The Silvered

Chapter Two

DAWN TINTED THE MOUNTAINS pink and gold, and chaos reigned on the cobblestone street outside Mirian’s parents’ house. Those servants who hadn’t run off to be with family of their own loaded and unloaded carriages and wagons, trying to find room for one more trunk or one more family heirloom that couldn’t be left behind. Children cried, adults shouted, and through more than one open door came the sound of breaking glass.

Mirian, unable to spend another moment listening to her mother scream at her maid, stood on the walk in her traveling clothes tasting I told you so! on the back of her tongue. She wondered if she had time to go to the Lady’s Grove at the end of the street, took two steps in that direction, then decided that with the Imperial army already over the border, it was too late for prayer. Cook had taken the little round Lady of the Hearth with her, but as far as Mirian knew, the Lord’s Regard remained half hidden in the small back garden.

“Do you see him?”

She half turned as her mother came out onto the porch, confused for a moment about which him.

“Your father, Mirian! Do you see your father?”

“No, not yet.”

The circles under her eyes nearly the same green as the tint still on the lids, Mirian’s mother clutched a pair of silver candlesticks closer to her chest. “How could it be taking him so long?”

Mirian had no answer. Not that it mattered.

“We could be murdered in our beds, you unnatural child! How can you be so calm?”

Calm? That would do, she supposed. Although it felt anticipatory, more like the calm before the storm. “We aren’t in our beds, Mother.”

“Why would that matter?”

She looked so distraught, Mirian moved closer to the house. “We’re in no immediate danger. The Imperial army won’t advance further until dawn.”

“You can’t know that!”

“I can; it’s obvious. There was no moon last night, and starlight alone isn’t enough to move men and equipment over unfamiliar ground.”

“Obvious?” The snort had the force of imminent hysteria behind it. “So you’ve decided to be a general now you’ve failed as a mage? Perhaps Lord Hagen should have sent you to the border!”

Mirian took a deep breath and abandoned logic for reassurance her mother would actually believe. “Lord Hagen said the carriages would leave at dawn—all the carriages, his family’s as well—so he must believe the Imperial army won’t reach the city until much later.”

A double blink and a deep breath. Then: “Well, if Lord Hagen believes…” Hysteria averted, grip on the candlesticks visibly eased, her mother ran back inside.

Although the city was by no means calm, Lord Hagen had managed to prevent more than just her mother’s panic. After his brother’s dramatic entrance at the opera house and his declaration of defeat, Mirian knew he’d had mere moments to take control of the situation before it descended into chaos. He’d handed his brother into the care of the red-haired Healer-mage suddenly at his side, looked to his wife, and said levelly, “Can you be ready to leave for Trouge by dawn?”

Lady Hagen had nodded. “I can.”

She’d made certain their voices had risen above the shocked silence and filled all the available space, leaving no room for panic to grow into.

The Pack Leader had swept a calm gaze over the watching crowd, his tone and body language declaring, I am in control of this. There is no reason for you to fear. Common sense said at that point he was in control of nothing save his own reaction, but, even knowing that, Mirian had felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“Carriages heading for the capital will leave at dawn. The Trouge Road will be closed to all but foot traffic until then. Go. Make ready.”

Had he not made it clear his family would remain in the city, the wealthy would have rioted. Although no one had asked for her opinion, Mirian thought his reasoning was sound. Panicked drivers in fast carriages on a narrow, winding road at night could only be a recipe for disaster. One accident would block the way and destroy any hope of an orderly evacuation.

Now, it was dawn and then some. Mirian wondered if Lady Hagen had left yet.

She could see nearly to the boulevard by the time she spotted her father hurrying home. The other families on the street were gone.

“The cabbies are using their cabs to take their families from the city,” he said, when he was close enough. “As long as they weren’t taking the Trouge Road, they’ve been permitted to leave. There’s none about. I had to walk from the bank.”

He sounded so indignant about not having a cab at hand when required, that Mirian nearly laughed.

“Oh, Kollin!” Arms clasped around the ornate porcelain vase that usually sat on the mantel in the morning room, Mirian’s mother burst out of the house followed by Nyia, her maid, and Burrows who closed the door and locked it behind him. “Kollin! Please, tell me we’re leaving. I can’t take much more of this!”

“We’re leaving. Get in the carriage, Lirraka.” He plucked the vase from her hands as she hurried past and handed it to Mirian. “Leave the ugly thing for the empire,” he muttered as he turned and followed his wife, coat flapping around his calves.

Mirian set the vase on the path, straightened, and frowned. She could hear singing from the boulevard, rising up over the sound of marching feet—the remainder of the 2nd heading out to the border. She hadn’t known so many soldiers were still in the city.

The younger Lord Hagen had said the Hunt Pack and everyone in the 1st was dead. While that couldn’t possibly be accurate, there had to have been death enough for him to believe it.

So why were these men singing?

At first she thought the creature running toward her was a small pony, escaped from the soldiers. It was the size of a small pony, yes, but the shape was wrong—too narrow, too pointed, too…much a Pack member racing down the center of the street, moving so quickly it seemed his paws never quite touched the cobblestones. The early morning light made him look more silver than gray.

He was almost close enough to touch when he changed. “When this is over…” The growl smoothed out of his voice with every word. “…and we have a moment to ourselves, you and I will have to talk.”

She kept her eyes on his face. Mostly. There were lines and shadows there hadn’t been last night at the Opera House. Lines at the edges of his mouth. Shadows in and under his eyes. He looked older. He looked like he hadn’t slept. His intensity was still…disconcerting. “We have a moment now,” she said.

“No. Promises made before battles bring bad luck. But after…” He grinned, showing teeth. “After the battle, Mirian Maylin who smells amazing, I will find you and we will talk.”

Mirian took a deep breath. He smelled like sweat, just on the edge of becoming rank and she wished she had his nose, his certainty. But he made her feel as though she trembled on the edge of an abyss and that uncertainty would have to be certainty enough. Discarding half a dozen responses, she reached out, laid two fingertips against the damp skin over his heart, and said, “Yes.”

That seemed to be answer enough. A heartbeat later, the wolf stood where the man had been and a heartbeat after that, he turned and raced back toward the boulevard.

She watched him for a moment, then pivoted on one heel, walked to the carriage, accepted Jon the coachman’s hand with a smile, and settled into the seat beside her father.

“Mirian!” Her mother’s eyes were so wide the whites showed all the way around. “That was Jaspyr Hagen. Cousin to the Pack Leader!”

Mirian discarded another half a dozen responses, wiped damp palms on her skirt, and settled for, “I know.”

“You will stop them at the border.”

“Is that an order, my love?”

“It is. And here’s another…” Danika wrapped her hands behind Ryder’s neck and locked her eyes with his. “…return safely and soon.”

He bent his head and kissed her, then buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent. It was something he’d done a hundred, a thousand times over the years of their marriage, and Danika refused to read anything more into it now.

She let him go when he stepped away, even though holding on seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do. When he changed, she stroked the soft fur on his muzzle and murmured, “Do try to stay out of the burrs, beloved. You know how much you hate having your tail brushed.”

He licked her hand, pushed his face up against her belly, then pivoted on one rear foot and raced along the wide boulevard that led out of the city, toward the border. Tomas and Jaspyr fell in behind, with them the other four males who’d stayed in Bercarit to help maintain order.

“Lady Hagen, we need to leave.”

Lady Berin. Lord Berin had gone to the border. Although Ryder wouldn’t have sent him, he hadn’t stopped the old wolf.

Danika raised a hand to acknowledge she’d heard. The Pack’s carriages were among the last remaining in the city, the five of the Mage-pack tasked to guard the rear of the column. She whispered, “I love you.” Sent it on a breeze to Ryder. Turned, much as he had given the differences between two legs and four, and took her place in the carriage.

“I can’t see how this’ll hold anything, Cap.”

Before Lieutenant Lord Geurin could find words to go with his scowl, Reiter carefully gathered the gold net dangling between two of Chard’s fingers, and piled it into the soldier’s palm. “You just have to throw it, Private. None of us has to understand how it works.”

“The tangles are ancient artifacts,” the lieutenant snapped. “They’ll do their jobs if we do ours.”

“But…”

Reiter raised a hand to cut off Chard’s protest. “Up the tree, throw the tangle among the carriages, down the tree, take the neutralized mages to the empire. Simple. Now, get your ass up the tree.”

As he settled into the underbrush by the side of Trouge Road, Reiter had to admit the Soothsayers had chosen the perfect place for an ambush. The road back to Bercarit was visible for some distance—allowing them to identify the last carriages—then climbed steeply, forcing the carriages to slow, the sharp turn at the top of the hill cutting them off from the rest of the evacuation. While there’d been signs of lumbering back away from the road, massive oaks still pressed in close on either side, providing stable platforms for the men with the tangles.

Reiter had to admit, he saw Chard’s point about the artifacts. The delicate gold nets didn’t look like they could hold an infant let alone an adult, high-level mage.

He’d known mages when he was a boy—an elderly woman with brown-flecked eyes whose garden fed half the village, a legless veteran with a few blue flecks who could make himself heard over distance—but he hadn’t seen one for years. There were probably a few selling their services in the capital because everything was for sale in Karis, but as far as he knew, none served under the Imperial banner. Science had replaced magic in the army. When soldiers carried fire-starters in their pockets, they had no need to waste time seeking out a Fire-mage. Even Colonel Korshan’s blasted rockets blew up over enemy lines more often than not.

Science could do anything mage-craft could and, more importantly, anyone could use it.

Given that he had six men in trees holding ancient magical artifacts, Reiter saw the irony in believing this fight had anything to do with the rise of intelligence and training over random talents caused by a lucky dice roll at birth.

He’d just checked with Sergeant Black that everyone was in place when the first of the evacuees from Bercarit appeared, the cursing that came with them in Pyrahn working-class accents. Twice refugees, the poor bastards on the run again before the might of the Imperial army. Able to be first on the road because they could carry everything they owned on their backs. The funny thing was—although probably not funny for them, Reiter admitted—for the most part, they ran from rumor. While opposing armies were destroyed with brutal and practiced efficiency, the emperor preferred his conquered work force alive and working.

Reiter settled more comfortably behind his screen of brush, aware that around him his men were doing the same. Their orders concerned the last few carriages only; the rest could pass.

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.”

Barrow had been with them as long as Mirian could remember. Some years older than her father, he’d recently stopped tying back his thinning gray hair and had cropped it short in an old man’s style. Fitting, she acknowledged, given that he was an old man. But Jon had to hold the ponies and her father was clearly not going to leave the safety of the carriage and Barrow was all there was if she was not to go alone.

There had been shooting. And screaming.

In all honesty, Mirian didn’t want to go alone. She nodded once and the two of them made their way quickly back to the top of the hill. Slipping off the road and into the trees, she motioned for Barrow to follow as she cut across the arc of the curve until she could see back the way they’d come. Dropping to her knees, she crept forward as far as she could. To her surprise, Barrow dropped to his knees in turn and threw himself down beside her.

The wolf’s-crest carriages had been stopped and were surrounded by men wearing deep purple jackets over black trousers and boots. They wore black bicorns on their heads and held muskets. Imperial army uniforms. Imperial army weapons. The one gesturing, gold glittering as he waved both hands, was so pompous, even at this distance she knew he had to be an officer. She could see two wolves on the ground, one of the coachmen under guard and all five women of the Mage-pack kneeling in the circle of men, bodies bent and twisted, hands clasped to their heads. They looked to be in pain, but she couldn’t be sure as she couldn’t see their expressions. As she watched, Lady Hagen dropped her hands to the fabric of her skirt and straightened, the effort obvious even to Mirian’s less than perfect eyesight.

A breeze lifted Mirian’s hair, and she heard Lady Hagen’s voice as clearly as if she were kneeling with her.

“You have us bound, so kill us and be gone.”

Bound. Magically bound, or the Mage-pack would not be kneeling there waiting for death.

The officer waved his hands again. It looked almost as though he was sprinkling gold dust from his fingers. He had to be responding, but Mirian couldn’t hear him. Did he speak Aydori? Lady Hagen was speaking Aydori, but that didn’t necessarily mean she expected the enemy officer to understand her.

“We are only five.” She sounded angry. Imperious. Not stooping to insult him personally even while her tone insulted his entire nation.

Mirian strained to hear what the Imperials replied, hoping hearing at distance meant she was finally showing some of the mage-craft everyone seemed to think she had. The breezes refused her command. It must be Lady Hagen then, not bound so tightly as they thought and doing what she could.

The officer raised a hand as though to strike her. The man beside him, covered in enough blood for it to be visible even at a distance, grabbed his wrist.

“The emperor? What does Leopald want with us?”

What did the emperor want? Mirian hoped Lady Hagen was stalling for time because it should be obvious to anyone what the emperor wanted. Control the Pack Leader’s mate. Control the Pack Leader. She had no idea how the emperor’s men had managed to neutralize the Mage-pack—although the gold she could still see glinting in the officer’s hands was so out of place it had to have something to do with it—nor did it matter.

She leaned in close to Barrow’s ear. “The Pack Leader must be told his mate’s been taken. He has to stop them before they cross the border!”

Barrow, who was, after all, sensible above all else, nodded and then proved he was after all not as sensible as all that when he said, “Go back to the carriage, Miss Mirian. I will find the Pack Leader and give him this information.”

“You won’t be able to get near him. I will.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then he nodded. “Jaspyr Hagen.” Seated on the outside of the coach, Barrow’d had a better view of her conversation with the Pack Leader’s cousin than her mother had.

“Yes.” And a run to the border would probably kill you. She couldn’t say that, but neither could she have it on her conscience. “Tell my parents where I’ve gone and then get them to safety.”

“They will not…”

“Tell them I’ve gone to join Jaspyr Hagen.” She struggled to keep the edge from her voice, but didn’t entirely succeed. “That should calm them.”

After another moment’s scrutiny, he nodded again. “As you wish, Miss Mirian.” His tone had changed and, for the first time, he didn’t seem to be addressing the child she’d been. Rising to his knees, he ignored the leaf litter on his coat and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Lord and Lady keep you safe.”

“Our orders were to return with six mages. There must be six!”

Reiter resisted the urge to visibly count their captives again no matter how much he’d enjoy irritating Lieutenant Lord Geurin. Lingering this far behind enemy lines would get them killed. “Five will have to do. Sergeant.”

“Sir.”

“Divide the captives among the squads and get ready to move out.”

“No!”

Reiter stiffened and turned to face the younger officer. He’d had to accept a certain amount of aristocratic attitude since they’d left the bulk of the army, but this was over the line. “No?”

The soldiers surrounding them froze, and even the lieutenant had brains enough to flinch although he tried to hide it. He wet his lips, glanced down at the women, and stepped forward. “A word alone, Captain Reiter.”

Secret orders, as suspected. War was bad enough without Soothsayers getting involved. “Sergeant.”

“Sir.”

“As ordered.”

“Sir.”

As Reiter followed Geurin behind the carriages, he could hear Black barking orders and the baby screaming. It sounded hungry.

“This one’s had pups.”

No. He wasn’t going there.

Safely out of sight of both their men and the captives, Geurin turned the sixth tangle over in his fingers and said, “Our actions follow the visions of the Imperial Soothsayers.”

“No shit. We’re ass-deep in enemy territory with ancient weapons, capturing mages,” Reiter continued as Geurin’s eyes narrowed. “Soothsayers are a given. Now, tell me something I don’t know.”

“There’s a prophecy about the fall of the empire.”

That was something he didn’t know. “Concerning these women?”

Geurin straightened and stood as though he were reciting. “When wild and mage together come, one in six or six in one. Empires rise or empires fall, the unborn child begins it all.”

“Seriously?” Reiter let his musket hang off the strap, lifted his bicorn, and ran his free hand back through his hair, the front sticky with blood. “That’s the reason we’re here? My eight-year-old niece writes better verse.”

“Is your eight-year-old niece an Imperial Soothsayer?” Geurin’s lip curled. His tone remained respectful enough that Reiter ignored his expression. “Or the Soothsayer’s Voice? Or a Court Analyst? Or His Imperial Majesty Emperor Leopald himself who gave the order to release the tangles from the vaults? One of these six women…”

“Five.” Reiter pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and smeared the blood around a bit. He’d need water to get it off.

Geurin’s nostrils flared dramatically. “One of the six women we have been ordered to capture is pregnant with the child who could bring down the empire!”

Could. Prophecy hinged just a little too much on could in Reiter’s opinion. However, as the lieutenant had pointed out, he wasn’t a Soothsayer, or a Voice, or a Court Analyst; he was just a soldier, and he had a soldier’s response. He wasn’t proud of it, but he owned it. “If they haven’t had the child yet, why not kill them here? Why drag them back to the capital?”

“Empires rise or empires fall,” the lieutenant repeated. “If His Imperial Majesty controls the child, he determines what the child sets in motion.”

That sounded reasonable, as far as anything connected with Soothsayers could be called reasonable. Soothsayers were a remnant of the old ways, still around for the advantage they could give. Where could was, once again, the operative word, referring to men and women who were undeniably crazy, their words translated by political expediency. Still, he had his orders and now they even made a certain amount of sense. Controlling the beastmen through their women implied the Imperial army would fail to take Aydori by more direct means, and the Imperial army had not yet met a defense that could stand against them.

“You and Sergeant Black escort the women back to the army with squads one to five. I’ll take squad six and find our missing mage.” Reiter held out his hand for the unused tangle. “This is my command. That makes it my responsibility she’s found.”

And I don’t trust you to find your ass with both hands and a map, he added silently as Geurin hesitated, no doubt weighing the cost of showing up a mage short against the benefit of being the first to report. I definitely don’t trust you to find your way back to the border on your own.

“Sergeant Black…”

“Will go with you.” Thus ensuring they’d actually make it out of Aydori.

Geurin nodded, although at what, precisely, Reiter wasn’t sure. “We were sent to this place on the road because all six mages were Seen here. She can’t be far.”

The tangles were surprisingly heavy given how little substance they had, and the last tangle seemed to weigh as much as all six had combined. As Reiter slid it into his pocket, he wondered if that was because it carried the weight of the Soothsayers’ prophecy or the weight that would come down on his ass if he returned without the sixth mage.

The pain had faded, no longer knives driven in through her temples but a dull, unpleasant, albeit bearable, throbbing. Fresh knives stabbed in if she attempted to use her power. A lesser but constant pain if she remained quiescent. Danika gritted her teeth and squared her shoulders. Her power was not all she was. If these creatures who had slaughtered Lady Berin and Marinka thought she would crumble and beg, they could think again. She was the Alpha Female of the Aydori Pack and would not show her throat to the enemy.

Moving only her eyes, she checked on the captured Mage-pack.

Annalyse still had her head down, shoulders shaking as she wept—probably for Lady Berin, possibly for them all. Jesine, Sirlin’s wife, was sitting up, weight back on her heels, eyes closed, chest rising and falling as she breathed deeply. The highest level Healer-mage in the Mage-pack, it was possible she could control the pain caused by the net. Beside her, Stina Menkyczk, wife to one of the senior officers of the Hunt Pack—widow now if Tomas was right and the entire Hunt Pack had been destroyed—dug her hands into the dirt of the road and whimpered. Danika didn’t know if her pain came from fighting the net or because her niece lay dead and her niece’s baby daughter continued to wail, not understanding that her mama could not rise and change and go to her. Kirstin Yervick stared wide-eyed around her, met Danika’s gaze and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. She’d left twin ten-year-old sons with their grandparents in Trouge to travel with her husband to Bercarit. Danika was actually impressed that Kirstin was holding her tongue. It wasn’t something the other Air-mage was known for. Sarcasm, yes. Silence, no.

Danika couldn’t turn far enough to check the servants, but now that they’d stopped fighting to get past the soldiers, they seemed safe enough. She could hear Natali, Lady Berin’s maid, murmuring a string of complex curses and could only hope none of the enemy spoke more than the very basic Aydori the lieutenant had attempted.

The golden net wrapped around Danika’s head stopped her from raising the winds and throwing these men back across the border like ragdolls, but voices were only air given form and texture and the breeze blew past the two officers talking quietly behind the carriage.

“When wild and mage together come, one in six or six in one. Empires rise or empires fall, the unborn child begins it all.”

Her hand moved unbidden to her belly. Soothsayers who lived far enough in the future to give voice to “prophecy” were so insane every word could have a dozen different meanings. Danika had heard rumors that Emperor Leopald kept Soothsayers at the Imperial Court, but she’d had no idea he was actually mad enough to use them to determine policy.

As the lieutenant explained why they weren’t to be murdered, the sound of retching pulled Danika’s attention back to the road in time to see one of the soldiers send Jesine sprawling as she tried to move toward Annalyse, now bent double, spewing her half-digested breakfast onto the dirt.

Time to stop pretending she didn’t speak Imperial.

“Sergeant Black!” He started and turned, drawn by the command in her voice. “That woman is a Healer.” Danika nodded toward Jesine, who drew herself up onto her knees, gold-flecked eyes narrowed, teeth bared. “And that woman…” A nod to Annalyse, a line of saliva stretching between her mouth and the stain on the road. “…requires her services.”

“She can’t do a healing with the tangle on,” the sergeant pointed out, one hand raised to hold the surrounding men silent and in place, his eyes locked on Danika’s face.

“Healing isn’t only about mage-craft, Sergeant.”

After a long moment he nodded, hand moving so his thumb could stroke the thick scar along his jaw. “No, it ain’t. All right, then. Tell her she can do her healin’, but if her hands touch the tangle, Hare’ll shoot her.” As Sergeant Black spoke his name, a soldier slightly older than the others, his dark hair streaked with gray, lifted his weapon to his shoulder. “And just so you know, m’Lady, Hare’s got one of the new rifled muskets and he never misses.”

“Thank you for the warning, Sergeant. You can go to her, Jes,” she continued in Aydori. “Don’t touch the gold net.”

“Or what?” Jesine muttered, crawling to where Annalyse was now dry heaving. “They’ll shoot me?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful.”

“Not really.”

“This doesn’t mean you lot can start talkin’.” Sergeant Black cut Stina off before she managed more than an indeterminate sound. Understanding the tone, if not the words, Stina shut her mouth with a snap and glared up at him. If looks alone could kill, the sergeant wouldn’t have survived the encounter.

“You speak Imperial very well.”

Although her heart slammed against her ribs, Danika kept herself from visibly reacting to the sudden presence behind her. The younger Pack members were always playing stalk and pounce; those who reacted, soon became a favorite target. “Thank you, Captain Reiter.” His voice was deeper than the younger officer’s.

“And how well do the others speak Imperial?”

“Everyone speaks a little Imperial, Captain.” Stina spoke a very little, but Danika had no idea how much she understood. Jesine could manage if everyone involved spoke slowly. Kirstin was as fluent as Danika was—there was no way she’d allow her rival the advantage. Danika wasn’t certain about Annalyse as she’d known the younger woman for barely a week. “The language, like the empire, is…pervasive.”

“True. Stand up.”

“You don’t give me orders, Captain.”

“And I don’t have time for this.”

His hand around her upper arm was more competent than cruel, but intent mattered very little given the sudden flare of pain when he hauled her to her feet. When he released her, she staggered forward, stumbled, and flung out her arms to stop herself from falling. The sudden movement added yet more pain, and it raged through her body like a storm before dissipating through the soles of her feet. She sagged with the relief of its going, then straightened her back, slowly lifted her head, and turned to face the captain.

Reiter was younger than Danika expected; tall but lean with pale eyes, a beak of a nose, hair that indeterminate color between blond and brown, and reddish-brown stubble over a pointed chin. He might have been attractive if not for Lady Berin’s blood still smeared over his face. The competence in his touch extended to his expression. He had the look of a professional soldier, a man who would get the job done no matter how distasteful he personally found it.

“Good, they can walk.” He spoke Imperial with the careful diction of a man promoted from the ranks and thrown in among the sons of aristocracy. “Tie their hands behind them.”

“They can’t remove the tangles, Captain.” The lieutenant, whose name Danika hadn’t yet heard, was clearly one of those privileged sons. His uniform had not merely been tailored, but made-to-measure, and his accent had the supercilious sound of the Court about it. “Removal requires another artifact.”

“Does it? Tie their hands anyway,” the captain continued, “as I doubt they’ll take your word for it and I don’t want them damaged beyond their ability to walk.”

“So kind,” Danika murmured, carefully inclining her head toward him.

His cheeks under the patina of blood flushed slightly, but that was the only sign he’d heard. “One man in each squad keeps them upright and moving. You go back the way we came in.”

Was he not going with them? Danika wondered. The lieutenant’s youth might make him easier to manipulate, but he looked like the type who felt he had to keep proving his power.

Before the lieutenant could acknowledge the captain’s order, Natali’s cursing grew louder as, finished with the soldiers themselves, she began to wish nightmares and diseases on their descendants. Danika heard Kirstin giggle and then bite the sound off before it slid into hysteria.

The next sequence of sound began with a musket butt slamming against bone, the impact of a body with the ground, a slight scuffle, and a sudden uneasy silence broken by the baby’s hiccup.

Captain Reiter turned just far enough Danika could see past him to where Natali lay crumpled on the ground. The others stood glaring but still, and Marinka’s maid—Danika hated that she couldn’t remember the girl’s name—cuddled little Talia, her cheek pressed against the baby’s golden hair. When the captain turned back, his gesture took in all five of the captured mages. “Is one of you the mother?”

She did not look at Marinka’s golden-furred body, not wanting to bring the contempt these men had for the Pack down on her child. Hands curled into fists, she could feel her fingernails cutting into her palms. “No.” She didn’t trust her voice with more than the single word.

“Good.” The captain also did not look, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he stopped himself from turning his head. “Tie the servants. Make sure the girl can tend the baby.” When no one obeyed immediately, his lips drew back off his teeth. “Move!”

Ryder couldn’t have done it better.

The thought brought a different kind of pain. Danika whispered her husband’s name, allowing the breeze to take it. It would find him.

She missed the captain’s instructions to the lieutenant, but heard the younger man ask, “Where will you search?”

Search? And then she remembered. The prophecy had sent these Imperial soldiers into Aydori to capture six mages, not five. Six. One in six or six in one.

“She can’t be far.” He glanced back along the long curve of the road toward the city. “I see no carriages heading up from Bercarit, so I’ll take the boys up the road; take a look at what’s around that corner. Move as fast as you can. Don’t wait if you get to the wagons before we catch up.”

Danika got the impression that the last bit of the captain’s order was more for Sergeant Black than the lieutenant. It seemed that the captain believed the lieutenant less than capable in the woods. That could work in their favor, slowing them enough to allow Ryder to find them before they reached the border.

As for the sixth mage, Danika had no idea who the Soothsayers could have meant. Only eight of the Mage-pack had been in Bercarit and the three men had gone to stop the advance of the Imperial army. While it was more likely that the Soothsayers’ crazed babbling had been misinterpreted, it was possible that one of the others had been alerted by the refugees arriving in Trouge and was even now heading back toward Bercarit to help.

Barely parting her lips, she breathed out a warning. Unrestrained, any one of the Mage-pack could send these Imperials across the border, tails between their legs.

They retrieved their packs before moving into the woods, both to cut off the corner and maintain the element of surprise. Reiter could hear raised voices even before they regained the road.

At his left shoulder, Chard snickered. “Someone’s gettin’ an earful, Cap.”

“Captain.”

“Sergeant Black calls you…”

“You’re not Sergeant Black. You haven’t earned the right.” Without Black, Chard would push. But Reiter had been a sergeant once himself; he could handle young men with delusions of experience.

The carriage, pulled as close to the far side of the road as it could go without putting the far wheels in the ditch, was a little smaller than the three they’d stopped. Reiter knew squat about carriages, but it seemed of similar quality—shiny reddish-brown paint, tarted up with unnecessary brass. No wolf’s-head crest, so it was unlikely it belonged to the mage they sought. Still, the Soothsayers had said six, six at this place in the road and it was the only carriage in sight.

The upper-class woman leaning out the open door, one hand clutching the overcoat of the equally upper-class man standing on the road, was clearly demanding he get back in. Some situations needed no translation.

The man was neither one of the beastmen nor a soldier.

The old servant at the pony’s head—gray hair, neat black clothes—was equally no threat. The coachman had a musket, but, in spite of their situation, hadn’t pulled it from the scabbard. If he was smart, that lack of foresight could save his life. Civilians died in wars, but Reiter avoided adding to their numbers when he could. He assumed there’d be a maid of some kind inside the carriage. Unless Aydori maids were combat trained, he doubted she’d give them much trouble.

He sent Best to the front of the carriage, Armin to the rear, and kept Chard with him.

The coachman, as expected, saw them first. He froze and remained frozen, hands lifted well away from his musket when he realized Chard could drop him where he sat. By the time the woman’s eyes widened and she fell silent, Best and Armin were in place. She jerked the sleeve she held until the man wearing it turned.

Reiter ignored them both and pulled the tangle from his pocket. The coach was already stopped; he could have flung the artifact from the trees had he thought of it. Not that it mattered. It hung limp from the end of his finger.

“Maybe it’s broke,” Chard muttered.

Possible. Unfortunately, Reiter had no way of checking without a mage. One not already wearing a tangle, he corrected silently.

Gesturing with his musket, he moved the man away from the door and glanced past the woman. The plump, middle-aged redhead pressed against the far door, glaring daggers at him, was clearly the maid.

“She not here!”

The maid looked as astonished as Reiter felt. He stepped back and they both stared at the woman who continued in fractured, accented, but understandable Imperial.

“She gone to Jaspyr Hagen!” Reiter took another step back as a slender finger jabbed toward him. “He come rip you throat!”

The beastmen had names.

“Lirraka!”

This close, he could see the few flecks of green in her eyes. Mage eyes. But the tangle hadn’t taken her. The tangle needed a younger woman. A stronger mage. A woman with the strength to run for the beast she controlled.

Up on the carriage step, Reiter ignored the fluent Imperial directed at him by the man—who was either bragging about the money he had or offering a bribe—and the continuing death threats by the woman. Glaring the coachman’s ass back down onto the seat, Reiter grabbed his weapon and jumped back down to the road. “Let’s go.”

“We’re just leaving them, Captain?” Chard asked, falling in beside him.

“They’re harmless. We have a line on the sixth mage,” he added when all four of them were back across the ditch and under the trees. “She’s headed for the fighting, to warn the beastmen.”

Not even Chard needed him to point out they had to stop her. If the beastmen got their scent from the road, and if even half the stories were true, none of them would reach the border.

“Why doesn’t she just use mage-craft to tell them?” Best asked as they began to move back down the hill.

“Could be she’s a Fire-mage,” Chard pointed out. “He’s not going to be sitting around a campfire scratching his fleas and waiting for her to pop out of the flames, now, is he? Not with our bloody army attacking.”

From the road behind them, they could hear the argument their presence had stopped start up again.

“Sounds like my mum having a go at my dad,” Armin muttered. “I thought they’d be more different, laying down with beasts and all.”

In all honesty, so had Reiter.