by Tanya Huff
“No. Even the captain was only told when they came up a mage short.”
“Should we tell them?”
“The soldiers? I don’t know.” How would soldiers feel about their orders coming from Soothsayers? Would they care about risking their lives on the word of the insane? Or would they see the order as coming from the emperor himself? “I do know that separated as we are, there’s no way we can all escape together, so we’ll have to wait.”
“They’re taking us to Karis, Dani.”
“I know.”
“If they keep moving all night at post speeds, we’ll be in the empire before morning and at Karis no more than two days after that. You think we can escape from the emperor himself and make our way home across half the empire and two recently conquered duchies still crawling with Imperial soldiers?”
“I think…” Danika stood and settled her skirts in turn. “…we will do whatever we have to and we’ll do it together. All of us.”
After a long moment, Jesine nodded and showed teeth. “I think you’re right. Danika…” She paused, hand on the privy door. “Berger was an enemy.”
Danika didn’t want to know how much Jesine suspected. “I know,” she said, and pushed past her into the inn yard where a young woman, girl really, handed her a bowl of stew and a spoon, wincing as she moved. With her hands bound, Danika had to hold the bowl at her mouth. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until the first bite; she finished the rest so quickly she barely tasted it. She thought the lieutenant might have lingered, that the time limit would apply to everyone save him, but after fifteen minutes, they were loaded back into the coaches and, a moment after that, the horses were given their heads, horn sounding to clear the road.
It appeared they were to travel at post speed through the night.
* * *
It was nearly dark by the time Tomas began to stir. Mirian had slept a little herself, stretched aching muscles, drank a bit of water, ate another biscuit, and wished she had her mirror so she could talk to her sister. Lorela would be horrified by the situation and tell her to return to Aydori at once. Mirian would tell her why she couldn’t, and that would make the whole impossible situation real in a way saying the same words to herself couldn’t.
Tomas was going after Lady Hagen.
All the evidence so far indicated he couldn’t do it without her help.
But mostly, sitting in last year’s grass by the side of the road, Tomas’ head on her lap, she just wanted to talk to her sister. She wanted Lorela to make it right, like she always had when they were growing up. Lorela would sit on her bed, wrapped in a shawl, and explain that the world as they wanted it to be and the world as it was weren’t always the same place. Their mother’s drive for social advancement, their father always putting the bank first, that was how it was. A smart girl would figure out a way to work around it.
Mirian ran gentle fingers over Tomas’ shoulder, trying to decide if the skin around the scar felt hotter than the rest. The road to Karis went through two recently conquered duchies—logically, therefore, full of Imperial soldiers—as well as through half the empire. The coaches carrying the captured Mage-pack already had a full day on them and unless the people of Pyrahn or Traiton decided to spontaneously block the road and stop them, she and Tomas wouldn’t catch up. Emperor Leopald would have the Mage-pack for days, maybe weeks before they could be rescued. This is how the world was.
She stared down the road toward Karis—eventually Karis—and then back toward Aydori. In the gathering dusk it would be impossible to see something even the size of a small gray pony racing down the road to the rescue. That didn’t stop her from looking, from hoping to see Jaspyr Hagen suddenly appear, leading the Hunt Pack, coming to her rescue.
Jaspyr Hagen.
She wanted to talk to Lorela about that, too. About Jasper and Tomas and things that seemed like they should be unimportant next to war and capture and burning a man to death, but weren’t. Unfortunately, her mirror was probably in Trouge by now, wrapped in a silk scarf her mother had given her after having accidentally dipped the end in a glass of sherry. Mirian had no idea of how to enchant another, it needed at least fourth level air and second level metals, and mirrors, backed with silver, were both rare and expensive in Aydori.
Of course, she wasn’t in Aydori.
Tomas’ ear flicked, then his back legs began to kick at the air. Mirian moved her hands away, just in case, as he pushed against her thigh with a front paw. Then his eyes snapped open and an instant later he was on his feet, growling, hackles raised, ears tight to his head.
“They’re not here. They shot you and kept going. It’s just me.” Moving slowly, carefully, she reached into the soldier’s pouch and pulled out a piece of dried meat. “There’s food and water. I’m assuming, given how much healing you required, that you won’t be strong enough to hunt right away. I could be wrong but…”
His teeth grazed her fingers.
“You’ll have to change to drink,” she said as he swallowed. She pulled out another piece of meat and tossed it to him. He snapped it out of the air. “Or you’ll have to lap from my hands. The only water we have is in this can…” Sitting on the ground, it was harder to look at his face now he was on two legs, so she stared at his knees instead as she passed him the canteen. His knees were dirty.
He tried to make it look like he chose to sit, legs folding as he collapsed to the ground. It looked more like a barely controlled fall to Mirian.
“There’s hard biscuits, too.”
“More meat?”
“Yes.” This must have been why she’d only eaten the biscuits. She’d known he’d need the meat. Known he’d get shot running after the coaches like an idiot, right down the center of the road where any decent marksman could take him out. Known she’d have to pull the silver out of him again. Known he’d nearly die and leave her alone to save…
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She wiped the biscuit crumbs off on her skirt and put half of it back in the pouch like she’d meant to break it.
Still chewing, he turned his head to peer down at his shoulder, working the arm and wincing. Against his pale skin, the scar was an angry pink—not a shade Mirian had previously been familiar with, even considering Lorela had ribbons in every other imaginable shade of pink.
“Does it hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Bats dipped and soared overhead, irregular shadows against the deepening dusk. In amidst the ash and birch behind them, an owl made its first cry of the night.
The moment after that, Tomas said, “So what do we do now?”
“We free the Mage-pack.”
“We’ll never catch them.”
“We know where they’re going.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’ve been thinking about it…”
“While you were unconscious?”
“…and I should have stopped you.” His tone suggested he knew what was best for her. He was a year younger, and he’d needed her to save him not once but twice, but he was Pack. As Mirian stiffened, he added, “I should never have allowed you to come this far.”
“Allowed?” Mirian forced the word through clenched teeth.
“I need to take you home.”
“How?”
They were sitting close enough she could see him blink. “I beg your pardon?”
“You can’t convince me to return home and you can’t physically force me, so how did you plan to take me home?”
“Miss Maylin…”
“Mirian. If I’m not to call you Lord Hagen, you may use my given name as well.”
“Fine. Mirian.” His tone slid from barely excusable concern to patronizing. “You have no idea of what dangers you could face on the road.”
“Apparently,” she snapped, “neither do you.” Yanking her stocking tight around the end of the bedroll, she slung it over her shoulder and stood. “I’ve come too fa
r to quit now, so I am going to free the Mage-pack. As you’re no longer bleeding to death by the side of the road, and therefore no longer need my assistance, you may accompany me or not as you see fit.” The pivot on one heel would have worked better had she been wearing her boots and not winced at the movement, but she stepped out onto the road with her head up.
One step.
Of all the arrogant…
Two steps.
You’re welcome. Next time, you can remove the silver yourself.
Three steps.
It’s not like I didn’t kill someone to keep him from shooting you.
Four steps and Tomas stood in front of her, growling softly.
Mirian kept walking. “You’re not going to attack me and I’m certainly not frightened of you, so I don’t know what you think you’re trying to prove.”
As she brushed by him, he grabbed her skirt in his teeth and yanked.
“Really?” she said, as she stumbled. “Really?” She grabbed for the bedroll with one hand as it slid off her shoulder and reached out with the other, pressing the first two fingers down into the fur between his eyes. “Sleep.”
* * *
Tomas woke lying in the middle of the road, one front leg tucked under his head, the other stretched out, shoulder throbbing. It took a moment to figure out where and why—he’d been shot, again, there’d been pain and darkness and then a voice…Mirian! He scrambled onto to his feet and shook, trying to throw off the lingering effect of the mage-craft.
How dare she!
And, more importantly, how long had he been asleep?
The night smelled young; the hunters and hunted who roamed at dusk and dawn still out and about. In the west, the evening star lingered on the horizon. He’d been asleep for minutes then, not hours. Turning to face east, the direction the coaches had been traveling, he saw, no more than half a mile down the road, a single figure walking away. Downwind, so he couldn’t catch a scent, but there could be little question of who it was.
Mirian Maylin, walking to Karis to free the Mage-pack.
She had no idea of what she was walking into.
She had no mage marks in her eyes.
She couldn’t fight.
She’d barely been able to cover the distance between the cave where they’d spent the night and the track where the Mage-pack and their captors had emerged from Aydori. He’d have been there on time if not for her.
He’d have been dead if not for her.
She smelled like power. And home. And…
Of course, she smelled so good, he supposed legs weren’t actually necessary.
…and something more he was not going to think about right now. Or like that, at least.
Clearly, she wouldn’t turn back no matter what he said or did, and she’d proven that, while he couldn’t stop her, she could stop him.
He was either going to help her free the Mage-pack, or he wasn’t.
He sat and scratched for a moment, putting off the inevitable, then he sighed and stood. Even in a small pack, pack members needed to know their place; it kept the world from degenerating into chaos and confusion.
She didn’t look down when he caught up. He limped along beside her for a few steps, but every time his left forefoot hit the ground it sent a shock of pain up into his shoulder, so he changed and, cradling his left arm against his chest, matched her pace on two.
When it became obvious she wasn’t going to speak first, Tomas cleared his throat. “Thank you for saving my life. It was rude of me to not mention that before.”
He heard her snort although he suspected he wasn’t intended to. “You’re welcome. I would have done it for anyone.”
Polite, but still angry. “I apologize for not respecting your decision to carry on. I have no right to dictate your actions and…” Frowning he tried to work out just what it was she wanted to hear. “…and you have certainly proven yourself capable. I mean, you got captured by Imperials, but that wasn’t your fault.”
“Thank you.”
Her tone dropped the temperature, already almost too cold to be out in skin, another few degrees. He didn’t know what he’d said wrong and had no idea of what to say to fix things between them. A memory of her fingers stroking his shoulder suggested a better way than words. He changed and butted his head against her hip.
When she ignored him, he did it again, putting enough weight behind it that she staggered. When she turned to glare at him, he hit her with what Harry’d called the puppy eyes of doom.
“You can take down a doe on your own, snap her neck between those monster jaws, and cover yourself in blood and guts, but you give me that look and all I want to do is bury my hands in your fur and tell you what a good boy you are. So stop giving me that look, you walking carpet, it creeps me out.”
Mirian laughed, as though she hadn’t intended to, and finally said, “All right. You’re forgiven. We’re in this together.” She reached out to stroke his head, then snatched her hand back, embarrassed. “I’m so sorry. I know better, it’s just…”
Tomas shoved his head up under her hand. It was the two of them against the empire. They could both use the comfort of touch. It didn’t have to mean anything more, not if she didn’t want it to. No matter how good she smelled.
A few moments later, he reluctantly pulled away from her hand and changed. “It’s almost fifteen miles to Herdon. If I stay in fur, I’ll be on three legs when I get there.”
“Before Herdon…”
“A few small farms, but Herdon’s the first town. It’s where the sawmill is. Where they take the logs,” he amended. She’d said her father was a banker. Two days ago, her life had been shopping and card parties and dances; why would she know what a sawmill was. “The logs they cut in the forest,” he added, just in case.
“I know where logs come from.” But he heard her smile, so that meant she wasn’t angry. “Why wouldn’t they build the sawmill closer to the trees?”
“They did. A hundred years ago.”
“But these trees…” She waved a hand at the woods surrounding them.
“Softwoods. They cut them, too, but they’re what grew up when the hardwoods were gone, so every year, if they want the good stuff, they have to cut farther away from the mill.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Herdon’s the biggest town in the borderlands. You can’t protect the border unless you know why people are there. And, the duke’s been after Ryder to send some Aydori timber to Herdon. Says it would open up new sections of our woods for cutting if we could send floats down the Vern directly to Herdon and the mill pond rather than having to feed everything into the Nairn and down to our mill at Bercarit. Trouble is, the Vern’s not exactly deep in places, but the duke even offered to deepen the pool under the falls on our side of the border because Herdon lives or dies with the mill, and he doesn’t intend for it to die. Ryder said that’s an admirable thought, but if we gave the old weasel access, he’d strip the mountain bare in a decade. I had to go to the meetings as his aide. The most boring four days of my life.” Suddenly realizing he’d just repeated the highlights of the most boring four days of his life, he flushed, thankful it was too dark for Mirian to see his face. “But more importantly,” he added hurriedly, “is that fifteen miles is a long walk. I need to stay off my front leg for a while, but the night’s getting colder. Too cold for skin. Trouble is we need to reach Herdon before dawn if we’re going to find out what happened when the coaches went through. I’m trained to get in and out of town with no one knowing, but it works better in the dark. I’m a little obvious in the daylight.”
“All right. How long will it take us to reach Herdon?”
Tomas had no idea what all right referred to, but she wasn’t laughing at his stupid timber babbling, so he supposed it didn’t matter. “At this speed, three or maybe four hours.”
She was silent for so long Tomas was unsure if she was thinking or despairing.
“I have a blanket and a knife. If we cut
a hole in it for your head, and you wore it, would that keep you warm enough?”
Thinking, then. Muscles he hadn’t realized were tense relaxed. He’d made the right choice. As for her suggestion…“It should.” The Hunt Pack had done winter training up in the mountains, just fur, no greatcoats, and one shitload of snow. Three or four hours in skin on a spring night would be no problem as long as they kept moving. He stopped walking as Mirian dropped to one knee and let the bedroll slide off her shoulder. It took her a minute to get her…Tomas frowned…her stocking untied, then she unrolled it and set the contents aside. Her boots, a folding knife, a fire-starter, a telescope, the pouch that smelled of meat and biscuits…
“Where did you get all that?”
“I took it from the soldier I killed.”
“You killed?”
“While you were running at the other one, I set a fire in his ammo pouch like you suggested. He went up like…” She waved a hand, unable to find a comparison or unwilling to voice those she’d found. Her fingers were trembling. “He was dead so, logically, he wouldn’t need any of this anymore. There’s a purse with a bit of money, too.”
“The other soldier…”
“One,” she snapped, “was enough. He was dead and I killed him, but the other one wasn’t my…I mean, I didn’t…I couldn’t…” She wiped her nose on her sleeve then tried to open the knife.
“Here,” Tomas knelt beside her. “Let me.”
She shoved it into his hand and when he glanced over at her face, her eyes were shut and he could smell the salt tang of tears.
“We’re at war,” he said quietly, hooking his thumbnail in the grooved steel edge and forcing the blade out. “He was a soldier. Soldiers die in wars.” He cut a slit in the center of the blanket, hearing Harry reminding him to be careful. Hearing Danika telling Ryder to return safely and soon. “Soldiers kill in wars.”
“I’m not a soldier.” Her eyes were open now, pale and free of mage marks. “I’m not an anything.”
He pulled the blanket over his head, the scent of the man who’d slept in it lingering long after the man himself. There might have been a slight scent of char; it might have been his imagination. When he could see again, Mirian had unbuckled her belt and was in the process of hanging her boots and the pouch from it. She’d lost the bedroll, but her hands would be still be free. Smart. “Then why are you here? If you’re not an anything,” he added when she looked confused.
