The Silvered (12 page)

If Lord Hagen survived the battle at the border, then Lady Hagen in the hands of the emperor was a way to control him.

Unless it had nothing to do with Lord Hagen at all—regardless of her mother’s belief that the world revolved around the Pack Leader—and the emperor had a use for high-level mages. Who he couldn’t allow to use their abilities.

Maybe his scientists had built a machine that could suck the mage-craft out and then feed it into creatures belonging to the emperor, creating super-mages he controlled completely and could use as weapons.

Mirian swallowed another mouthful of bloody saliva and sighed. Maybe her mother was right about novels rotting her brain.

“Tell her to stop.”

“To stop?” Danika asked. She hadn’t overheard the lieutenant’s name; he hadn’t asked theirs. People had names. Those who intersected with prophecy apparently did not.

The lieutenant gestured at Annalyse. With her hands tied behind her, she leaned on a sapling, trying to stay upright as she retched. All three of the soldiers assigned to her looked disgusted, but the one charged with keeping her moving maintained his hold on her arm. “She has nothing left in her stomach,” the lieutenant sneered. “This is a delaying tactic that will not be tolerated.”

Given the prophecy he followed, he had to know Annalyse was pregnant, had to assume the rest of them were as well. Danika found it hard to believe that five of them traveling together were in a similar condition, but that was exactly the sort of cascading coincidence that Soothsayers relied on. Or caused, according to some philosophies. Given the conversation she’d overheard between the lieutenant and the captain, the men had not been informed about the
prophecy they followed. She wondered if they’d be more sympathetic or less if they knew. They could be kinder to their captives or use the information against them. Could she risk the latter for the chance of the former?

Hare, the man who never missed his shot, frowned thoughtfully as Annalyse straightened, breathing heavily. Old enough to have a wife and children, it looked as though he suspected the reason behind her illness.

Fingers digging into her arm, the lieutenant dragged Danika around to face him. “Stop pretending you don’t understand me…”

Because, of course, it was all about him.

“…and tell her that if it happens again, we won’t be stopping. I’ll have her dragged all the way to the border if I have to.”

He’d moved close enough that Danika could smell his breath and the stale sweat of a man who’d been in the same clothing for days. Over that, the bitter scent of the bile Annalyse had managed to spew, and, under it all, something pungent in the underbrush that had nothing to do with any of them. The mix of smells combined with the throbbing pain wrapped around her head by the Imperial artifact, caused her stomach to roil in spite of nearly two weeks free of sickness in the morning.

And it
was
a good delaying tactic, she acknowledged as she threw up on the lieutenant’s boots.

Tomas remembered the gunner’s wrist in his mouth, tasting salt and blood and gunpowder. Remembered seeing the lit taper fly out of his hand, hearing screams, smelling sulfur…

He could still smell sulfur and gunpowder and charred wood and flesh and blood and horse and shit and urine and ash. But mostly blood. And meat.

He blinked. It was darker than he’d expected.

Although he couldn’t remember what he’d been expecting.

He blinked again, and stared into the face of the Imperial gunner. The man’s blue eyes were open, he had freckles on both cheeks, and he looked surprised. Dead, but surprised.

Lips pulled back off his teeth, Tomas tried to move away. His front feet were trapped under the gunner, but his back feet were free.
He drew them up tight against his body and pushed, nails scrabbling against wood. They caught the edge of a board. He pushed harder. Felt something give. Jerked his shoulders far enough into the space he’d made to free his front legs.

The gunner rolled, upper body slamming into Tomas’ shoulder with a squelch of trailing intestines.

The next thing he knew he stood panting in the sunshine, squinting at the pile of lumber and bodies that had once been a wagon and a gun crew. He scrubbed at his nose with both front paws then, low to the ground, tail close to his body, he circled the pile. Stopped and stared again. The blast radius was…

Large.

Beyond the crater, the land bore the marks of the shells that hadn’t merely exploded but had taken off and cut a swath through the lines of infantry, leaving bodies and smoking holes scattered about where the Imperial army had been.

A voice called out over the moans of the wounded and the buzz of flies. Tomas ignored it.

Where the Imperial army had been.

He spun around toward the river. The fighting had moved up into the trees. He could hear the distant sound of weapons.

A glance at the sky told him it was midmorning, maybe later. How long since he’d left Ryder to take out the weapon and…

Ryder!

A wound high on his shoulder sent waves of pain through his body every time his right front foot hit the ground. Didn’t matter. He ran for where he’d seen his brother last.

He scrambled up the rocky slope that was to have given the combined Aydori, Traitonian, Pyrahnian armies the advantage. Scrambled over bodies in Imperial and Aydori uniforms. Found the place he’d last seen Ryder.

Found Ryder…

Part of Ryder.

Parts of the Pack. Cousins.

Whining deep in his throat, he dug at a half-buried leg, the silver fur matted with blood.

He needed hands.

With hands he could…

The flash of pain in his shoulder as he tried to change slammed him to the dirt.

The Imperial army had been using silver. The explosion he’d survived must have driven the silver deep. Twisting around, he licked at his shoulder but couldn’t get to the wound.

He could hear fighting in the distance. He could smell the bits of meat that used to be his brother all around him. He could hear a constant high-pitched litany of loss and despair. Wondered who’d bring a cub to a battle. Realized…Forced himself to be quiet.

He didn’t know what to do.

It wasn’t thunder in the distance. It so obviously wasn’t thunder, Mirian wondered how they could have ever convinced themselves it was. Each distant boom she could hear in the east shouted out death.

Clutching the left side of the boat, she stared at the shore and wondered if the reinforcements had been in time. Wondered if the Imperial army had been pushed back across the border or if they were even now pressing into Aydori. Wondered if fighting uphill in the woods put an army that marched in straight lines at enough of a disadvantage. Wondered if Imperial numbers would tell as they always had. Wondered if the fighting would come down to the river. Wondered what she’d do if it did.

Wondered how she’d find Lord Hagen in a battle.

In an extended lull in the shooting, she relaxed into the quiet and realized, after a moment, that it wasn’t as quiet as it had been. This new sound reminded her of a winter wind roaring through the trees in the park. But it wasn’t winter and the new leaves on the poplars along the shore were nearly still.

Shifting on the seat, Mirian stared past the front of the boat at the river. The banks rose, narrowed, and the river itself…She squinted, trying to force the distance closer.

The river itself disappeared.

The roaring grew louder, like a storm through the chimney pots.

Rivers didn’t just disappear. That was impossible. Therefore, there had to be a logical explanation. Lower lip caught between her teeth, Mirian glanced over at the shore, back at the river…

If the Imperial army had to fight its way uphill into Aydori, then
in order to get to the border the river would have to flow downhill. And water didn’t so much flow downhill as fall.

She had a vague memory of her mother mentioning a recent social column and a report of Lord and Lady Berin picnicking at Border Falls with their household. The writer had gone on at length about how fast and dangerous the falls were in the spring.

The paper hadn’t mentioned exactly where Border Falls was.

Geography suggested Mirian had found it.

Without the oars, she had no way to steer the boat. The only thing she had any command over was herself. Moving quickly, before she could change her mind, Mirian stood, stepped up onto the seat, and launched herself into the river.

She surfaced closer to the shore than the boat, although that could have been because the boat was moving faster now without her in it. Wet wool wrapped around her legs as her skirt soaked up water.
Stupid! You should have taken it off before you jumped!
The water was so cold it drove the air from her lungs, and she had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her hands felt as though they were covered in a thin layer of grease. Not swimming as much as steering diagonally through the current, she kept her eyes locked on a muddy bit of riverbank and struggled to keep her head above water.

Just don’t panic and you’ll be fine.

She didn’t realize there were rocks close to the surface until her legs slammed into one. The impact spun her around, coughing and choking. A wave closed over her head. If not for her skirts, the water would have tumbled her end over end, but the weight kept her upright enough that when her legs hit another rock, she managed to push off and surface. A glimpse of quiet water between her and the shore, then she was under again.

The next rock she hit, she hit with the entire right side of her body. Before the river swept her away, she managed to get her arm around it, leg bent high, foot jammed into a crack. Pushing off with everything she had left, she rose up out of the water far enough to twist down over the rock into the quiet pool.

Cold and hurting, she thrashed her way to the shore and flopped out onto the mud.

Every movement disturbed the flies that covered the dead. Clouds of them rose from where they were feasting and laying eggs to swarm around his muzzle, trying to land in his mouth and on his eyes. Tomas shook his head to dislodge them and wished he could shake a thought back into it. Should he join the battle still going on, deep in the Aydori woods? Or should he join what was left of the Pack in Trouge and bring them—bring Danika—the news that Ryder was dead. She’d need to know. They’d all need to know. The Pack was leaderless now.