The Silvered (7 page)

Tomas had wanted to return to the border immediately, but Ryder had ordered him to eat and sleep. His protests had been ignored; the Pack Leader’s word was law. So, hungry and exhausted, he’d done as he was told. He woke just before dawn, remembered Harry was dead, and he couldn’t believe he had to wait longer still. In fur, he watched Jaspyr head off on personal business—as though anyone with a nose didn’t know it was about a woman. He watched Ryder deal with half a hundred stupid, unimportant, petty details. Lip curled, he watched him
finally
say good-bye to his wife, and change to fur.

Ryder snapped at him as he passed, but Tomas didn’t yield, merely fell in on his left flank as Jaspyr took the right, four distant cousins following behind. Once he was moving, the need that had been chewing at him, the need to return and make the bastards who’d killed Harry pay, began to ease. By the time they left the city, he’d given himself over to the run.

Noses to the west, Ryder led them across country, cutting off the two large loops that eased the Border Road for carriages. Tomas had no clear memory of the route he’d run the night before, but they crossed his scent so instinct must have led him straight and true.

He heard the artillery before he smelled the gunpowder. The wind was against them. Didn’t matter. The Imperial army stank, but their noses were useless.

He tried not to think of what they were running toward. Tried not
to think of bodies blown to pieces. Of silver slamming bloody holes through fur. Of Harry. He thought of running, and of revenge, and how Ryder would fix this.

Then they came out of the woods, and the blood scent hit him like a physical blow. Blood. And shit. And fear. And memory. He stumbled, but Ryder ran on, so Tomas pushed the terror back and followed. He could see the Aydori line, shattered in places, the living sheltering behind bulwarks of the dead. He could see the Imperial army advancing, another score of infantry in reserve to replace every man shot down. He could hear gunshots and cursing and an Air-mage screaming on the breeze.

There were bodies in fur where the dead lay thickest and death too thick in the air to know if any Pack still lived.

He saw Imperial cavalry charge the exposed Aydori flank. They’d held the horses back then, until they thought the Pack was dead. Hackles up, Ryder raced to intercept, Jaspyr and the cousins following. But Tomas had caught another scent. Knowledge warred with instinct. Knowledge won, sending him away from his Pack Leader toward enemy lines.

Toward the weapon that had killed Harry.

A line of pain burned across his shoulder, but the ball was only lead and the wound healed as he ran.

He pushed off a fallen Imperial, breastplate keeping the body from compacting under his weight, and threw himself up over the heads of the corpse’s company. Heard the Aydori infantry rally behind him and knew that, with them returned to the fight, he needn’t fear a bayonet in the back. Dodged through chaos, still at full speed.

The impossible range of the new weapon kept it back from the front lines. Far enough back there’d be no reason for a heavy guard.

Speed and agility and the terror the Pack evoked in the unfamiliar kept him alive as he moved deeper and deeper into the Imperial ranks. The part of him trained to war recognized the Imperials’ fast advance had opened up their lines and that worked to his favor.

The weapon, up on a small rise, didn’t look like much. A fat tube on a cradle. The men around it smelled of curiosity and excitement, distant from the death they were dealing. Men who fought with heads instead of hearts. They smelled of gunpowder, familiar but a more concentrated scent than he was used to.

They smelled of silver.

He had to circle around behind the weapon to approach it.

Heard a man with a telescope shout, “There, a black beast! Huge bugger! And a gray one! I see four, no, six abominations with them!” And then coordinates. Tomas thought they meant him at first, then realized the big black beast had to be Ryder.

But Ryder and Jaspyr and the others were safe in among the Imperial cavalry,

They wouldn’t shoot their own horses, their own men to bring their enemy down.

He thought that right up until they lit the fuse.

His teeth crushed the gunner’s wrist a moment too late.

The carriage slowed and slowed again as the ponies struggled up the long, steep hill through Whelan Forest. Not that they’d been moving all that fast since leaving the city. As far as Mirian could see, the biggest difference between those on foot and those on wheels wasn’t speed, but possessions. Lord and Lady forbid the wealthy not take the good dishes and silver and linens when fleeing for their lives.

Although, in all fairness, the less than wealthy had made a valiant attempt to carry their possessions with them. A wide variety of objects had been discarded by the side of the road even before the road left the city. Pots and pans, bundles of clothing, a bed—Mirian was impressed they’d gotten it as far as they had—a single shoe, a striped stocking, a broken confectioner’s jar still half filled with red-and-white candies. Fortunately, the people no longer moved packed tightly together in a solid line of desperation as they must have through the night. The stragglers didn’t even look up as the carriage passed. Too many carriages had already gone by, and they were still walking. When they passed two women with three small children, the youngest screaming his displeasure to the world, Mirian’s mother had reached past her and pulled the blind down over the carriage window, her action saying as loudly as words that the concerns of the common were no concerns of hers.

Her concerns were unmistakable and had entirely replaced any panic.

“When did you meet Jaspyr Hagen?”

“At the reception.”

“And it never occurred to you to tell me?”

Mirian shrugged. “It seemed unimportant.”

“Don’t shrug, Mirian; you look like a shopkeeper. Tell me, how could meeting Jaspyr Hagen be considered unimportant?”

“The Imperial army…”

Her mother cut her off. “Is not as important as attaching Jaspyr Hagen. Do you have an understanding?”

They had a something. Jaspyr didn’t seem to care she had nothing more than first levels in five disciplines, certainly not enough Mage-craft to bear children to the Pack, but they had nothing as definite as an understanding. An attraction? An acknowledgment? A hope? A dream? A chance? Mirian couldn’t define it, even to herself, so the thought of explaining it to her mother made it simpler to say, “No.”

Not that her mother listened.

“He is older than you by at least a decade, but you act like an old woman most of the time…”

Apparently, only old women could be practical.

By the time the carriage slowed for the hill, Mirian’s mother had planned the wedding—who she’d invite, who she’d snub, who’d make her dress. She’d wanted Jon to pull over to the side of the road so that Lady Hagen’s carriage could catch up. Her father had refused to give the order, but Mirian wouldn’t have been surprised to discover he’d planned the delay at the bank in order to claim this position. It certainly wouldn’t hurt business if they were close enough to offer any necessary assistance to the Pack.

When the first shot rang out, and her mother shrieked for Jon to put the whip to the ponies, Mirian wasn’t surprised by that either.

The coachmen were armed. One managed to get a shot off and died a moment later, the other two just died. Tangles released, the men in the trees dropped onto the wolf’s-crest carriages, as Reiter led the rest of his men out onto the road.

A quick glance to ensure the carriage up ahead continued moving around the curve at the top of the hill, then he yanked open the door of the last of the carriages they’d stopped. As he leaned in, an elderly woman ripped the buttons open down the front of her dress, clawed
the fabric down off furry shoulders, and became a huge gray wolf. Had it not tripped over its discarded skirt, he’d have died. Claws scrabbled at his clothes, teeth closed on his shoulder not his neck, and they slammed together down onto the hard-packed dirt of the road.

Reiter froze, hands gripping the thick fur of the beast’s throat, as three shots slammed into its side. He squeezed his eyes and mouth closed as a fourth shot went in behind its jaw and sprayed hot blood over his face. He’d got his eyes closed in time. His lashes had already started to stick together, so he forced them open and heaved the body off to one side. Rolling up onto his knees he spat, dragged his sleeve over his mouth as he stood, and refused to think of some of the more lurid stories.

“You okay, Cap?”

Easy enough to hear what the sergeant meant, even over the screaming.

Did it break the skin?

He shoved a hand under his clothes. “Didn’t get through the jacket,” he said, bending to retrieve his bicorn.

“Good.” Sergeant Black finished reloading his musket with silver shot, and yelled, “Behind you!”

The creature dove off the top of the carriage, blood on its muzzle, fur gleaming gold in the filtered light.

They fired together, muskets snapped up to their shoulders, and it crashed to the ground, eyes wild even in death.

Reloading, Reiter swept his gaze over the road, saw another three dead beasts, a small cluster of sobbing servants, one holding an infant, and five women on the ground at the lieutenant’s feet, hands clutched to their heads, breath coming in pained gasps.

Reiter hadn’t expected the mages would all be women. Young women. Young, terrified women. Although their sex did provide a simple explanation of how they controlled the beastmen….

“This one’s had pups,” Sergeant Black grunted, heaving the golden body over with the toe of his boot. The extended teats protruded through the thick fur.

“Leave her alone!” One of the servants broke from the group and threw herself down beside the beast, cradling its head on her lap and bending to sob against the bloody fur. The woman holding the infant wept against the child’s hair.

Uncomfortable, and unsure why—he was a soldier, death was his job—Reiter looked away, dragged his gaze across to the old beast who’d attacked him, and realized it wore a pair of gold hoops in its ears.

Young women. Old women. The rulers of Aydori had always been named beastmen. They were to take their women back to the empire to control them. This wasn’t…

“Where’s the sixth?” The lieutenant held a tangle in his hand. “We need all six!”

“I forbid it!”

Mirian rolled her eyes and slipped out of the carriage and into the brush at the side of the road. With her father trying to calm her mother’s hysteria, she’d managed to shout an order to stop that Jon had chosen to obey.

“Mirian! Do you hear me? Get back in the carriage this instant!”

“Mirian!” Her father leaned out the open door. “Your mother…”

“Wants me to join the Pack.” She turned and threw the words at him. “You want me to join the Pack. This is what the Pack does.”

The words meant nothing in and of themselves; the Pack had no monopoly on doing the right thing, but they were the words her mother needed to hear to stop shrieking and the words her father needed to hear to nod and sit back.

“I will accompany you, Miss Mirian.” Barrow climbed down from his seat beside the coachman and twitched invisible wrinkles out of his immaculate black coat. “You should not go alone.”