Then her right foot slipped.
She lurched forward, trying to hook her fingers under the capstone. Began to slide back.
A delicate touch against the back of her hand.
Just a leaf…
The shriek didn’t count if no one heard it.
Where there was a leaf…Her fingers touched wood. Shoulder screaming, Mirian stretched an impossible amount farther and curled her hand around a thick piece of vine. With no choice, she trusted it with her weight. Squirming and kicking against the side bars of the gate, she managed to get up onto the top of the wall.
The vine made getting down a lot easier.
Boots sinking into the soft earth between clumps of daffodils, she sagged against the vine for a moment, and watched the bud closest to her hand swell and unfurl into a pale pink blossom. A few more, then a few more, until a spray of blossom bobbed up over the wall scenting the air with the promise of summer. First level Earth. Pretty, but useless and worse than that, unintentional. Given the way exhaustion ate away at her control, it was a good thing she hadn’t managed to learn anything more dangerous. As it was, it was still too cold at night for so delicate a flower, so all she’d done was expose the vine to an early death.
More death.
Eyes locked on the ribbon of silver, Mirian staggered toward the water. Just a little farther and she could sit down. Just a little farther and there’d be a boat and it would take her to the border and she could find Lord Hagen. Jaspyr, too, if the Lord and Lady felt she was due some personal return for a horrible day.
Just a little farther.
The dock at the bottom of the garden was empty.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT!” Mirian had learned to swear at university from a woodcutter’s daughter who’d tested absurdly high for her station—although no one had pointed that out more than once. Only Mirian had tested higher and that had thrown them together for a few months until Adine had progressed as expected and Mirian hadn’t.
Uncertain of what she should do now, or rather how she should do what she needed to do, Mirian turned in place, the dock creaking ominously beneath her.
There was a dinghy tied at the dock at the bottom of the garden next door and the wall between the two properties only came down as far as the shore.
The water was ridiculously cold. The shock almost made her swear again.
Her waterlogged skirts were heavy, and the dinghy tilted dangerously when she stepped in. It nearly threw her out when she tried to cast off, but she managed to push away from the dock with one of the oars and force the boat out into the current.
It was faster even than she’d expected. The water dragged the oar from her hand and she almost went overboard reaching for it.
“A single oar can be used as a rudder,” she told herself, watching the second oar move farther away, her knuckles white around the edge of the seat. At least theoretically. All Mirian knew about boating she’d learned on the still pond at her brother-in-law’s farm and that had mostly consisted of not allowing her older nephew to fall in.
As the small boat sped past increasingly less affluent properties at a dizzying speed, not falling in seemed like an excellent idea.
If the Soothsayers were right, the carriages they’d stopped had been the last out of the city. If the Soothsayers were right, the only people they’d meet on the road back toward Bercarit would be tired and not likely to challenge four Imperial soldiers even if they were armed. But not likely was not a sure thing, particularly not when Soothsayers were involved, and Reiter wasn’t going to lose a man by assuming the citizens of Aydori wouldn’t fight back. They needed to move fast in order to catch the sixth mage so they’d stay on the road, but they’d keep their weapons ready.
“Shoot if they look at us wrong, Cap?”
“Shoot if they aim a weapon at us,” he snapped. “Musket, pistol, cannon if it comes to it. Otherwise, leave them alone.”
“Crossbow?”
He turned to frown at Armin, who shrugged without breaking stride.
“Da’s got a crossbow in the shop, from his days in the army. He’d take it if he had to haul ass out of town.”
Reiter had once seen an old-timer put a crossbow quarrel through a plank. It might take forever to cock it, but a loaded crossbow was as deadly a weapon as a loaded musket. “Fine. If they’re pointing a crossbow, shoot.”
“What about a rock, Cap? You could get killed with a rock,” Chard protested over Armin’s laughter.
“Not if it hit your head,” Best jeered.
“More running, less talking,” Reiter growled.
“But, Cap…”
“A lot less talking from you, Chard.”
None of them seemed to have any trouble with the idea of hunting down another young woman and dragging her back to the empire. She was a mage, she was an enemy, and they were at war. The mages of Aydori lay with beasts and that made them…less. His men had their orders; their only concern was following them.
He gave the orders.
The beast had gold hoops in its ears. Her ears.
You have your orders, too, he reminded himself. And they were at war.
They heard a child complaining, high-pitched and peevish, as they rounded a corner and that was the only warning they got before coming face-to-face with a small family trudging up the road toward Trouge. Trudging up the road away from the inevitable advance of the Imperial army.
As the closer of the two younger women ran for the cart and the children, Reiter wished he was still a part of that faceless mass. Killing soldiers was one thing, they knew why they were there, but he had no stomach for killing civilians.
Suddenly in the sights of four muskets, she froze, both hands in the air. Her eyes were brown. No mage marks.
“I can ask her if she saw the mage, Cap,” Chard murmured.
“You speak Aydori?”
“I can say girl and how much.”
Of course he could. Probably in the same sentence. “Stick with girl.”
The old woman snarled and spat at Chard’s single word. The woman with her hands in the air lowered them, wrapped them around her body, and shook her head. The other one stumbled back, stopped by the crosspiece of the cart.
“They think,” Armin began, but Chard cut him off.
“I know.” He shook his head in turn, and ran in place.
The youngest of the children shrieked with laughter. The two elder all but sat on him to shut him up.
The old woman spat again, but the one by the crosspiece glanced up at the children and pointed down the road.
“Captain, if they have a weapon…”
“You run slow enough you’re still in range by the time they find it and load it, I’ll shoot you myself.” Reiter lowered his musket. Aydori eyes tracked the movement. “Let’s go.”
“I’d do the one on the left,” Chard observed, falling in behind Reiter.
“You’d do a diseased Pyrahnian whore,” Best grunted.
“If the price was right,” Chard admitted cheerfully.
Imperial infantry didn’t run into battle; the empire expanded and war waited for them. Oh, they’d all done some running—toward the front, away from the front, for their lives as one of Colonel Korshan’s rockets went off in a random direction—but Reiter couldn’t remember the last time he’d pounded down a road like a child escaping chores. Breathe in for two strides, out for two. Under his pack, his uniform stuck to his skin.