The Silvered

by Tanya Huff

  “It’s Soothsayers,” Chard sighed.

  Reiter let it go because he’d just remembered…

  The baby.

  He’d forgotten the prophecy said she was pregnant.

  The unborn child begins it all.

  Or would be pregnant.

  Or was back when they stopped the coaches in Aydori, when and where the Soothsayers had instructed them to.

  He should’ve asked the surgeon to check.

  Reiter watched the shadows stretching out in front of them on the road. It looked as though the darkness his gran had warned him not to walk in was in a hurry to get to the empire.

  “Long as the weather’s holding, we could make a push, Cap.”

  It took him a moment to understand what Chard meant by a push. Reiter stared at the horse. Thunder, as though aware of the scrutiny, farted twice before pulling the wagon through the cloud. “I don’t think he’s got a push in him.”

  “We’ve barely had him at more than a walk all day, Cap. He’s got…” Chard’s voice trailed off as Reiter turned. “Still,” he added slowly as though checking each word for Reiter’s reaction, “we bring him in overheated and it’ll be my ass the stable-master puts in a sling.” He flashed a sudden grin in Reiter’s direction. “Thanks for thinking of my ass, Cap.”

  “Shut up, Chard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The growing Imperial presence on the road indicated the checkpoint they’d have to pass at the old Imperial border would actually mean something. The first day out of Abyek there’d been only a couple of couriers, and although the road past the Seat had been busy enough—given the building of the governor’s complex and its half garrison—the lateness of the hour had meant the road beyond had been nearly empty. Today, after passing Fraris, there’d seldom been a moment when they’d been without Imperial company. Couriers. Soldiers. Wagonloads of goods. A ragged work detail, chivied along by a bored sergeant who saluted with his whip handle. A trio of cavalry officers, one with a bloody pelt tied on behind his saddle. Reiter returned salutes, saluted when it mattered, and was just as glad when the cavalry officers ignored him as they cantered past.

  Chard had made a noise, but for a change said nothing. Reiter had seen a muscle jumping in his jaw and from the depths of his frown, obvious even in profile, the younger man seemed to have been thinking deeply. Thinking was fine. He could think all he wanted.

  There wouldn’t be a green lieutenant asking the questions at the old Imperial border, but someone whose balls had actually dropped. A report detailing the wagon, the prisoners, and the orders being followed would be on its way to the Lyonne garrison before the smell of Thunder’s passage had faded. By the time they arrived, the garrison’s duty officer would know exactly what to expect. Given the prisoners, odds were high a courier would be sent to the emperor before Reiter had time to load them on a mail coach.

  “Start looking for a place to camp, Private.”

  Chard glanced around at the forest on both sides of the road. “Yes, sir.” The expected protest about time or location never came.

  Major Halyss had been right. On a trip this long, anything could happen. But it would have to happen on this side of the border.

  Chard found a place by a creek far enough off the road and under thick enough cover that they wouldn’t be seen even before the sun fully set. Wheel ruts and a fire pit made it clear the area had been used as a campsite in the recent past.

  By the time Chard had returned from the creek with the horse, Reiter had decided that a small, smokeless fire would be best. He didn’t want the attention a larger fire might attract, but neither did he want the attention that might arise from having had no fire at all.

  “Hey, Cap!”

  He looked up from his small blaze to see Chard emerge into the clearing holding a twelve-pound shell.

  “Busted a bunch of trees back there all to ratshit. What do you think they were firing at in here?”

  “Given the artillery had to pass by on the road, I’d say a sniper.” The crews on the guns could set up and fire surprisingly fast when they had to.

  “Just one?”

  “If there’d been more than a single sniper, they’d have reduced these woods to kindling before they advanced.” The Duke of Traiton, taken by surprise, had rabbited the moment it had become clear that the troops gathering at the Lyonne garrison were not the traditional bi-yearly show of strength but intended to cross the border, diplomatic protests be flamed. He then turned and dug in along the border with Pyrahn, where his much smaller force could count on the Duke of Pyrahn’s backing. Reiter acknowledged it was the best the duke could’ve done. It hadn’t changed the ending.

  When dusk had settled almost into night, Reiter lit the lantern and climbed up into the wagon. Chard was so emphatically not watching him, he might as well have been staring. The mage’s eyes were closed and her breathing shallow, but Reiter could tell she was conscious. Her body practically vibrated with the need for him to go away.

  He knelt by her feet, pushed the bottom of her skirt, heavy with dirt, out of the way and untied the rope manacles. Her feet were filthy and cold, so he wrapped his hands around them until they warmed. They weren’t tiny, delicate feet. They were sturdy, like the mage herself, strong enough to do what was necessary. When he set them carefully down and looked up, she was staring at him, frowning slightly. He felt his face grow hot as he untied the rope from the metal ring. “Come on.”

  She glanced at the boy, Tomas—Reiter made himself say the boy’s name. The hair—fur—had been pushed up on one side of his head exposing the point on his ear. It wasn’t an extreme point. Reiter had known an artillery captain back in the Shields whose ears looked much the same. The artillery captain didn’t walk on all fours covered with fur, though. At least, not as far as Reiter knew.

  The boy’d begun to shift slightly, small movements against the hold of the ropes, but he hadn’t even begun to mutter. They had time.

  “Chard.”

  She flinched although he hadn’t raised his voice.

  “Get the boy in your sights. Same orders as last night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He took his musket with him tonight.

  He led her away until the fire was a barely visible flicker through the underbrush and turned his back. Shoving his hand into his pocket, he expected the cool slide of the tangle across his fingers, but felt instead the strand of her hair he’d taken from the artifact the night she’d escaped from him. He pulled it out, drew it one last time between thumb and forefinger, settling the memory, then scattered it on the leaf litter. When he heard the rustle of her skirt falling back into place, he asked, “Are you…” How did the quality say it? “…increasing?”

  “What?”

  “With child?”

  “No!”

  Of course she wasn’t. She’d never attempted to protect a child. Women did that, didn’t they? And if she wasn’t with child then she wasn’t the sixth mage of the prophecy. She couldn’t be. Unless she’d been with child and wasn’t now…

  “Were you?”

  “With child? I’ve never…” The lantern, hung on a convenient branch stub, threw shadows over her face, but he got the impression she’d have slapped him had her hands been free.

  So she couldn’t have been and not known. And the boy…Tomas wasn’t the father. Reiter tossed his musket aside. Let the evidence show he had it with him, but didn’t have time to get a shot off. Heart pounding as though he were going into battle, he stepped closer and began to untie her hands. Eyes wide, she tried to back away. He tugged her close again. After a moment, she stopped struggling and he returned to fighting with the knots.

  She asked a question. Remembered. Asked it again in Imperial. “What are you doing?”

  “Being overwhelmed by an escaping mage.”

  “I can’t go without…”

  “I don’t expect you to.”

  He could almost hear her trying to choose her next question. No surp
rise she cut straight to the point. “Why?”

  “I’m a soldier.” The light was bad and the coarse fibers of the rope made it difficult to feel how the pattern had twisted. “I have been since I was fifteen. I’ve fought in pitched battles and skirmishes. I’ve waited in ambush; been caught in one. Although I’ve done what I could to adjust the consequences of bad orders, I’ve still followed them. I honestly don’t know how many people I’ve killed.” Threading the dangling length of rope back through a loop unraveled the knot. “But there’s a difference between killing and murdering.” He unwound the rope, stroked a thumb over the unmarked skin on her inner wrist just once, then backed away. “If you cross the border with me, you don’t have a chance. Tomas has less of one.” Major Halyss had called him “the boy,” and when he’d flatly said the emperor might be making rugs, he’d meant the emperor might be making rugs. Not a metaphor. Tomas couldn’t be left at the Abyek garrison, and Reiter’d been warned what would happen to him if he was taken to Karis. When the mage stared at him, confused, he sighed. “Look, it’s never just one thing that changes a man’s mind. It’s a hundred small things adding up. I know you have no reason to think good of me, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill me when you take me out.”

  “When I what?”

  “If I just let you go, I’m a dead man. Too many people know I have you. Too many people know what my orders were. You have to escape.”

  She glanced down at her hands, then up. “I have to make it look like I…we escaped. How?”

  Was he going to have to knock himself out, Reiter wondered. “You’re the mage.”

  “Not much of one.”

  “Not much…The scene in the market says different.” He frowned as she frowned, clearly not understanding what he referred to. “You don’t know about what happened in the market?” He’d wondered at the time if she’d known what she was doing; it hadn’t occurred to him she had no memory of it.

  “That farm worker was going to skin Tomas. I took hold of a man in a leather vest, and he threw me back. He kicked me. I think…” She pressed a hand against her side. “I thought he broke my ribs. And then I woke up in the garrison next to Tomas, and that woman drugged us. I thought the solders had come because of all the shouting.” Her pale eyes widened. “You came. That’s why Tomas isn’t dead. Isn’t skinned.”

  “You think I wouldn’t have allowed that to happen?”

  She spread her hands and looked at him like he was a little slow. “You didn’t.”

  No, he didn’t. Hadn’t.

  Chard would wonder soon what was taking them so long, so Reiter told her quickly what he’d seen when he entered the market. Her face showed horror when he briefly described the burning man, but not regret. As he sketched out the rest, she looked confused, listened without asking questions, then twisted her foot into the light and stared down at the back of her heel. “He had a knife. I wasn’t thinking…”

  “You have to start.”

  “Funny.” Her smile held no humor. “Usually people tell me I think too much.”

  Reiter wanted to see her smile, her actual smile. He knew he never would, but he wanted it so much it sat like a rock in his chest. “Chard doesn’t know about this…escape. He can’t lie for shit. Try not to hurt him. He runs on at the mouth, but he’s a good kid.” Chard still hadn’t called out to ask if there was a problem. What the fuck did he think they were doing out here? “A fire of any size,” he added, “will draw attention from the border. And you want as much of a head start as you can get.”

  “We’ll be…”

  “Don’t tell me! I’m a very good liar,” he explained. “But they won’t ask nicely.”

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. In spite of shadows, he could actually see her thinking of what she was going to do. There was still a chance she could kill both him and Chard. He’d gambled she didn’t have it in her. If he got in her way, yes, but not coldly and deliberately after he’d released her and armed her with what she was capable of. She’d slept Armin and walked away when she had less reason to think kindly of him.

  He could tell the moment she came to a decision. It hadn’t taken her long and there’d only be one way to find out if that worked in his favor.

  She squared her shoulders, paused as though something had just occurred to her, and said, “You asked earlier; my name is Mirian.”

  * * *

  “Sleep.” The captain’s forehead felt warm and dry under her fingers and Mirian watched him crumple to the ground, feeling confused as much as anything. Her ribs were whole, her heels unbloodied, and, when it came down to it, Captain Reiter had no reason to lie about what he’d seen in the market. She had tested very high, multiple times, so perhaps that meant low levels at very high power. But in every craft? She’d never heard of that happening.

  Still, whatever it meant, it didn’t matter now. What mattered now was making the most of this opportunity. Somehow. Perhaps she should have used the captain’s experience in strategy and tactics rather than put him to sleep, but she couldn’t think while he was watching her.

  First, she had to deal with Chard.

  Leaving the lantern where the captain had hung it, she picked her way carefully through the underbrush. The firelight showed Chard sitting on the side of the wagon box. From the angle of the musket, he had it pointed up under Tomas’ chin. He was staring at Tomas, not watching for them to come out of the woods, and he didn’t look happy.

  If she emerged alone, he’d shoot Tomas. If she called to him, he’d shoot Tomas. He might not want to and he’d likely feel guilty about it, but he’d do it. Bottom line, that was all that mattered.

  Captain Reiter was right. She had to start thinking like a mage.

  Raising a hand into the breeze, she sent a puff of it toward the wagon, into the wagon box, over Tomas, and out to where the horse grazed on the end of a rope tied to a wagon wheel. In the end, it was nothing more than blowing out a long, curving line of candles….

  Military horses might be the most phlegmatic known—and given that this horse had been transporting one of the Pack for two days suggested might wasn’t entirely accurate—but Mirian suspected that the fresh, immediate scent of predator had to be entirely different than a faint scent woven into the other scents of the road.

  The horse half reared and tried to run, dragging the wagon forward and throwing Chard off the side into the box. He popped up again almost immediately and leaped to the ground, stumbled, grabbed for the rope, and murmured a long string of calming nonsense as the horse reared and plunged around him. He was brave, Mirian would give him that. She couldn’t have stood so close to those hooves.

  Whether it was because the scent wasn’t repeated or because the horse found Chard reassuring, he calmed fairly quickly. Snorting and blowing, he allowed Chard to get one hand on his bridle and the other up under his mane.

  “There now, you stupid git. What were you all up in yourself for, huh? You catch scent of…”

  When he turned, Mirian put him to sleep.

  Chard dropped and rolled between the horse’s legs.

  The horse looked down, looked at Mirian, and shook his head hard enough the wagon creaked.

  Tomas moaned.

  If the horse got another less deliberate nose full of Pack…Mirian untied the end of his lead rope from the wagon and started around to the other side of the fire. The horse watched her go, stretched out his neck as the rope came up taut, and refused to move. Pulling didn’t help. Coaxing didn’t help.

  Tomas moaned again.

  “Fine. Have it your way.” As she sidled in close, he rolled his eyes but continued to stand right where he was. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” The clip attaching the rope to the bridle was too stiff for her too open. What difference did it make if he dragged the rope with him? So what if it got caught; he was huge. Someone would find him. Except…

  She couldn’t leave him tied. Not having been tied.

  The clip was brass. Brass
felt bright. Sharp. The taste of vinegar across her tongue and she held a cooling sphere in her hand. The rope dropped to the ground. Another moment to drag Chard away, then she was up in the wagon, murmuring much the same calming nonsense as Tomas began to thrash.

  One hand gripping his hip, Mirian burned the rope securing Tomas to the side of the wagon. He lay panting but still, so she jumped down to get the lantern and Chard’s knife. It would be safer to cut the ropes around his wrists and ankles. The knife was sharp, but the ropes were thick…

  “I’m sorry! Oh, Tomas, I’m so sorry.” Blood dripped onto the wagon as she pulled the pieces of rope away from skin rubbed raw and red. His ankles were no better than his wrists except that she’d managed not to cut him while freeing them. Although she’d been tied the same way, her own skin—wrists and ankles—had been completely unmarked. She stared at her wrist and pushed the memory of Reiter’s touch to the back of her mind. Evidently, she could heal herself. That didn’t mean she should experiment on Tomas. The hole in his shoulder had closed when he changed, and these injuries were nothing in comparison.

  When he changed…

  The skin around the silver pin felt red and puffy. He keened as she hooked her fingernails under the head and yanked it out.

  “Tomas? Tomas, can you hear me?”

  No. Though his eyes moved back and forth under closed lids, the muttering hadn’t yet become words.

  Thrusting the pin through a fold in her skirt, she wondered if he’d change as he began to shake off the drug. Would his body recognize what it needed? Mirian had no idea. She stripped him out of his shirt and stopped, hands on the waistband of his trousers. Tomas wouldn’t care. Would, in fact, prefer to be out of all clothing when he changed. Depending on how much or how little of his mind had returned, he might even be panicked by the feeling of being trapped in the cloth.

  Mirian managed to get both sides of the flap unbuttoned without touching anything but the buttons. Leaving it lying closed, she took the lantern down to his feet, grabbed his trousers and pulled only to find Tomas’ weight held them in place.

  “Fine.”