Where else could she go?
Best to his left, Armin, then Chard to his right; he thought they’d covered the ground he and Best had covered last night, but nothing looked the same as it had in the darkness and the four pairs of boots—five pairs, he amended silently—had made enough of a mess he couldn’t tell for certain if the girl had gone back over it in the other direction.
“Cap, if we see the dog…”
“Best, if you see the dog, shoot it.”
“Yes, sir.” Best didn’t sound happy as much as justified.
“But, Cap…”
“Shut up, Chard.”
The emperor expected six mages. Reiter had his orders.
He wished he’d asked her for her name.
“The emperor knew you’d be returning with women.” Six women. Six pregnant women given the Soothsayer’s rhyme, but Danika had no intention of letting Lieutenant Geurin know she’d overheard that. “The emperor is married, I’m sure he knows that women take longer to perform certain tasks than men. Especially if their hands are tied. And they have an audience.”
The lieutenant leaned toward her and smiled. “I don’t care if you piss yourselves. My orders are to get you to Karis alive; they say nothing about how you’re to smell.” He pulled out a pocket watch and made a show of snapping open the ornate case. “You have three minutes. I suggest you stop wasting time.”
Danika had never wanted to throw up on someone so badly in her entire life, but, this morning, her stomach had settled.
Tomas could move faster without her. Why hadn’t he said that? Without her, the odds of him reaching the border before they piled Danika and the others onto coaches were considerably higher. He could avoid people—not that there’d ever been many people in the borderlands—and even if he were seen, any Pyrahnian who lived this close to Aydori knew better than to take potshots at something that could be Pack. Or their neighbor’s dog. He’d never been able to decide if the big dogs they preferred in this part of the duchy were intended as flattery or protection, nor had he ever much cared.
Harry, who’d actually taken the time to read Mind and Matter, a book by a popular Traiton doctor making the rounds of Aydori drawing rooms and lending libraries, said it was a subconscious way of dealing with the Pack. See, we leash things that look like you here. Tomas had almost believed Harry’d taken that bullshit seriously, then he’d burst into laughter and…
Died. Harry had died.
He wanted to run full out. Away from the place where Harry and Ryder and so many others had been killed. Run to a place where he could make a difference. The odds of anyone shooting him while he ran were slim to unlikely and it was less unlikely the Imperials searching for Mirian Maylin…Mirian. “A little respect, Tomas.” His mother’s voice in memory. “You do not refer to an unmarried woman you are not related to by her first name without her permission.” It was unlikely the Imperials searching for Miss Maylin were following. Anyone with half a functioning brain would assume she’d head back to the border instead of heading off to help rescue five people she didn’t know with only first level mage-craft to call on. Of course they didn’t know she had only first level mage-craft. They thought she was one of the mages they’d been sent to capture, thought she was Mage-pack, which was a stupid case of mistaken identity since they couldn’t catch her scent in a bucket.
Maybe the artifact had chosen her.
Behind him, she made a frustrated noise, almost a Pack noise, and he turned to see her trudging around the root fan of a downed cedar he’d jumped without thinking. He looped back beside her, then almost immediately pulled out in front again. She wasn’t talking, he’d give her that, saving her breath for the scramble through low scrub and around the occasional weed tree.
Crap cover for someone on two legs. There was, after all, no guarantee the Imperials had half a functioning brain between them.
Why hadn’t he told her he could move faster without her?
Tomas had no idea.
The breeze shifted, and he fought the urge to turn and twine between her legs.
When they reached a small, fast moving creek, he bent his head to drink, stomach growling. The bits of dried meat he’d been fed at the Imperials’ camp had been all he’d eaten since before they left Bercarit and it hadn’t been nearly enough. He was always hungry these days, even when he was home and eating regularly. When the Hunt Pack was out with the 1st, he’d haunted the field kitchen.
Harry laughed about it.
Used to laugh about it.
His stomach growled again.
No, not his stomach.
He turned to see Miss Maylin kneeling by the creek, scooping water in her cupped hands but breathing too heavily to drink. Stepping away from the shore, he changed. “We can’t stop for food.”
She glanced up at him with those strange, pale eyes, face shiny with sweat. “I didn’t ask to.”
He’d never spent much time with non-mages. It was weird to look at her and see a total lack of mage marks. She’d said her father was a banker. That meant money, didn’t it? Had she ever sweated before? Had she ever been hungry? “I just…I heard…” Three long strides moved him upwind and he breathed easier, not having to constantly try and suppress his physical reaction. “When we get there, to where Danika and the others are, I’ll still be facing Imperials armed with silver.”
Hair falling in a tangled mess over her face, she managed to suck up two handfuls of water before answering. “I know.”
“It’s just that’s why you didn’t want to kill the four who’d taken you, because of the silver and how you couldn’t get away without me…” He couldn’t seem to stop talking. “…but now, I’ll be facing even more Imperials armed with silver, and you still won’t be able to get away without me.”
She shrugged. “Now, the risk is worth it.”
Two could play that game. He shrugged as well, then realized she couldn’t see him. “Long odds,” he growled, annoyed at her disinterest.
Sitting up on her heels, she wiped her hands on her skirt and dropped her head, looking over at him from under the tangle of her hair. “Not if we work together. You draw the attention of the soldiers while I get the net off even one of the Mage-pack. Even odds.”
“They’re Mage-pack.” Tomas showed teeth. He could see she knew it wasn’t a smile. She knew that much at least. “Better than even odds.” Because she didn’t tell him how to draw the attention of the soldiers, he didn’t ask how she intended to get the net off one of the Mage-pack. He’d pulled hers off easily enough and the Mage-pack had a lot less hair. “Can you run?”
Pushing herself up onto her feet, she squared her shoulders. “For a while, I think. Are you sure you know where you’re going?”
“Yes.” If he kept the pull of the border on his right and headed northeast, they had to cross the logging trail.
He thought she might demand an explanation, but she only nodded and said, “All right, lead.”
He waited until she got across the creek before he began to run. Run slowly. Jog really. Still, it was faster than they’d been moving.
He’d be able to move a lot faster without her, but she was right. The two of them together raised the odds. Her scent had nothing to do with it.