and squeaked.
The big black dog stared at her from no more than a handspan away. Beyond him, Best kept watch by the fire while the others slept.
“Scram.”
The dog cocked his head. One of the soldiers, probably Chard, had removed the rope.
“Go away!”
Tail wagging, he sniffed her vigorously then stretched out, his back against her stomach, his head curled around on his front paws.
“I don’t want you here, you stupid dog!”
“You sleep with beasts,” Best sneered. “Maybe he thinks he’ll get lucky. If you let him fuck you, keep it down.”
Then he turned his back, as though she wasn’t worth his attention.
With the w
armth rising up off the younger Lord Hagen, relaxing muscles pummeled first by the river and then by the forced march into Pyrahn, Mirian wondered if, after the war was over, she might have a career as an actress.
Chapter Four
MIRIAN WOKE A SECOND TIME with the younger Lord Hagen’s face so close her eyes nearly crossed trying to focus on him. He had one enormous paw still pressed against her shoulder, so she assumed he’d woken her. Looking past him, she could see Armin sitting by the dying fire, his musket on the ground beside him, and his head down on his crossed arms. She couldn’t tell for certain if his eyes were open or closed, but had to trust that the younger Lord Hagen wouldn’t have risked waking her if it wasn’t safe.
“What?” she whispered when he leaned closer still, a silken ear brushing her cheek. He leaned back with a whuff of warm breath and jerked his head toward the leather thongs tying her hands around the tree. A little surprised he hadn’t already gnawed through the bindings, she frowned and realized that, while the leather itself would cause him no problem, Armin had tied her in such a way that there wasn’t room for the younger Lord Hagen to gain purchase with his teeth.
When he saw he had her attention, he crept silently around until his shoulder brushed up against her fingertips.
He had an itch?
She wiggled her fingers against his fur. He pushed back against her touch. When she pressed against a spot both sticky and damp and he flinched, she remembered Chard telling the captain that the dog had been injured and he could feel something still in the wound. She couldn’t, but with her movement so restricted that wasn’t surprising.
“They’re using silver!” That was the news the younger Lord Hagen had brought his brother at the opera. With a bit of silver shot still in the wound, the younger Lord Hagen wouldn’t be able to change and he needed hands to get her free.
Bracing her bindings against the tree, Mirian pulled herself as quietly as possible up into a sitting position. Well, half sitting, half leaning against the slender trunk. The bark was smooth and cool against her cheek as she rested and wondered how she was to get silver out of a wound in the middle of the night while tied and guarded, however laxly, by enemy soldiers? She didn’t have the mobility to use a knife even if she’d had one, which she didn’t, and besides, Captain Reiter’s observation about using a knife around dark fur on a dark night was a valid one—however little she wanted to grant him the acknowledgment.
Had she been able to reach her fingers down far enough, she might have been able to work the shot out of the wound like a splinter. Poking the younger Lord Hagen to get his attention brought his head around and he frowned, his expression so clearly saying get on with it that he might as well have spoken aloud.
Fine. Get on with it how?
Lower lip between her teeth, Mirian worried out an answer. Jaspyr Hagen had said she smelled amazing, reacting to her in the way Pack reacted to Mage-pack. If Tomas Hagen also thought she smelled amazing—and the odds were high he did as the two younger Pack at the opera had—then he had to think she was more powerful than she was. He therefore expected her to be able to use mage-craft to get the silver out. Fortunately for him, it would take nothing more than first and second level metals. Unfortunately, she had no idea if she had even first level metal-craft and, given that the Metals-master had refused to test her, the odds were very high she didn’t.
But unless she wanted to remain a captive of the empire, she had to try.
Bracing her fingers around the wound, she took a deep breath, tried to remember the one hundred and one ridiculous ways to center herself in her power—ridiculous because they were all essentially the same way—and froze.
The net!
The golden net had prevented the Lady Hagen and the others in the Mage-pack from using their abilities. It had also caused them pain it hadn’t caused her, but perhaps the amount of pain was related to the amount of mage-craft being blocked. Hardly surprising then that she didn’t feel it at all.
She gave the younger Lord Hagen an emphatic poke and when he turned to look at her, lips off his teeth, she dipped her head and whispered, “You have to take the net off me first.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Off my head.”
When he paced away, she thought he still didn’t understand, but he circled the tree and she felt warm breath on the back of her neck. Then a tug at her hair. The tugging grew stronger, moved from tugging to pulling, pulling to yanking, and she clenched her teeth to hold back a yell as what felt like a handful of hair ripped free. Blinking back tears, she nearly dislocated a shoulder twisting around in time to see him shake what looked like gold spiderwebbing from his mouth. Even in limited starlight, it gleamed. It would have been beautiful, but stuck to it was more hair than Mirian was comfortable losing and what looked like a small bird’s nest made up of evergreen needles and gobs of solidified sap.
She’d forgotten about her response to Lady Hagen’s warning. With the mess of her hair keeping the net from contact with her head, she might have been able to use her mage-craft the whole time. It wasn’t until the younger Lord Hagen pushed at her impatiently with a paw that she realized she was shaking with barely suppressed hysterical giggles at the thought of facing down four Imperial soldiers by lighting a candle and then blowing it out again.
Awareness of the incipient hysteria only made it harder to control. In a moment she wouldn’t be able to control it at all and the noise would wake Armin. Awareness of that didn’t seem to help and the small, rational bit of her that remained could only watch ineffectually as their chance to escape seemed lost.
Then the younger Lord Hagen bared his teeth and growled low in his throat. Mirian didn’t so much hear the growl as feel it reverberate through her body at every point they touched and her reaction was so primal it overwhelmed everything else. She froze again, barely breathing, unable to look away from the teeth inches from her face. The terror was instinctive…
And then she remembered.
The people of Aydori are part of the Pack’s protectorate. If they appear to threaten, they do it only to make a point.
The Pack and You had been a popular pamphlet at the university. Late night conversations about actual interaction more popular still.
If Mirian allowed the younger Lord Hagen’s point to stand, allowed him to believe she needed his protection like some kind of wilting heroine in a bad romance novel, it would define their relationship from this moment on. She needed his help, yes, but with that silver in his shoulder, he needed hers in return. Heart pounding, she swallowed, narrowed her eyes, and growled back at him.
He closed his mouth and leaned back to get a better look at her face. Given how little definition black fur and a dark night allowed, he was surprisingly good at looking annoyed; it was all in the line of his tail and the angle of his ears. She took a deep breath and refused to allow the hysteria to rise again. If she wasn’t fine, and she suspected she really wasn’t, she, at least, had herself under control.
After a moment, he moved and pointedly settled his shoulder back under her fingertips. Staring at his silhouette against the dim glow of the fire, Mirian took a deep breath and readied herself.
If he was to free her, the younger Lord Hagen had to change. In order to change, the silver had to come out. He couldn’t get it out himself, so she had to remove the silver.
It was really just as simple as that.
Pressing the first two fingertips of her right hand against the wound, Mirian closed her eyes. She didn’t need to identify this metal. She knew what it was; it was silver. Given its effect on the Pack, silver was, if not forbidden, a seldom used metal in Aydori. But, given its effect on the Pack, the university made very sure its students could recognize it—from raw ore to polished metal—in order to help protect those who protected them. As silver was expensive and since small amounts did damage disproportionate to size, the shot would most likely be the size of the birdshot her brother-in-law used to hunt partridge and quail.
&nb
sp; This silver piece would therefore be tiny, round, but not necessarily perfectly smooth. It would be a soft gray with slivers of shine where friction had burnished it. It would be warm, trapped within the younger Lord Hagen’s body. Poison, but only because of where it was, not intrinsically of itself.
Another deep breath and Mirian suddenly realized the difference between knowing there was a piece of silver in the wound and being aware of the silver in the wound. She felt as though she could reach out and touch it. Hold it. As she could neither touch nor hold it where it was, it would have to come to her.
It seemed logical to Mirian that identifying a metal could only be the first step. Knowing there was metal in the earth—or a shoulder—was pointless if that metal remained in the earth—or a shoulder. High-level metal-craft could bend and twist and refine raw ore to a thing of use or beauty or the incredible tackiness of the iron dryad firescreen in her parents’ bedroom, but first it had to be in hand.
A trickle of heat in her fingertips and she opened her eyes in time to see a glistening silver stream roll over the younger Lord Hagen’s fur like liquid moonlight. When it hit the ground, it solidified again to become nothing more than a tiny dark shadow on the earth.
Tomas Hagen changed to skin crouched on the other side of the tree Chard had tied her to, the damp skin of his shoulder pressed up against her fingertips. Mirian found herself unable to stop staring at the gleaming curve of his buttocks.
Sooner or later every child in Aydori, Pack or otherwise, asked where the tails went. While she’d never been entirely happy with the answer—apparently, they just went—Mirian hadn’t thought about the question in years. Here and now, she couldn’t get it out of her head.
Although in my own defense, I’ve had a tiring day.
The memory of her mother declaring that exhaustion was no excuse for bad manners hit strongly enough that she snapped her gaze up and focused on the triangle of black fur that grew past the bottom of Tomas Hagen’s neck as far as his first vertebrae. She hadn’t seen the back of Jaspyr’s neck, not on two legs anyway, not without a high-standing jacket collar over the area in question, so she had no idea if this was standard among the Pack or if it was unique to the younger Lord Hagen. Did it feel the same, she wondered, as the fur he wore on four legs?
