The Silvered

by Tanya Huff

  “Do not make this shithole smaller than it is.”

  Oh.

  She studied the movement of the air inside the coach. Found the paths it took, guided by breath and movement and body heat. Then she exhaled words toward the corporal’s ear.

  Too small.

  He twitched.

  Another breath.

  Too close.

  He shuffled his feet and kicked at the fabric of her skirt. His knees knocked up against hers, and he swore as he shoved her aside. Her knees pushed up against Tagget’s and Kirstin’s and when Tagget shoved back, Berger’s feet got tangled in her skirt.

  “The flaming fuck!”

  Trying to avoid being kicked as the corporal struggled to get free, Danika drew her legs up, toppled sideways, and elbowed Tagget in the stomach. He snarled and shoved her away. She worried for a moment he might start to yell, but something—Berger’s rank perhaps—kept him silent. A fight might have released the rising tension. She didn’t want the tension released.

  Danika watched Berger’s chest rise and fall as he finally freed himself. Before the rhythm could slow, she breathed, Trapped.

  And then began again.

  Too small.

  Too close.

  Trapped.

  Too small.

  Too close.

  Trapped.

  Trapped.

  Trapped.

  “Trapped!” He surged up out of his seat and had the bolts thrown, his hand on the door latch before she realized what he was about to do. A heartbeat later, he pushed the door open.

  “Berger! What the fuck?” Tagget tried to get past her, but there wasn’t room, so he grabbed her shoulder and threw her nearly onto Kirstin’s lap. Danika clutched at Kirstin’s arm, trying to prevent herself from sliding to the floor as the coach rocked.

  “Berger!” Tagget stumbled. He stopped his fall, one hand clutching the side of the opening, the other palm against Berger’s shoulder. His fingers were just beginning to close as Danika stretched out her leg, the movement hidden in the folds of her skirt, and pushed.

  Berger seemed to hang in the air for a moment, then he disappeared.

  The coach lurched.

  She heard the wet crunch even though the creaking and pounding were as loud as they’d been. Even though the breezes were moving the wrong way to bring her the sound. Then there was shouting from outside and the horses began to slow and there was more shouting and the coach rocked one last time before it was still and she wished whoever was screaming would stop. The coach was too small for that amount of noise to be anything but painful.

  She felt gentle hands against her face, looked up to see Kirstin looking down at her, gaze more focused than it had been since trying to remove the net. If it wasn’t Kirstin screaming, it had to be her. And she had to stop so as not to waste this chance of escape while they remained so close to the border. Tagget still blocked the open door, but there was a door in both sides of the coach and they certainly knew now how fast the bolts could be thrown and…

  “Out! Move it.”

  Hands grabbed her skirt and pulled and Danika found herself outside the coach blinking in the sudden sunlight, unable to stop herself from looking back along the road at the bloody, misshapen lump that had been a man. Alive, then dead. So easy.

  “Corral them,” Sergeant Black pushed her toward the others. “Keep them from talking.”

  “He went nuts, Sarge. I mean we all fucked around with him about hating small spaces, but he just…”

  “Shut it, Tagget.”

  Danika ignored them, stumbling forward under the concerned gazes of her Mage-pack until she could rest her head on Jesine’s shoulder. They thought she was reacting to seeing a man die. They didn’t know she’d killed him. She didn’t know yet if she’d tell them. She didn’t think she could stand it if they were pleased about it. So easy to say I’ll kill them. So different to actually do it.

  When rough hands pulled her away, she didn’t fight them. Took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, raised her head, and looked past Murphy at Lieutenant Geurin.

  “I think,” the lieutenant said, smiling, “that it will take us over three days to reach the capital and those three days will be frequently punctuated by stops in order to change the horses, this might be the time to inform you of what will happen should one of you actually succeed at an escape attempt. Should that happen, I will punish those left behind, making the escapee directly responsible for their pain. My orders are to deliver you alive to the emperor, but that still leaves me a great deal of leeway. It would be foolish, therefore, to believe you can take advantage of the distractions offered to my men by either the common business of the road or such unexpected happenstances as the corporal’s misfortune.”

  “And doesn’t he love the sound of his own voice,” Stina muttered as Danika stepped forward.

  She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “The corporal’s misfortune?” She spoke loudly enough to be heard over the drivers calming their horses. “A man under your command has been killed and you call it a misfortune?”

  His lip curled. “Shut up.” He wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

  Danika ignored him and raised her voice. “Sergeant Black, if our Healer-mage can…”

  “I said shut up!” His knuckles hit the same place he’d hit her before. As her swollen cheek dimpled under the blow, she cried out and crumpled to the ground. They were still captive, but the lieutenant’s men saw him disdainful of the death of one of their own, and she had the pain to help ease her guilt.

  They rolled Berger’s body up in his blanket and tied it to the roof of the last coach.

  “We’ll give him to the new garrison at Abyek for the rites,” the sergeant said as they passed the body up and Kyne secured it. No one seemed to care that the blanket had already darkened in places and that they’d be traveling for miles with a corpse. No, they cared, Danika amended, they didn’t mind. To be a soldier was to grow used to death.

  Although perhaps not this manner of death…

  “Are you all right?” she asked as Tagget latched the door.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” he growled. “He threw himself out. It’s not I like pushed him.”

  “Of course not.” No one knew that better than she did.

  “Who’d have thought Berger would go like that?” Murphy muttered, having been ordered to the second place inside. “Coach, horses, coach, horses, coach. Fuck.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “And I’m just saying shut the fuck up!” Tagget slammed the butt of his musket down into the floor with enough force Danika felt the impact through the soles of her boots.

  Murphy stared at him for a long moment then said, “Lyone says both his ladies puked riding backward. You didn’t notice the stink?”

  Danika hadn’t, although both Jesine and Annalyse’s skirts had to be stained. She had to stop thinking about Berger, about how she’d killed him, and concentrate on getting her Mage-pack free.

  Tagget stood, shoved Kirstin into the place he’d vacated, and dropped onto the seat beside Murphy. “Happy?”

  “I only want one thing more.” Murphy made a rude gesture, but when Danika ignored him and Kirstin continued to stare into the middle distance, he snorted and slumped back into the corner. “Fine, I’m happy.”

  Tagget wasn’t. Danika could see the memories playing behind his eyes, over and over and over. He saw his hand on Berger’s shoulder. Then he saw Berger disappear out the door. She wished it had been one of the others, one of the men who saw them as things not people. Kyne, or even Murphy rather than Tagget, but she’d work with what she had.

  The coach lurched forward. Murphy’s musket cracked against her knee, and he stroked her leg as he retrieved it, grinning broadly when she refused to react. When both men finally closed their eyes, Kirstin reached over and took Danika’s hand.

  With the other woman’s fingers warm around hers, Danika breathed in. Breathed out.

&n
bsp; It was all your fault.

  Tagget shuddered.

  As she inhaled, Murphy opened his eyes, glanced down at the joining of their hands, and leered. Danika exhaled without words.

  By the time they stopped to change the horses, she’d been able to prod Tagget only twice more, unable to trust Murphy to keep his eyes closed for any length of time. Her lips barely moved, but if he saw her, if they realized she’d killed Berger…

  Truth be told, her greatest reaction to Murphy’s casual lechery was relief. Manipulating Berger had been an experiment. Knowing the result, manipulating Tagget made her feel unclean.

  The Duchy of Pyrahn hadn’t been a conquered territory of the Kresentian Empire long enough for the network of posting houses to have been extended out from the old borders. But, as they thundered up to the village of Herdon, their driver sounded the mechanical horn as though expecting grooms to be ready and waiting with new horses. Herdon had grown up around the lumber mill at the point of the valley, and Danika assumed it had a public house, perhaps even two, but it couldn’t possibly be prepared for the sudden arrival of three coaches demanding twelve fresh horses.

  Except it was.

  The coach rocked to a stop abrupt enough to throw both women forward out of their seats then back again. At the sergeant’s command, the men inside the carriage switched with those riding outside—Danika doubted that included Hare, the sharpshooter, and hoped it didn’t include Sergeant Black—and during the exchange, as Tagget and Murphy were replaced by Corporal Selven and the lieutenant, Danika saw a team of sleek bays being led past the open door. With narrow heads and long legs under muscular withers and haunches, these were horses intended for speed, not for hauling loaded coaches over rutted forest tracks. These were the horses Danika had envisioned when she thought of post horses.

  She’d just never thought of them this far into Pyrahn.

  Lieutenant Geurin had no intention of riding backward, so Danika faced him while Kirstin sat across from the corporal. She stared out the window and Corporal Selven stared at his musket, leaving her and the lieutenant to focus on each other. As they left the village and picked up speed, the horses proving their pedigree, the ride went from uncomfortable to unpleasant.

  Danika watched the lieutenant’s face and waited. He was, as Stina had noted, too fond of his own voice to stay silent for long.

  “In the empire,” he snarled, shouting above the noise, “we know how to build roads.”

  We? Danika would have wagered a year’s pin money that the lieutenant had never built anything in his life.

  “You should thank us for pulling your pitiful little country out of the darkness and into the illumination of science and development.”

  Did he think they lived in mud huts crouched around an open fire? There were gaslights about to be installed on the main streets of Bercarit and a complete restructuring of the sewer system intended for Trouge. As tempted as she was to defend Ryder’s planned civic works, Danika kept her comments to their more immediate concerns.

  “And should we thank you for tearing us away from our homes, our husbands, our children?” The corporal’s gaze flicked to her face, surprised. It had apparently never occurred to him that they had lives beyond being captives of the Imperial army. Soldiers seldom got to know those they faced in war—which made sense, if they thought of the enemy as other people, how could they kill? Had she been arranging this…journey, the reason behind changing the soldiers with the horses would be to keep them from getting to know their captives in the forced proximity and relative privacy of the coach. It seemed the Shield commanders thought the same way. Although it left her unable to continue escalating Tagget’s guilt, Danika decided to see the change as a chance to unsettle a greater number of the men.

  Linking her fingers in her lap, she fixed Lieutenant Geurin with her best drawing room stare, reminding him they shared a social class. “Are you aware that you’ve left five children crying for their mothers?” Kirstin made a pained sound. Two of the children were her ten-year-old twins, the other three were Stina’s. “Five children whose grief you are directly responsible for.”

  “I have deprived a great many children of their fathers,” the lieutenant drawled as they passed over a relatively smooth bit of road. “I hardly think the grief of five tiny abominations will bother me.” She thought she’d controlled her reaction, but when he continued, voice dripping false concern, she realized she had not. “Oh, hadn’t you heard? His Most Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Leopald, has had the church declare your beastmen and your children by beastmen abominations—that which has not passed through the Holy Fire and is unclean. I heard the old Prelate became so concerned about the issue, it killed him. But he was an old man, and these things happen.”

  Danika wondered if Geurin understood he’d as much as told her the emperor had the old Prelate killed. Or if he was stupid enough to be bragging about it.

  “Abominations have no protection under the law,” he continued. “I, personally, am not a religious man, but some dictates of the church it pleases me to follow. You, personally, are unclean by association. You lie down with dogs…” He grinned, suddenly pleased with himself. “…you get up with fleas. Not a metaphor in this case, is it?”

  “It’s a metaphor you’d do well to remember,” Danika snarled, hands curled into fists. Beside her, Corporal Selven stared across the coach at the tears running down Kirstin’s cheeks. It was probably the first time in the corporal’s career that he’d been forced to spend time with the consequences of his actions. And it couldn’t hurt that those consequences were presented by a young and beautiful woman of good birth.

  She raised her hands to touch the bruising on her cheek and, shielded by the motion, sighed, It breaks your heart.

  A muscle twitched in Selven’s jaw, and he shifted in his seat. She could only see his profile, but he didn’t look happy. Good.

  Leaving the corporal to think about what exactly he was involved with, Danika listened to the lieutenant speak of his uncle, high in the emperor’s council. He was, he informed her, Lieutenant Lord Geurin and she wondered how he’d react if informed in turn that she was Lady Hagen. Given that he hadn’t bothered to find out the names of any of his captives, she doubted he’d care.

  “When I deliver you to the emperor, His Imperial Majesty will grant me a colonelcy and a regiment.”

  “Above those who have worked for it? Above men who have the experience you lack?”

  “I don’t need experience!”

  She felt the corporal’s leg jerk where it pressed against hers. “Weren’t you supposed to bring six mages back?”

  “The sixth mage is Captain Reiter’s problem.”

  Danika widened her eyes and looked concerned. “I hope His Imperial Majesty sees it that way.”

  “He will!” But he sounded more like a petulant six-year-old than a confident man in his twenties, and the sulky way he settled back into his corner only emphasized the resemblance. He did no more talking, but Danika figured both he and Corporal Selven had enough to consider.

  She stared out the window and watched time pass in the small patch of sky.

  It had been nearly noon when they’d reached the forest track and not long after that, even considering the delay of Berger’s death, when they’d made the first change from work to post horses. It was almost dark when the horses were changed the second time. As the horses were changed for the third time, the lieutenant ordered the Mage-pack out of the coaches.

  They were in an inn yard, an actual inn yard; the inn to the left, the stables to the right, a gate in both of the connecting walls to allow a coach the luxury of driving through without turning. There were one or two dim lights in windows in the black slab of buildings beyond, but Danika expected no help from that quarter. There was just barely room to change all three teams at once. A dozen steaming, sweating horses and their handlers gave the Mage-pack an excuse to huddle together and their guards insufficient geography to separate them.

>   All the men in sight were Imperial soldiers—even those changing the horses—but moving closer to the spill of light and glancing through the open door into the kitchens, Danika could see a number of local women. It looked like they had fared much worse than her small pack. Although, given the swelling that had forced her left eye nearly shut, the way Kirstin remained closed within herself, a bleeding cut on Jesine’s lip, a certain dishevelment of Annalyse’s clothing, and the care Stina took walking, they didn’t look much better.

  The inn yard gave no clue to where they were although, given the size, they had to be on the outskirts of a city. Given the speed they’d been traveling, they had to be out of Pyrahn and over the border into Traiton. Fraris, then, the Duke’s Seat and the only city of any size in the duchy.

  “They have fifteen minutes, Sergeant.” The lieutenant flicked open his watch. “For the privy and for food.”

  Danika suspected they were intended to use the privy in the same pairs they traveled in—keep them from sharing information, keep them from knowing how their friends were faring—but Jesine slipped in front of Kirstin; Carlsan, clearly annoyed at being forced to guard the privy while the others were already eating, either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “Has she said anything?” the Healer-mage asked when the door closed.

  “No.” Danika raised a brow at the rough wood, but needs must. “She hears what’s being said, though. And she’s reacting.”

  “I’d like the time to examine her properly. Annalyse is pregnant.”

  It sounded like a non sequitur, but Danika had known Jesine long enough to know differently. “Yes.”

  “And so are you. And I think, although it hasn’t been long enough to be certain, I think I am as well.” Jesine shot her a glance heavy with implication.

  “We all are. They’re following a prophecy.” She frowned trying to recall the exact words she’d overheard. “When wild and mage together come, one in six or six in one. Empires rise or empires fall, the unborn child begins it all.”

  “Six in one?” Jesine stood and let her skirts fall. For all she wore the calm and practical manner taught to Healer-mages, Danika heard hysteria barely held at bay in her laugh. “I certainly hope not. Do the soldiers know?”