The Silvered (38 page)

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 Traiton, 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, A
nd 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.”

“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.