The Silvered

by Tanya Huff

  He was just over a year younger than she was. She’d sat through her mother’s list of the unmarried Pack so many times she should be able to recite his entire history, but that was all she could remember.

  The knots securing her had clearly been tied so that they’d released easily under the correct pressure. The younger Lord Hagen just as clearly knew the correct pressure.

  Free of the bindings, her hands dropped to the ground. Mirian sucked a breath in through her teeth. Her wrists burned as blood rushed back into the deep creases pressed into her skin. Moving slowly and carefully, trying not to cry, she folded her arms close against her body, hands curled against her chest as she worked mobility into her fingers.

  * * *

  Up close, the girl’s scent was nearly overpowering. She was dirty and her hair was weird and her gray eyes had no mage marks in them at all, but she smelled like home and like safety and a little like Danika. He needed to tell Danika what had happened to Ryder! She had to hear it from him. They had to get moving.

  Grabbing both the girl’s arms above the elbow, Tomas hauled her to her feet. Although her clothes were damp, her skin was warm where he buried his face against her neck. When he realized what he’d done, he jerked back, face burning.

  She wasn’t even looking at him.

  She was looking past him at…

  “Where’d you come from, kid?”

  Tomas spun around to see the Imperial who’d been asleep by the fire standing only a few feet away. He’d been so caught by the girl’s scent he hadn’t realized the man was awake and moving. He was Hunt Pack! Forgetting to keep part of his attention on the sentry was a stupid cub mistake.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, kid, so just stay calm.” The Imperial raised his left hand, palm out, musket loose in his right. How did the empire keep winning with idiots like this in the ranks? Had he forgotten he was at war? Who he was at war with?

  Wool scratched against his side as the girl lunged past him to touch the Imperial’s forehead with two fingers.

  “Sleep.” Her low voice had rough edges. She sounded like she’d been chewing twigs.

  The Imperial blinked twice, opened his mouth, then slowly collapsed to the ground. He rolled up against Tomas’ legs, eyes closed, mouth open, chest rising and falling.

  Before he could change to rip out the man’s throat, warm fingers wrapped around Tomas’ wrist and held on. Her breath hot against his ear, the girl whispered, “Change. I’ll hold your tail and follow you through the woods!”

  “Wha…?” When he turned to face her, there were still no mage marks in her eyes.

  “You can see in the dark. In fur.” She jerked her head toward the fire and the other three soldiers. Still asleep, Tomas noted, but that was luck alone. “I can’t.”

  When she released him and spread her hands, her gesture said get on with it as clearly as if she’d spoken out loud.

  She smelled amazing. But she was bossier than Danika, and his brother’s wife was Alpha.

  His brother’s wife was a widow.

  He changed and lunged for the throat of the mage-slept Imperial.

  Only to come up short as two hands grabbed the scruff of his neck and yanked back. She’d taken him by surprise, or she wouldn’t have been able to stop him. That, and her fingers were dug in by the healing wound in his shoulder and were hurting him! He twisted free and turned to snap at her, catching the edge of her jacket in his teeth, tearing it free.

  She stumbled back, arms flailing. When she’d regained her balance, she gave him a look he almost physically felt, turned on her heel, and ran for the woods.

  “Armin?”

  The captain was awake!

  Fine. Not a problem. First, he’d kill the man at his feet and then…

  The shot hit the ground by the Imperial’s head, spraying dirt over his face. Tomas could smell the heated silver pellets.

  He turned and ran, his nose leading him along the path of the girl’s footsteps. Quickly catching up, he pushed past her, changed, and grabbed her arms to keep her from slamming into him.

  “Fine! Hold my tail.” He tightened his grip. “But don’t pull it!”

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “I am not…Ow! You kicked me!”

  “And I’ll kick you again if you don’t let me go.”

  Tomas resisted the urge to shove her away as he released her, but only just. He opened his mouth to remind her that, if not for him, she’d still be tied to that tree at the mercy of the enemies of Aydori when he noticed her rub her arms, right where he’d been holding her.

  He was Pack. Pack protected. He was more than Pack. Ryder was dead. He wasn’t the younger Lord Hagen any longer. He was Lord Hagen because Ryder was dead and Ryder’s son, if it was a son, hadn’t yet been born.

  Lord Hagen would never hurt a girl he was trying to save.

  He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but he couldn’t force the words out past the grief.

  When she touched his chest, he started, unaware she’d moved.

  “I won’t pull your tail. I promise. But we have to go now, Lor…”

  He flinched.

  “…Tomas. I can hear them shouting in the clearing.”

  So could he. Better than she could, that was for sure. They were trying to wake the soldier she’d slept. They were distracted. Easy prey. Easy to kill. He needed to go back and kill them. Kill them all!

  “Tomas! Tomas, listen to me, we have to run! They’re using silver! If you go back to kill them, they could kill you!” Her palm pressed warm against his chest. “Tomas! I can’t see in the dark. I can’t get to safety without you!”

  The breeze shifted, blowing her scent into his face. He took a deep breath and felt the edges that had been pulling apart move back into place. When he met her eyes, she looked worried and frightened and confused, but she held his gaze until he nodded and looked away.

  He changed. When he felt her hand close around his tail, he moved as quickly as he could away from the Imperials. He used to lead his cousins in the Mage-pack like this. He moved more quickly as she grew confident in him. Then they were running.

  * * *

  “Armin! Come on…” Reiter slapped the sleeping soldier lightly on both cheeks. “…wake up!”

  “Sir.” Best’s hand, holding a canteen of water, appeared in his peripheral vision.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Reiter took it and dumped it over Armin’s face. Armin sputtered, sneezed, and slept on. In the spill of light from a hastily lit lantern, he looked peaceful. Wet, but peaceful.

  “Has he been mage hit, Cap? Did the girl do it?”

  Turning to answer Chard, Reiter saw a glint of gold and, using the mouth of the canteen, scooped the tangle out of the dirt. There were two sizable hanks of hair attached to it, sticky with evergreen sap and needles. It hadn’t come off easily, but it had come off. So much for Geurin’s belief that the mages would be unable to remove the tangle without another artifact.

  He frowned as two sections of fine chain swung free of the pattern. The ends of both pieces were blackened, the gold links of the broken segments misshapen. Not melted though, so it hadn’t been heat…

  “Wait! Where’s the dog?” Chard’s question snapped Reiter’s attention off the net. “She better not have hurt the dog!” Chard pursed his lips to whistle but before he could make a sound, Best punched him in the arm.

  “It wasn’t a dog, you ass. It was one of the beastmen, and it freed her!”

  Squint narrowing, Chard glowered at the older man. “Yeah, right. A beastman who let me scratch its belly.”

  “So you’d believe it was a dog.”

  “Because it was a dog!” Stepping closer to the tree where the girl had been tied, Chard scooped the leather straps up off the ground. “See these, not chewed. Untied!”

  “You saw the women!” The dim light couldn’t hide Best’s incredulous expression.

  The beast had gold hoops in its ears. Her ears.

  “What women?�
�� Chard demanded waving the ties. “There was one woman!”

  “This one’s had pups.”

  “Not here, idiot! On the road! The women looked like people before they became beasts!”

  “That dog didn’t look a person.”

  “You are too stupid to live.”

  “Enough!” Reiter rocked back onto his heels and stood, leaving the lantern on the ground and Armin lying beside it. Mage hit yes, but only asleep. Given what the girl had been through, she’d shown considerable mercy. Of course, there was no proof Armin would ever wake. “Dog or beastman, the animal is not our concern. The girl is. Chard, watch Armin. Best, you’re with me.” Best wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a big black dog.

  “A beastman would’ve killed us,” Chard muttered under his breath.

  He’d spoken quietly enough the others could ignore him and let the argument die. Besides, Reiter acknowledged silently, he had a point. They’d all heard the stories of attacks in the night. Of sentries who’d found everyone in camp dead, throats ripped out so silently they hadn’t heard a thing. Of farmsteads emptied of people and livestock both. Of travelers who disappeared, their torn and bloody clothing found strewn over the road.

  They’d all heard the stories, but Reiter couldn’t think of anyone who’d actually witnessed such a thing.

  Some of the cloud cover had cleared, exposing brilliant swaths of stars and a crescent moon that shed light disproportionate to its size. Scientists at the observatory outside Karis had declared that the moon had no light of its own, that it was no more than a large orbital body—which Reiter had translated as “rock”—reflecting the light of the sun. The recently appointed Prelate had been quick to deny the teachings of the Sun-as-metaphor and claim the science as proof of His mercy, throwing light into the dark. Reiter was not a religious man, but right now he’d take what help he could get. That said, they were lucky the girl hadn’t tried to cover her tracks. If she’d had time to be more careful, they’d never be able to find her.

  “Captain, what if she’s leading us into an ambush?” Best was close behind his left shoulder, speaking so quietly Reiter barely heard him. “It’s said the beastmen run in packs.”

  He also had a point. But if Chard’s dog was one of the beastmen, Reiter’d bet his life the…the creature was as lost as it had pretended to be. Soldiers’ pets roaming the battlefield after their master’s death quivered with the same barely contained sense of panic. Of not knowing where they belonged. If it wasn’t one of the beastmen, it might have gone with the girl because she was up and moving.

  “If there’s a pack,” he told Best, “we’ll deal with it.”

  “But, Captain…”

  “I said we’ll deal with it. Our orders are to return with six mages. No one’s going to be happy to hear we had one in the tangle and she got away.” One in six or six in one. The Soothsayer’s prophecy brought to mind, Reiter suddenly realized the girl they hunted had to be pregnant. Empires rise or empires fall; the unborn child begins it all. Realized all the women under the tangles had to be pregnant. When wild and mage together come. They’d lain with beasts, but…

  Was Chard’s creature the father? He was young, yes, but old enough for that. Remembering the girl’s reaction, Reiter would’ve sworn she’d never seen the beast before. Had she played them? He could have admired that had she not put his balls in the fire by escaping.

  A surprisingly large part of him wanted to let her go. Bad enough to make civilians a part of a war, making war against the unborn was…

  Empires rise or empires fall.

  He was a soldier sworn to the protection of the empire. He was an officer sworn to the protection of the empire. He had his orders.

  “Captain?”

  “I hear it.”

  She was moving faster than expected—although he should have expected it. With the tangle off, she had full access to her mage-craft again. And, she was determined. So far today, she’d survived an ambush planned by Imperial Soothsayers, a run to Bercarit, a river still dangerously swollen with spring runoff, and an ancient artifact specifically designed to stop her. Reiter remembered how annoyed she’d looked when she’d first been taken and couldn’t prevent a smile. She’d studied him, much as he’d studied her, her pale eyes narrowed with disapproval as though four Imperial soldiers rated no higher than the wrong-colored gloves. The smile disappeared as he frowned. He admired her no more than any other competent enemy.

  She wasn’t moving quietly. With no breeze stirring the leaves or rubbing branches together, she was making the only noise in the wood.

  * * *

  Because Mirian had promised not to pull, when she needed Tomas’ attention, she released her grip on his tail and waited for him to notice. Three steps and he turned.

  “I can’t keep going.” Her grip on a branch was all that kept her upright. Her thighs trembled, her knees threatened to buckle, and the pain in her side felt as though someone had stuffed hot coals under her ribs. “You have to find us a place to hide.” She paused just long enough to check that the sounds of pursuit hadn’t stopped. If they’d already given up…

  They hadn’t.

  “It’s dark,” she added, “once we’re not moving, they won’t be able to find us.

  It was too dark to read Tomas’ expression, but his body language as he stared past her was clear.

  “I know you could kill them now they’ve separated. But they’re still using silver, and I still can’t get away without you.” And there’d been enough killing today. The younger Lord Hagen was Hunt Pack; he wouldn’t understand why she wanted four of the enemy to live. Mirian wasn’t sure she understood it herself, only that four more bodies sprawled limp and bleeding wouldn’t bring Lady Berin and the others back. “Please, just find us a place to hide.”

  He shot her a look it was too dark to decipher—the shifting silhouettes of his ears the only indication he’d turned—then he snorted and disappeared into the underbrush.

  Mirian flattened the black ruffle along the lapels of her jacket and pulled the edges together over the white vee of her shirtwaist. Shaking her hair down over the pale oval of her face, she leaned back against the tree and tried to become one with the night. It was a phrase from the last novel she’d brought home from the bookshop on Upper Cryss Road. The hero became one with the night when he hunted. Of course, in the novel, the hero hadn’t had to deal with a swarm of insects that tried to make a meal off any bit of exposed skin. Novels, she noted, wondering how much noise she’d make if she slapped at the back of her neck, were nothing much like real life.

  Over the high-pitched whine of the insects, it sounded as though pursuit had slowed.

  Give up. Give up. Give up. It was a sort of a prayer, although Mirian had neither faith nor expectation that either the Lord or Lady were listening.

  Her head fell forward. She jerked it upright and bit back a cry as something large brushed past her legs. And again! Tomas was Pack! He was supposed to be protecting her! Where…

  Oh.

  Teeth in her skirt, Tomas jerked her away from the tree. Mirian stumbled and nearly fell, but managed to stay on her feet by clutching at a handful of fur. They danced like that for a moment, shuffling about together in a half circle before she found her footing and was able to let go, murmuring an apology as she slid her hand along Tomas’ spine until she could close it around his tail.

  He led her on what seemed to be a stupidly long, looping path; through a clearing, around to the left, over two fallen trees…

  Was he lost?

  ….to a low rock face, a sudden splash of pale gray rising knee-high out of the darkness. Tugging his tail free, he dropped to his belly, changed, and crept out of sight. Mirian had to move right up to the rock and collapse to her knees before she could find the narrow opening and then flip onto her side to inch her way in, arms over her head, fingers scratching for purchase. Even in her exhausted state, Mirian realized the rock extended both vertically and horizontally far beyond what was
visible.

  When her right hand finally flailed about in the open, callused fingers closed around her wrist and yanked, nearly dislocating her arm. A second yank with the same result. Tomas’ help wasn’t moving her any faster than she could manage on her own.

  The moment her left hand came free, she slapped at bare skin until he released her, muttering something rude under his breath. Mirian ignored him and concentrated on freeing her head. Skulls didn’t compact and it felt like she’d lost more hair and scraped a line of skin off her forehead shoving past the last bit of rock. Once her shoulders were in the cave, she exhaled, dug in the toes of her boots, braced her hands, and shoved.

  Her mother had always wished she’d been more buxom, like her sister. Mirian had never been more thankful her mother’s wishes could not come true. There was a limit to how far even squishable body parts could be squashed and more buxom would have jammed her in the crack like a cork in a wine bottle.

  To be fair, her mother couldn’t have envisioned this situation.

  When her hips came free, Tomas grabbed her under both arms and, this time, Mirian let him pull.

  “Stay here!” he growled when she lay panting, half propped against a curved rock wall trying to decide if it was worth trying to count her new bruises.

  And then she was alone. In the dark. A musty smelling dark—animal musty, not closed-up rooms under dust covers musty. Drawing in her skirt, she cautiously patted the floor around her and felt twigs. Very dry twigs. With no bark. Maybe bones?

  Did they have bears in Pyrahn?

  There wasn’t a bear here now. Tomas would have seen to that, but that didn’t mean a bear wouldn’t come back when Tomas was somewhere else.

  Somewhere else killing Imperial soldiers?

  “I was covering our tracks.”

  Her thoughts had been so loud she hadn’t heard him return.