by Tanya Huff
“Because someone has to be.” She hung the telescope around her neck and tucked it inside her jacket, stared at the fire-starter then slipped it into a boot. The knife followed when Tomas handed it back. “And I’m all there is.”
“We’re all there is.”
She looked at him for a long moment. He could see her clearly, but he had no idea of how much of his expression she could make out even given how close they were. Enough, apparently. She took a deep breath and smiled—mostly smiled, partially bared her teeth. “We’re all there is.”
As she reached for one stocking, he reached for the other. “May I?” She nodded and he wrapped it around his waist, cinching the back of the blanket tight around his body, leaving the front loose enough to tuck his arms inside if he needed. Then he stood and held out a hand.
She needed more of his help to stand than she’d be comfortable admitting. Or maybe not, he reminded himself; she was sensible. Her skirt came to just above her ankles, her feet more obvious bare than they had been in boots. He could smell blood, but she hadn’t mentioned an injury, so he wouldn’t bring it up. Her jacket fit loosely—ease of removal dominated Aydori fashions. Anything under her skirt and jacket, he had little experience with, but it seemed a reasonable outfit for tromping around the countryside. It smelled of mud, and ash, and crushed plants, and sweat, and girl.
“What? You’re looking at me like it’s the first time you’ve seen me.”
It was, in a way. They hadn’t been Pack before. He shrugged, not wanting to admit to more than she could work out on her own.
She shook her head, then forced her fingers through her hair and used the other stocking to tie it back. When she caught him staring, she almost smiled a true smile with no aggression in it. “I know what you’re thinking; it was in a boot for two days and even I can smell it. But it’s better than having hair fall in my face all night.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking.”
“Then what?”
He shrugged again, knowing that if he said sensible, she’d misunderstand. Knowing he couldn’t explain and that at some point, according to both Harry and Ryder, girls wanted to hear more than, “You smell amazing.”
After a moment, when she finally realized that was all the answer she was going to get, she rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and started walking. “Three to four hours to Herdon? All right, let’s do it in three.”
What wind there was came from the northwest, so he fell into step upwind behind her left shoulder. The blanket rubbed a bit, not in a good way, and that helped. He wondered if she was going to talk now they were only walking not charging along the border. His limited experience with young ladies of quality, at least those he wasn’t closely related to, had involved rather a lot of staring over teacups and inane conversations about the weather.
Mirian Maylin walked—limped—as quickly as she could and said nothing at all.
So Tomas said nothing as well for about an hour until he picked up a scent he couldn’t ignore. “Wait. Someone died here.”
“Here?”
“Right there.” Wrapping a hand around her elbow, he tugged her back two paces, and dropped to one knee. The dirt was still damp, the pattern complicated under the bootprints. Tomas could smell blood and guts and horses and steel. “I think he was run over by a coach wheel. More than once.” Rising, he moved forward slowly, following his nose. “They stopped the coaches here. Everyone got out. Stina Menkyzck here.” He ran forward. “Jesine and Annalyse Berin here.” Further. “Danika and Kirstin Yervick here.” He moved off the road to a rough circle where the grass had been crushed under boots. “They gathered together here.” Their scents would be easier to separate from the Imperials if he changed, but none of the women were strangers. “Geoffrey Berin was Hunt Pack. Colonel Menkyzck was a senior officer. The Hunt Pack…”
“I know. I was at the reception when you arrived.”
“Ryder sent Sirlin and Neils Yervick to the front with the 2nd.” Sirlin was a Hagen. Another cousin. He was years older than Jesine, but they were stupidly in love. Jesine had laughed at the age difference and said Healer-mages were always more mature. She was beautiful and Tomas had been a bit in love with her himself.
Mirian had stayed where he’d put her. She was watching him, but he had no idea how well she could see in the dark. “Are they all right?” she asked softly. “No, stupid question; widowed and kidnapped, of course they’re not all right. Are they hurt?”
“They’re all walking. They’re not dripping blood.” He wanted to howl. “Other than that…”
“They’re all walking.” She held out her hand and he went to it, her scent stronger than the lingering evidence his brother’s wife and baby lived. “Let’s go get them.”
* * *
Mirian had no idea how long it had been when Tomas stretched an arm out in front of her; it felt like she’d been walking for her entire life. She hoped he had a good reason to stop her because she wasn’t entirely certain she could start moving again.
“We’re at the edge of the mill property,” he said quietly, bending close to her ear. “It smells like the mill’s still running in spite of the war. Not surprising, since the duke sold a lot of his high-end lumber to the empire. Ryder says that’s why he wanted our oak and…”
Tomas stopped talking when Mirian turned to face him, their mouths suddenly so close together she could feel his breath on her lips. “I appreciate the depth of your knowledge…” She did. It was a lot more interesting than fashions or her mother’s nerves or who had recently gotten married to whom, but would, unfortunately, have been as out of place in a drawing room as it was in the middle of the night outside a small town in the recently conquered Duchy of Pyrahn. “…but why have we stopped?”
“What?”
His lower lip was slightly chapped. She hadn’t noticed that before. “You stopped me.”
“Yes.”
“Why? Has someone else died?”
“No.”
His jaw was as smooth as hers. Did the Pack not need to shave? “Then why have we stopped?”
Instead of responding, he shook himself then shoved her behind him, taking half a dozen steps down the road, dragging the blanket off over his head as he moved, changing on the last step, hackles up, looking even bigger than she knew he was. He’d pulled the blanket out from under her stocking, not stopping to untie it, and it hung around his…waist?…the middle of his body, a dirty white stripe around the black, like some kind of weird medieval favor.
What was he protecting her from?
Now that all her attention was no longer locked on putting one foot in front of the other—or, she reluctantly admitted, on gazing at Tomas’ face like a simpering ninny—she could see an irregular landscape made up of piles of wood and, beyond that, a cluster of buildings topped by the distinctive shape of the mill wheel. Past the mill, the road turned to the northeast and followed the glint of the river for a while until it disappeared into a cluster of shadows showing only one or two scattered lights. Herdon. Only a little farther now.
Movement caught her attention and, looking back toward the mill, she could see a pair of shadows cutting diagonally across toward the road. She couldn’t see what they were, but she knew what they had to be. Captain Reiter had said they kept big dogs in this part of the duchy.
The profanity she’d learned from Adine suddenly seemed remarkably limited.
Not until the shadows reached the edge of the road did they finally resolve into dogs. They had a look of Pack about them, although they were smaller and their heads proportionally narrower.
Tomas growled, a low rumble Mirian felt roll across her, and took a stiff-legged step forward.
The dogs snarled and mirrored Tomas’ position.
Tomas took another step and stopped.
The three of them held their positions long enough Mirian had to bite her lip to keep from swaying in place, then the dogs lowered their heads, sniffed the dirt around their front feet—
it looked very much like they were trying to convince Tomas they’d just run out to check that particular bit of ground—turned, and trotted back toward the mill, disappearing into the night.
Tomas stayed where he was for a moment before he turned and changed. “Guard dogs,” he said, retrieving the blanket, as though she hadn’t figured that out on her own. “Anyone coming down this road at night probably intends to help themselves from the mill yard.”
He sounded like he’d been reenergized by the encounter, moving as though his skin could barely contain him. All Mirian felt was tired. “Why didn’t they raise an alarm?”
“We’re upwind.”
“That’s how they knew we were here.” She started walking again before sitting down in the middle of the road and remaining there until someone provided a hot bath and a change of clothes became her only option. “But why didn’t they raise the alarm?”
“Dogs recognize the dominance of the Pack.” Tomas fell into step beside her, still holding the blanket. “They don’t challenge us. But guard dogs are both bred and trained to challenge, so they need more convincing. Geese,” he added after a moment, “are a bigger problem. They’re mean.”
Mirian had never met a goose that hadn’t been plucked, roasted, and served with chestnut stuffing. The thought of Tomas, hackles up in the dining room, facing down a holiday dinner made her giggle. Once the giggles started bubbling up, she couldn’t stop them. They kept coming even with her eyes closed and her hands clamped over her mouth.
“Mirian?”
Her ribs ached with the effort of keeping things in, and she felt as though she was going to shake apart. Her knees started to buckle, but something pushed against her legs when she threw out a hand to keep from falling, her fingers sinking into fur. She opened her eyes to see the top of Tomas’ head and to feel his warm weight against her, supporting her. He wasn’t watching her. He wasn’t judging. He was just a quiet presence lending her his strength until she could get herself back under control. Letting her know they were in this together.
She took a deep breath. If it still sounded a little shaky on the exhale, at least the terrible noises she’d been making had stopped. A second breath. A third. She forced herself to relax. Mage-craft came from calm. That lesson, at least, she’d always excelled at.
The outer layer of fur slipped cool past her fingers, the inner softer, warmer. Stroking his ears reminded her of the gray velvet evening cloak her parents had given her at Winter Solstice and the list of events that had accompanied it, including the parties for her to be paraded at before she returned to the university at the holiday’s end.
Tomas glanced up at her when she laughed.
“It’s okay,” she told him, stepping back to give him room to change. “I’m okay. Just putting things in perspective. As horrible as the last two days have been, I’d rather be doing this than nothing at all.”
“When we get through Herdon, we can look for a place to hide and rest.”
That was the best suggestion she’d heard for hours. “Good.”
The road entered Herdon between a large house by the river and lines of small cottages disappearing into the darkness on the other side. Mill owner, mill workers, Mirian assumed, tugging the blanket from Tomas’ hand and kneeling to retie the bedroll. She assumed that should they run into anyone awake, a young woman out at this hour with a big black dog would be less notable than a young woman out at this hour with a nearly naked young man. They had to find Tomas some clothes.
“Will there be soldiers?” she asked, untangling her bootlaces.
“Why would there be soldiers?”
“Maybe because the duchy was recently conquered.”
“The emperor wants the mill to keep producing. The people of Herdon want the mill to keep producing. There’ll be someone new in the mill house taking orders from the empire. Probably new workers brought in to replace those killed in the war.” He shrugged when she looked up at him. “Ryder says most people don’t care who’s in charge as long as someone is.”
Mirian thought of the empire absorbing Aydori. Of the emperor thinking he could just send soldiers in to take what he wanted. To take people he wanted. “I care.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve established that you’re not most people.” Tomas grinned. “You’re sensible.”
They reached the town square without being seen. When Tomas took two steps toward the inn then turned and looked back over his shoulder, Mirian raised the canteen and pointed at the well. He nodded and disappeared into the shadows.
There was moonlight and starlight enough she could maneuver past the three trees that made up a kind of cut-rate Lady’s Grove. The grass around them felt colder than the pounded dirt of the road, and she hissed in disgust as a slightly warmer lump squished under the ball of her foot and up between her toes.
Something hissed back.
She froze.
The windows surrounding the square were dark, no lights showing through any of the tiny squares of thick glass.
After a moment, or two, or ten, she took a tentative step forward. Then another. Alone in a silent night when she reached the well, she let out a breath she hadn’t remembered holding and stepped onto the worn path around the stone curb, frantically scrubbing the bottom of her foot in the dirt, gagging a little at the smell.
She’d never actually worked a pump before, but how hard could it be? Cook had one in the kitchen. Sticking her foot under the metal nose, she slowly raised the handle, wincing as steel hissed against steel…
And something hissed back.
Something very close.
Heart pounding, Mirian leaned around the pump and came face to face with a scrawny orange cat. Relief was short-lived as she realized the cat was sitting on the legs of a man so ragged his edges feathered off into the night. The smell wasn’t coming from the mess on her foot, but from him. She had to hold her own breath before she could hear him breathing, but that was infinitely better than touching him. He wasn’t dead. She could wash her foot and fill her canteen and…
His eyes snapped open.
Given the way her last two days had gone, Mirian had to admit she wasn’t surprised.
“They know!” The words bounced off the surrounding buildings. “They know!” he repeated, arms flailing. The cat gave a disgusted noise and jumped up by the pump. Mirian shrank down into the minimal shadow thrown by the curb, but no windows opened, no one appeared to find out what was going on. When he looked directly at her without seeing her, Mirian understood why.
The townspeople had to be used to the Soothsayer’s random yelling. He’d be one of the familiar noises in the night. A noise that would excuse any noise she might make.
She turned back to the pump and nearly screamed as a clammy hand wrapped around her ankle.
“White light!”
Pulling free, she turned. They said touch compounded a Soothsayer’s madness. If he was speaking to, or about her…
He was mumbling into the fur of the cat who’d returned to knead against his belly.
If she wanted more details, wanted a clarifying vision, he’d have to touch her again. Or she’d have to touch him.
She reached out a hand. Puffed up twice its size, the cat spun around toward her then raced away into the darkness leaving the Soothsayer clutching his belly and moaning.
“He’ll wake the town,” Tomas muttered.
“They’re used to him.” He wasn’t in vision anymore. He was just a crazy old man. “What did you find?”
“They changed horses here. Switched local horses for twelve post horses bred for speed, and they’ll be changing every twelve to sixteen miles all the way to the capital.”
“You could smell all that?”
“No, there were a couple of boys up in the mow over the stable talking about the horses.”
“What were they doing awake?” When he snickered, she raised a hand and went back to the pump. “Never mind. So they’re moving the Mage-pack faster than we thought.” She’d
half hoped the soldiers had decided to lock the Mage-pack in Herdon for the night. Close to the border. Easy to rescue.
“You stepped in…”
“I know.”
With the aid of Tomas’ night sight, they cleaned her foot off with one slow push of the pump handle—the back of her heel had scabbed over, but she still had to bite back a shriek as the cold water rushed over the broken blisters—and filled the canteen with the second. As they crossed to the north side of the square, they heard a cackle and a soft, “Nice doggie.”
“And the emperor uses men like that to plan his campaigns,” Tomas snorted and changed.
Mirian glanced back toward the silhouette of the Soothsayer by the well. “It seems to be working for him so far.”
Chapter Seven
DANIKA STARED OUT the tiny window at the sun rising over the Kresentian Empire and remembered how Ryder used to come back into the house after his morning run, how she’d hear his toenails against the oak floor in the hall and then the pad of his bare feet as he crossed the bedroom. It always woke her although she often pretended it didn’t just so she could shriek in indignation as he dove into the bed and wrapped his body around hers, his skin damp and cool. Every morning since she’d told him about the baby, he’d paused by the bed to stand and stare and she’d stopped pretending sleep so she could open her eyes and see his expression. See how much he loved her and his child to be.
If he was alive, he’d be going crazy, unable to leave Aydori and come after them.
If he was dead…
She pressed her bound wrists against the slight curve of her belly. If he was dead, she’d mourn him once she got their child safely home.
