The Silvered (31 page)

“You’ve been?”

“Not likely, but sometimes people wander out. And sometimes the wanderers end up in the empire. Or somewhere that then becomes the empire,” he growled.

And neither said,
like Aydori
although Mirian knew they were both thinking it. “Will they help us?”

“They might, if we can find them. But interactions between small isolated Packs without direct family ties can be…” His
hand cut the air in a gesture that suggested
violent
or
bloody
. “…difficult.”

Between Packs?
Mirian wondered as they started to run.
Are we a Pack?
But she didn’t know how to ask without seeming stupid or arrogant or both.

By late afternoon, they began passing more farms and, without discussion, stopped running even the short distances Mirian could manage. She didn’t know Tomas’ reasons, but she found herself hobbled by the knowledge that young ladies did not run regardless of how little the rules for young ladies applied to the present situation. It was one thing to run unseen out in the country and another entirely to do it approaching civilization. It helped a little when she reminded herself it would be a very bad idea to attract too much attention.

The road made a long sloping curve to the left, past fields with herds of black-and-white cows, and disappeared under a sprawl of red roofs that rapidly became larger buildings packed close, haze obscuring details in the distance.

“Is it smoke from the war?”

Tomas lifted his head, nostrils flared. “The war was over in Pyrahn the minute the duke rabbited for the border, and Imperials don’t burn down the emperor’s property.”

“A rebellion?” They couldn’t be the only people in Pyrahn fighting back.

“I think it’s factories.”

“Factories?” Mirian squinted, trying to get a better look. “Then this has to be Abyek.” The road they’d been following, the road the coaches had taken the Mage-pack down must have turned almost due north and brought them out to the Aydori Road. Schoolhouse geography taught that Abyek was the largest city in Pyrahn, larger than the Duke’s Seat. The current duke’s great grandmother had built it to take advantage of new trade with Aydori. The Pack Leader at the time had insisted it be built a full day’s travel from the border so that the Pack would never have to deal with the stink of manufacturing should there ever be a shift in the prevailing winds. Most of Bercarit had been built of Abyek bricks fired with Aydori coal and other industry had soon joined the brickworks. “I’m fairly certain Mother bought my sister a set of dishes from Abyek.”

“They must’ve changed horses here.”

It took Mirian a moment to separate the horses from the dishes. “Are we going in?”

Tomas nodded toward their shadows, stretching out to the right. “It’s too late to figure out how to go around. It’ll be nearly dark by the time we get there, and I bet this road will take us right…”

“Looky, looky, looky.”

Attention on Abyek, Mirian hadn’t noticed the five farm workers coming down a lane toward the road until the largest spoke, and by then they were nearly on top of them. She didn’t know if Tomas hadn’t seen them or merely believed they were beneath his attention as Pack. Or believed they wouldn’t be stupid enough to approach Pack.

In Aydori, they wouldn’t have been. Before she could remind Tomas that not only were they not in Aydori but no one knew him as Pack, they were blocked by a belligerent half circle of men in dirty smocks with dirtier scarves tied round their necks.

“Ignore them,”
the memory of her mother said.
“We do not acknowledge the existence of ruffians.”

Clearly her mother’s advice worked better when applied to bricklayers in the city.

“I’m guessin’ you two don’t know there’s a toll on this road. Bin a war, you know. We all gotta pay.” Not much of the largest man’s breadth was fat and he was easily a head taller than Tomas. Mirian had never understood the phrase
fists like hams
before. She did now.

Tomas let the bedroll with his jacket slung over it slide off his shoulder as he stepped forward. Mirian caught it before it hit the ground. “Move aside.”

“Move aside?” His beefy face flushed red when he laughed and the other four laughed as well, a beat behind the leader. “You look like the gutter all barefoot and rags, but you talk like you think your shit don’t stink. Get thrown out of your fancy house on your fancy ass when the Imperials come through, did you? Well, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you were, there’s a toll on this road for the likes of what you are now. And since I doubt you got coin to pay it, I’ll take a little time with your girl.” There were two teeth missing on the right side of his mouth when he smiled, and he looked at her the way Best had, like she was a thing not a person; only without Best’s minimal excuse of being the enemy.

Experience had definitively proven she didn’t need mage marks to set his trousers on fire.

The memory of cooking meat and blisters rising up under where a ginger eyebrow had been stopped her.

“One more chance…” Tomas bit each word off in a way that should have been a warning. “…to move aside.”

“You filthy…”

Tomas stripped with the efficiency of long practice. Aydori fashions would have made it easier, but he was still impressively fast. As his trousers hit the road, Mirian found herself surprised by the difference between seeing him take off his clothes and seeing him without them. The latter meant he was Pack, just changed, the former that he was…well, undressing. It was a subtle distinction she really wished she could talk over with her sister.

And one she shouldn’t be thinking of now.

Astonishment held the farm workers in place as Tomas folded forward, enormous front paws slamming down on the road. Then his hackles rose, and he snarled. In the firelight, he’d passed as a very large dog. These men weren’t given the choice of mistaking what he was.

Four of the five men turned and ran back up the lane. One left a tumbled pair of wooden clogs behind.

Their leader paled but held his ground. Or froze in place, too terrified to move; Mirian wasn’t sure.

Tomas stepped forward, stiff-legged, and snarled again.

A dark stain spread on the front of homespun trousers. He turned, fell, scrambled to his feet, and ran after his friends, keening in fear.

“If you see an enemy run, you can’t stop yourself from giving chase.”

Mirian grabbed a handful of Tomas’ fur, imagined a candle on the end of his nose, imagined blowing it out with air warmed by her body and hoped that would be enough to direct her scent over Tomas’ face. A handful of fur wouldn’t stop him. “Tomas! He’s not worth the delay.”

He jerked free of her grip, took two steps, and changed. “My clothes,” he said, reaching back without turning. His voice sounded rough. Given the snarling, Mirian wasn’t surprised.

She scooped his shirt and trousers off the ground and pressed them into his hand. He had a scar just under his left shoulder blade,
enough muscle that his spine was in a shallow valley of pale flesh, and dimples…She jerked her gaze back up to the scar. “Why aren’t they in the Pyrahnian army? They seem like they’d enjoy shooting people.”

“If they were in the army, they’d have retreated to Aydori.”

“You’re right. We don’t want them there.” She twitched her jacket into place, smoothed her skirt with both hands, checked that the bedroll was still, well, rolled, patted at her hair…

“Mirian?”

He’d turned without her noticing and was staring at her, one hand clutching the hem of his shirt. There was a dusting of fine black hair on the back of his knuckles. She hadn’t noticed that before. “What?”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course. She let the bedroll slide off her shoulder, hitched it back up, and smoothed her skirt.

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine. If we were staying around here, I’d be worried. Big-and-ugly doesn’t strike me as the sort who takes embarrassment well.” Her laugh sounded a little stretched, even to her. “And that’s all that happened. You scared him. He ran. They all ran. Fortunately, we’re just passing through. But he had a point. Well, not really a point.” Words slipped from her mouth like beads sliding off a string; unstoppable now they’d started to fall. All she seemed to be able to do was send other words after them. She followed the bedroll to the ground. “People judge you if you’re barefoot, don’t they? Shoes seem to be the dividing line between worthwhile and wretched.” One boot already out and in her hand, she looked up. Tomas had moved closer. “Not if you’re Pack, at least not in Aydori. If you see a well-dressed person without shoes in Aydori, you know they’re Pack. And even in shoes, Pack wouldn’t wear these.” She waved the boots. “Too slow to get on and off. But we’re not in Aydori, are we? They saw your feet and didn’t know you were Pack. This will keep happening.” The leather had dried and stiffened, but she sat back, skirt billowing around her, and worked the boot open, one foot stretched out, ready to receive it.

“Mirian?” Tomas’ hand closed around her wrist. She needed to pay more attention; she hadn’t seen him drop to one knee. Then his
other hand gently cupped the unbruised side of her jaw. “Tell me what to do to make it better.”

“You don’t…It isn’t…” Mirian pressed into his touch, chasing the warmth, then pulled away and watched his hand fall slowly back to rest on his knee. She clenched her teeth against the spill of words, breathing through her nose while she forced herself to recognize that nothing had happened. Nothing they couldn’t deal with. After a moment, she swallowed, took a deep breath, and met Tomas’ worried gaze. “It didn’t occur to me that we couldn’t just rescue the Mage-pack. That we’d have to deal with all sorts of other people on our way to defeating the Imperial army. Stupid, right?”

Tomas thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “How would you know? We’ve never done it before.”

To his surprise, she started to laugh. He’d said the only comforting thing he could think of. He didn’t think it was funny.

“We’ve never done it before?”

Maybe it was a little funny.

“You have a place on a wagon heading out tomorrow afternoon, Captain Reiter. It will take you to the garrison at Lyonne where these orders will procure a seat on the first available mail couch. If all goes well, you’ll be in Karis in a week.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Reiter accepted the paperwork, nodded, and left the office. He’d learned not to argue with military bureaucracy years ago. A ride on a nearly empty supply wagon had taken him from the battlefield to Abyek—a dawn-to-dark trip that suggested even the old Duke of Pyrahn hadn’t wanted his cities too close to the Aydori border and the beastmen who were his allies. He then cooled his heels for twelve hours while his orders were processed. Reminding the most officious major he’d ever met that they came directly from his Imperial Highness the Emperor Leopald by way of General Loreau had no effect. The major had merely sniffed and pointed out in return that this was the Imperial army and all their orders came from the emperor.

There were days, Reiter thought, when hurry up and wait should
be made the army’s official motto. Not that he was in a hurry to get back to Karis. While his loss of the sixth mage was a direct result of the artifact malfunctioning, facts often were ignored when it came time to place blame. And Lieutenant Lord Geurin would have placed plenty of it before Reiter caught up.

His time was his own for another twenty-four hours, so he settled his bicorn as he stepped out of the only permanent building the garrison yet boasted and crossed between the geometrically precise lines of tents, past the garrison work detail toiling at the perimeter wall. Men, women, and children of Abyek and the surrounding countryside hauled bricks and mixed mortar under the command of an Imperial mason and a guard made up of those not quite functional enough to return to the front lines but not so broken they could be discharged. After a hundred years of expansion, it was an easy position to fill.

The prisoners wore hobbles, their time on the work detail determined by the severity of their crime against the empire. He’d been uneasy the first time he ever saw children hobbled, but after he saw a soldier’s head crushed by a piece of masonry pushed from the roof of a building by a pair of ten year olds, days after the actual battle was over, he learned to just walk by.