“I am not…Ow! You kicked me!”
“And I’ll kick you again if you don’t let me go.”
Tomas resisted the urge to shove her away as he released her, but only just. He opened his mouth to remind her that, if not for him, she’d still be tied to that tree at the mercy of the enemies of Aydori when he noticed her rub her arms, right where he’d been holding her.
He was Pack. Pack protected. He was more than Pack. Ryder was dead. He wasn’t the younger Lord Hagen any longer. He was Lord Hagen because Ryder was dead and Ryder’s son, if it was a son, hadn’t yet been born.
Lord Hagen would never hurt a girl he was trying to save.
He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but he couldn’t force the words out past the grief.
When she touched his chest, he started, unaware she’d moved.
“I won’t pull your tail. I promise. But we have to go now, Lor…”
He flinched.
“…Tomas. I can hear them shouting in the clearing.”
So could he. Better than she could, that was for sure. They were trying to wake the soldier she’d slept. They were distracted. Easy prey. Easy to kill. He needed to go back and kill them. Kill them all!
“Tomas! Tomas, listen to me, we have to run! They’re using silver! If you go back to kill them, they could kill you!” Her palm pressed warm against his chest. “Tomas! I can’t see in the dark. I can’t get to safety without you!”
The breeze shifted, blowing her scent into his face. He took a deep breath and felt the edges that had been pulling apart move back into place. When he met her eyes, she looked worried and frightened and confused, but she held his gaze until he nodded and looked away.
He changed. When he felt her hand close around his tail, he moved as quickly as he could away from the Imperials. He used to lead his cousins in the Mage-pack like this. He moved more quickly as she grew confident in him. Then they were running.
“Armin! Come on…” Reiter slapped the sleeping soldier lightly on both cheeks. “…wake up!”
“Sir.” Best’s hand, holding a canteen of water, appeared in his peripheral vision.
After a moment’s hesitation, Reiter took it and dumped it over Armin’s face. Armin sputtered, sneezed, and slept on. In the spill of light from a hastily lit lantern, he looked peaceful. Wet, but peaceful.
“Has he been mage hit, Cap? Did the girl do it?”
Turning to answer Chard, Reiter saw a glint of gold and, using the mouth of the canteen, scooped the tangle out of the dirt. There were two sizable hanks of hair attached to it, sticky with evergreen sap and needles. It hadn’t come off easily, but it had come off. So much for Geurin’s belief that the mages would be unable to remove the tangle without another artifact.
He frowned as two sections of fine chain swung free of the pattern. The ends of both pieces were blackened, the gold links of the broken segments misshapen. Not melted though, so it hadn’t been heat…
“Wait! Where’s the dog?” Chard’s question snapped Reiter’s attention off the net. “She better not have hurt the dog!” Chard pursed his lips to whistle but before he could make a sound, Best punched him in the arm.
“It wasn’t a dog, you ass. It was one of the beastmen, and it freed her!”
Squint narrowing, Chard glowered at the older man. “Yeah, right. A beastman who let me scratch its belly.”
“So you’d believe it was a dog.”
“Because it was a dog!” Stepping closer to the tree where the girl had been tied, Chard scooped the leather straps up off the ground. “See these, not chewed. Untied!”
“You saw the women!” The dim light couldn’t hide Best’s incredulous expression.
The beast had gold hoops in its ears. Her ears.
“What women?” Chard demanded waving the ties. “There was one woman!”
“This one’s had pups.”
“Not here, idiot! On the road! The women looked like people before they became beasts!”
“That dog didn’t look a person.”
“You are too stupid to live.”
“Enough!” Reiter rocked back onto his heels and stood, leaving the lantern on the ground and Armin lying beside it. Mage hit yes, but only asleep. Given what the girl had been through, she’d shown considerable mercy. Of course, there was no proof Armin would ever wake. “Dog or beastman, the animal is not our concern. The girl is. Chard, watch Armin. Best, you’re with me.” Best wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a big black dog.
“A beastman would’ve killed us,” Chard muttered under his breath.
He’d spoken quietly enough the others could ignore him and let the argument die. Besides, Reiter acknowledged silently, he had a point. They’d all heard the stories of attacks in the night. Of sentries who’d found everyone in camp dead, throats ripped out so silently they hadn’t heard a thing. Of farmsteads emptied of people and livestock both. Of travelers who disappeared, their torn and bloody clothing found strewn over the road.
They’d all heard the stories, but Reiter couldn’t think of anyone who’d actually witnessed such a thing.
Some of the cloud cover had cleared, exposing brilliant swaths of stars and a crescent moon that shed light disproportionate to its size. Scientists at the observatory outside Karis had declared that the moon had no light of its own, that it was no more than a large orbital body—which Reiter had translated as “rock”—reflecting the light of the sun. The recently appointed Prelate had been quick to deny the teachings of the Sun-as-metaphor and claim the science as proof of His mercy, throwing light into the dark. Reiter was not a religious man, but right now he’d take what help he could get. That said, they were lucky the girl hadn’t tried to cover her tracks. If she’d had time to be more careful, they’d never be able to find her.
“Captain, what if she’s leading us into an ambush?” Best was close behind his left shoulder, speaking so quietly Reiter barely heard him. “It’s said the beastmen run in packs.”
He also had a point. But if Chard’s dog was one of the beastmen, Reiter’d bet his life the…the creature was as lost as it had pretended to be. Soldiers’ pets roaming the battlefield after their master’s death quivered with the same barely contained sense of panic. Of not knowing where they belonged. If it wasn’t one of the beastmen, it might have gone with the girl because she was up and moving.
“If there’s a pack,” he told Best, “we’ll deal with it.”
“But, Captain…”
“I said we’ll deal with it. Our orders are to return with six mages. No one’s going to be happy to hear we had one in the tangle and she got away.” One in six or six in one. The Soothsayer’s prophecy brought to mind, Reiter suddenly realized the girl they hunted had to be pregnant. Empires rise or empires fall; the unborn child begins it all. Realized all the women under the tangles had to be pregnant. When wild and mage together come. They’d lain with beasts, but…
Was Chard’s creature the father? He was young, yes, but old enough for that. Remembering the girl’s reaction, Reiter would’ve sworn she’d never seen the beast before. Had she played them? He could have admired that had she not put his balls in the fire by escaping.
A surprisingly large part of him wanted to let her go. Bad enough to make civilians a part of a war, making war against the unborn was…
Empires rise or empires fall.
He was a soldier sworn to the protection of the empire. He was an officer sworn to the protection of the empire. He had his orders.
“Captain?”
“I hear it.”
She was moving faster than expected—although he should have expected it. With the tangle off, she had full access to her mage-craft again. And, she was determined. So far today, she’d survived an ambush planned by Imperial Soothsayers, a run to Bercarit, a river still dangerously swollen with spring runoff, and an ancient artifact specifically designed to stop her. Reiter remembered how annoyed she’d looked when she’d first been taken and couldn’t prevent a smile. She’d studied him, much as he’d studied her, her pale eyes narrowed with disapproval as though four Imperial soldiers rated no higher than the wrong-colored gloves. The smile disappeared as he frowned. He admired her no more than any other competent enemy.