The Silvered

by Tanya Huff

  Chard slapped the reins down again, and Thunder confirmed his name before breaking into a trot.

  Chapter Nine

  THE SUN HAD SLIPPED behind them so that they drove over the edges of their shadow. Reiter had a vague memory, a child’s memory, of his gran pulling him aside, fingers pinching the inside flesh of his arm, and telling him to mind his shadow. To not walk in his own darkness. He hadn’t thought of his gran or her superstitions in years.

  “Pull over to the side, Chard.”

  Behind them in the wagon box the boy was starting to shake off the drug, tongue flicking out trying to lick his lips, his nostrils flaring. Did he have the senses of a dog even when he looked like a person? Next to him, the mage’s eyes moved under her lids. Both their pulses were strong although hers was definitely quicker. The pin was still in place, pushed into the flesh of the boy’s shoulder, just past the edge of the recent scarring. With the surgeon’s warning in mind, he decided to wait a little longer before giving them another dose.

  “Back on the road.”

  “Yes, sir. Say, Cap? You ever get her name?”

  “The enemy doesn’t have names. It makes them easier to kill.”

  Chard flinched and muttered, “Ouch.” He spent a few minutes staring at the swing of Thunder’s tail, then he turned. “Is she going to be killed?”

  Reiter kept his gaze on a field beside the road, a field plowed and planted, the marks of two armies—infantry, cavalry, artillery, and whatever dangerous shit the engineers had been up to—already erased by the need to feed Abyek’s factory workers so they’d keep making the bricks and whatever else those smoking monstrosities turned out.

  “Captain Reiter?”

  “Just drive, Private.”

  * * *

  Mirian knew her hands and feet were tied. She knew her head ached and her jaw throbbed, but she didn’t hurt as badly as her last memory of the market insisted she should. Her mouth tasted much as it had after she’d been sent by the family doctor to a surgeon for a toothache, so it seemed they’d been drugged. She knew she was in the back of a wagon, tied to a ring bolted into the side of the box and that Tomas was beside her although too far away to touch, also tied.

  Had the Imperials been smart enough to leave the silver pin in his body? She tried to reach out and identify the metal, but her head felt as though it had been stuffed with ash. Too light to move aside, it merely moved around. And ash would explain why her eyes stung, tears welling up with every blink.

  She was conscious; Tomas wasn’t. They knew what he was, so they might have given him more of the drug. Or, possibly, body equilibrium, first level healing, had helped clear the drug from her system faster.

  Common sense told her they were on the Aydori Road traveling east toward Karis. The shadows told her it was afternoon.

  She hadn’t been surprised to hear Captain Reiter tell Chard to pull over. It seemed the whole empire was allowed to kill Tomas, but who else would want her? The shouting in the market must have brought the soldiers, and the soldiers had brought her to the captain. Brought them to the captain because Tomas wasn’t dead and he hadn’t been skinned.

  However bad it was, it could be worse.

  The wagon stopped.

  She’d barely gotten her eyes closed and her breathing steadied when the captain turned to examine them.

  She thought he must really want to believe she was still unconscious to not have noticed she was awake.

  She knew they had to escape.

  She just didn’t know how.

  * * *

  “Pull over, Chard.”

  “Here, Cap?”

  “Here.” Reiter twisted around on the seat and dropped down into the wagon box, ignoring Chard’s efforts to get Thunder to move to the side of the road. They were nearly to the Duke’s Seat, a good-sized city built around an ancient fortress on a hill. The fortress, at least, could have held out indefinitely in an earlier time. As it was, the artillery had brought up the big twelve pounders and bombed the shit out it. One of the officers at Abyek who’d been at the Seat during the bombardment had said he’d had to keep his mouth open in order to stabilize the pressure in his ears from the firing of the guns. Reiter’d been staring at the approaching ruins and thinking about the rebuilding when he’d realized that the soft sounds the boy’d been making for some time had become words.

  Words in Aydori. Not words Reiter could understand but definitely words.

  What’s more, the boy’s eyes were open. Whites bloodshot, pupils blown, he flicked them from side to side, gaze not quite focused. His nostrils were widely flared, although he had to struggle to get air in through his nose. His lips were pulled back off his teeth. He wasn’t fighting the rope yet, but he would.

  Reaching for a canteen, Reiter turned to check the g…mage.

  Her eyes were also open, an even paler gray than he remembered. Almost silver. She closed them immediately and opened them again an instant later, aware she’d been too late. He hated that she looked afraid, but, realistically, how else would she look? If he hated it that much, he knew what to do about it. Mixed in with her fear was a quiet assessment that reminded him a little of Major Halyss.

  He slid a hand behind her shoulders and held the open canteen to her mouth. Although he’d been afraid he might have to force the issue, she drank so willingly, he had to pull back and slow her down. When she’d finished half the water, he laid her flat and did the same for the boy. Still barely aware, he growled and muttered but drank.

  Having tossed the empty canteen aside, Reiter pulled the glass bottle and one of the cloth pads from the satchel. Carefully pulling the cork from the bottle, he damped the cloth, stopping before the liquid spread past the marks Major Raynold had drawn.

  The boy’s growls had grown wilder and he’d begun to fight the rope, but unlike the poor flaming bastard in the market, Reiter knew which of his two prisoners was the more dangerous. When he turned back to the mage, her pale eyes were fixed on the cloth in his hand.

  “Don’t.”

  It was as much an exhale as a word, but he heard it. Ignored it. He didn’t fault her for trying to escape, but if she hadn’t broken the tangle…

  When he pressed the cloth over her mouth and nose, her eyes narrowed in a silent challenge, and it soon became clear she was holding her breath. From the little he knew of her, she’d pass out before she inhaled. He moved his thumb just far enough to touch the bruise on her jaw, pressed, dimpled the green-yellow swelling, and she gasped. Her eyes watered, her eyelids fluttered. When she could no longer keep her eyes open, he lifted the cloth away and used a dry edge to wipe the snot from her upper lip.

  “Uh, Cap?”

  “I know.”

  He had to brace himself as the boy fought the rope hard enough to rock the wagon. Chard muttered nonsense at the suddenly restive horse, trying to keep it still as Reiter prepared a fresh cloth. The major had insisted: one cloth, one dose. He clamped a hand down on the silver pin, and pressed the cloth down on the boy’s face. When it was over, he wiped the snot from his lip, too.

  Chard watched him climb back into his seat and, at a nod, got Thunder moving again. “So, Cap, I was thinking about the water.”

  Not what he’d expected. “The water?”

  “You’re getting them to drink, right? What happens to it?”

  “The same thing that always happens to it.”

  “Well, yeah, Cap, but they’re tied in the back of a wagon. What happens if they need to piss?”

  “Then they piss.” The tone shut Chard up. Reiter knew that if he lost the mage again, he’d better desert. The best he could hope for from the emperor would be years under the whip on a work detail.

  They were nearly clear of the Duke’s Seat before Chard said, eyes on the road, “We’re not stopping at the garrison, Captain?”

  “No.”

  “It’s just sun’s going down, and Thunder…”

  “Find a field with some forage for him. We’ll spend the night th
ere.”

  “It’s just I heard the 2nd Swords are with the governor, and I got a cousin…”

  “Find a field, Chard.”

  “Yes, sir.” He chirped at Thunder, then added, “Duke’s Seat is a dumbass name for a city, ain’t it, Cap. Figure the emperor will rename it?”

  Abomination.

  The emperor liked renaming things.

  “I expect so.”

  The pond was shallow but declared suitable; the forage a sufficient supplement to the nosebag. The farm buildings were ruins, the farmers killed or driven off, and the land not yet awarded to Imperial soldiers for services rendered. Lack of shelter didn’t bother either man, both had campaigned long enough they only cared their beds be dry and not under fire. The prisoners would remain where they were.

  Chard dumped an armload of dead wood by the small fire pit, and frowned across it at the wagon. “We could tie them to that tree, Cap.”

  “She was tied to a tree the last time,” Reiter muttered, shoving his fire-starter in among the kindling. Flame smothered by the force he’d used, he had to pull it out and try again.

  “Yes, sir, but this time she’s on the drugs.”

  “Then she won’t care where she is.”

  “But…”

  Reiter raised his head and locked eyes with Chard. “They stay where they are.”

  Chard proved to be smarter than he looked. “Yes, sir. I’ll get more wood.”

  You won’t fight for it, will you? Reiter thought watching him walk away. You know what you believe, but you’re a good soldier, for all your mouth, and you follow orders.

  * * *

  “Tomas? Tomas, can you hear me?” Hair catching against the floor of the wagon, Mirian struggled to get as close to Tomas as she could. Tied as they were, she couldn’t touch him. The drug still controlled him, locked him in his head with his dead, left him muttering about Ryder and Harry and the taste of blood in his mouth. “Tomas, please be quiet!”

  She thought she’d regained enough control of her mind that she could get herself free, risk burns by setting fire to the rope, but then what? She couldn’t escape without Tomas, and he never quite managed to shake off the delirium before Captain Reiter used the drug again.

  The only thing that kept her from sinking into despair was that her rudimentary healer-craft overcame the drug more quickly every time. Soon or later, she’d be aware with time enough to free them both from the ropes and remove the silver before Tomas’ mutterings alerted the captain. If she could force Tomas to change, hopefully the change itself would expel the drug as it had healed his shoulder.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t start until she could finish. If the captain caught her during the attempt, she had no doubt he’d ensure that it would be the last attempt.

  Here and now, discomfort had her so distracted, she was afraid she couldn’t concentrate long enough to light even an actual candle.

  “Ryder!” Tomas rolled his head toward her, eyes focused on the past. “No!”

  * * *

  Reiter was feeding sticks into the small blaze when he heard the boy’s raving turn to words. “I’m starting to think I should’ve had a longer breakfast and minded my own flaming business,” he muttered as he used a taper to light a small lantern.

  It had been easy to tell Chard that their prisoners would remain in the wagon but less easy to live with that decision when he dropped down off the seat into the box and found the young wo…found the mage staring up at him. As the boy’s eyes focused only intermittently, Reiter tended to her first.

  When he raised the canteen to her mouth, she shook her head. “You have to drink.”

  She shook her head again. The lantern didn’t throw light enough to be sure, but he thought she blushed.

  Oh.

  He knew what he’d told Chard, and if she’d just pissed herself…well, he’d seen people survive much worse. It was a different thing entirely to specifically refuse her.

  “Your word you won’t try to escape, and I’ll take you far enough out of the firelight for a little privacy.”

  To his surprise, she frowned thoughtfully up at him and, after a long moment’s consideration, said, “You have my word.”

  “Chard!”

  “Sir!”

  “Get up here and get the boy in your sights. You hear me yell, you shoot him. You hear her yell, you shoot him. She comes back without me, you shoot him. You smell anything burning, you shoot him.”

  Her frown had changed from thoughtful to annoyed. “I gave you my word.”

  “You did. It strikes me you’re the type to lie if it was practical.”

  To his greater surprise, she laughed, winced as it pulled the bruise on her jaw, and said, “Sensible.”

  He found himself wanting to know what her laugh sounded like when it wasn’t so bitter.

  They didn’t speak again and, when she was done, he took the boy as well although he forgot to check the silver pin until both prisoners were once again tied and drugged.

  The skin around it was red and a little puffy. When Reiter touched the pin, the boy moaned, sounding even younger than he looked.

  At the fire, Reiter sat with his back once again to the wagon and grunted his thanks as Chard handed him a mug of tea.

  “I heard a rumor once, Cap, that we took Derbia because Emperor Leopald’s da, that being Emperor Armoud…”

  “I know who the last emperor was, Chard.”

  “Yeah, ’course you do, Cap.”

  “You heard a rumor,” Reiter prodded after a moment. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t encourage Chard, but he needed the distraction.

  “Right. So this rumor says Emperor Armoud really likes tea and that’s why we took Derbia.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But you were in Derbia, right, Cap? I mean not then, but the Spears got sent to put down the revolution, and when I got pulled to this…” The shadow of his gesture flapped around the fire like a crow over a corpse. “…mission back in Karis, I heard you saved the emperor’s nephew’s life from a mage when you were a sergeant and that’s why you got made an officer. And then that’s why you got sent on this, because you fought that mage.”

  He hadn’t so much fought the mage as shot him in the back before he got a chance to do much of anything. Very few soldiers in the Imperial army had any experience with mages, and those who did knew only the village healers or gardeners or blacksmiths and didn’t believe they were dangerous. It had been dumb luck that the emperor’s idiot nephew had been directly in the mage’s line of fire and had overreacted to Reiter’s shot.

  Reiter remembered the man-shaped torch in the market. It seemed there was a chance it hadn’t been an overreaction.

  “Cap? Is it true?”

  “It’s true enough.”

  The army had set up a checkpoint at what had been the border between the Duchies of Pyrahn and Traiton and was now the new provincial border. Reiter doubted there was an actual reason for it as both duchies had been effectively conquered at the same time, but someone in a position to make decisions had thought it was a good idea.

  Reiter returned the salute of the fresh-faced lieutenant on the gate, noted two of the three rankers under him were anything but fresh—both too broken to return to the front—and handed over his orders. The lieutenant’s eyes widened at the Imperial seal, and his hand shook when he handed the papers back.

  “Your prisoners…”

  “His Imperial Majesty’s prisoners.”

  The boy, and he couldn’t have been older than the boy tied in the back, paled under his freckles. “Yes, sir. But she’s…I mean, she’s…”

  A young woman tied, drugged, bruised clearly made him uncomfortable. Good.

  “She’s His Imperial Majesty’s prisoner,” Reiter repeated.

  “Yes, sir. What did she…?” His voice trailed off under Reiter’s stare. He backed away from the wagon and saluted again. “Very good, sir.”

  Fraris, the only city of any size in Trait
on, was visible from the border. They wouldn’t make it across the new province to the old Imperial border by dark, but they’d be there tomorrow.

  “You know, Cap, he was a good dog.”

  It took Reiter a moment to understand what Chard was talking about. “He wasn’t a dog.”

  “Yeah, I know, but…I don’t see why he’s an abomination, either. Best, he said the beastmen are abominations because the church says so, but Best is like crazy religious. I even heard him pray when we weren’t under fire. How does the church know?”

  The church obeyed the emperor. Or at least the new Prelate did and the church obeyed him. Reiter didn’t think he’d tell Chard that. It’d be just like Chard to complain about it in front of the wrong people and make Reiter responsible for him going under the lash.

  “Abomination means they’re less than animals,” Chard muttered, frowning unhappily. “But he was a good dog…”

  She was startled enough when he climbed down into the wagon, that she said his name.

  “Captain Reiter.”

  “You have the advantage of me.” He’d heard Lieutenant Lord Geurin say that once. It seemed more likely to get a response than, And you are?

  She shook her head, turned it toward the boy who was whining low in his throat. “Tomas?”

  He still didn’t have her name, but he had the boy’s name. The boy had a name. The beastman had a name. Abominations didn’t have names.

  “It was Soothsayers, wasn’t it, Cap?”

  “Wasn’t what?”

  “What sent us into Aydori to get the women. I mean they told us that we were there because if you take their mages they do what you say and not fight, and we were all about not fighting beastmen, and then their mages were all women and that wasn’t good, but this…” He jerked his head toward the back “…this is more than that. It’s enough more and it’s enough crazy, it’s gotta be Soothsayers. ’Cause we got five. Why would we need six so bad?”

  “Stop asking, Private. That’s an order.”