It wasn’t just her feet that hurt. Ankles, knees, hips, calves, thighs…she felt like one of the labeled anatomy posters at the front of the Healer Hall. Personally, she’d have called the first fifty paces of running limping quickly. Eyes on the road to avoid the occasional loose stone on the packed clay, Mirian was peripherally aware of Tomas running easily beside her, and a quick glance showed none of the resentment that had hovered around his four-legged form yesterday like a particularly acrid smoke.
By the third set, her muscles had loosened up and running came easier.
By the tenth, fifty paces walking wasn’t enough for her to catch her breath.
Tomas, who’d started to run on fifty, circled back beside her when she didn’t. “It’s all right. We’ll walk a while longer.”
Mirian found enough breath to mutter, “Told you. Should’ve stolen a horse.”
He had dimples when he grinned. She hadn’t noticed that before.
They passed a set of cart tracks that led east to a small farm, the stubble of last year’s crops still filling the field nearest the road. They passed a trail leading west, and Tomas pointed out the tracks of the deer that had made it.
Then they ran.
Forty-nine. Fifty.
And stopped.
“Do you know where this road goes?”
“Does it matter? I know the Mage-pack is at the end of it.”
“It can’t be one road from Herdon to Karis. We’re the width of two conquered duchies away from the old Imperial border.” When Tomas lowered heavy brows, Mirian sighed. “Too sensible?”
“A little.”
And they ran again.
Forty-nine. Fifty.
Shrugging out of the too-small jacket, Tomas twitched inside the confines of his remaining clothes.
“What’s wrong?”
“The trousers are itchy.”
Mirian managed to keep from laughing but only just. “I think they’re made to have small clothes under them.”
“Why not make them so they don’t itch?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
An enormous ox patty, still damp enough to suggest war hadn’t stopped lumber from the mill heading toward buyers, blocked her path and she jumped it rather than go around. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and, while she didn’t have much breath to spare and they were heading to a fight with the emperor himself, walking along a country road with Tomas Hagen was almost pleasant. Her mother would be…
…appalled. Mirian fought the urge to talk about the weather and ask Tomas his opinion on the new higher collars for evening jackets.
They were running when they passed tracks leading to a farm tucked into a hollow not far from the road. One of the farm’s outbuildings had recently burned down, a pair of charred timbers rising out of the ruin like blackened bones, the smell of damp ash heavy on the air. A girl out in the garden froze, hoe half raised, and watched them pass. The distance was too great to see her expression, but from the way she stood, curled in on herself, it looked like she was afraid. A pig in a pen by the garden watched warily as well.
Mirian slowed to a walk, then she stopped and turned up the track.
“Where are you going?”
“To trade apples for…not apples. Stay there, I’ll be quick.” She pulled two from the pouch as she walked. They looked so red against her hand she felt like she was in a fairy story. The girl looked at the apples, looked at Mirian, and finally limped to the edge of the garden.
It wasn’t the fruit that had convinced her to approach, Mirian realized. It was the bruising on her face that matched the bruising on the girl’s. When the girl glanced at Tomas, Mirian shook her head. “No, it wasn’t him.”
She took two apples with trembling fingers, then two more. “How?”
Even Mirian knew apples didn’t look like that after having been stored all winter, not without help. “Earth-mage.”
Still holding the apples, the girl jerked back, searching for mage marks. Mirian opened her eyes wider. After an extended search, the girl’s shoulders sagged, and Mirian was just as glad she didn’t have to tell her she had no time to help.
A glance down at the apples. “Trade? We got sausage they didn’t find.” Pyrahn wasn’t that different a language from Aydori, although accent dragged the girl’s words sideways.
The pig watched her as the girl ran to the cottage. Mirian wondered if there’d recently been a second. The cottage door hung crookedly from the frame, inexpertly repaired, and through the gap she heard voices but not words. Saw a pale face at the front window, features too distorted through the tiny panes of thick green glass for her to tell if it was a man or a woman. Then girl returned with a length of cooked sausage as big around as two of Mirian’s fingers. She handed it over silently.
“Thank you.”
Mirian had gone three steps back toward the road when she heard, “Where you going?”
Right now? Eventually? “To get back something the Imperials took from us.”
Arms wrapped around her torso, the girl’s mouth twisted. The war had paused here on its way to Herdon and the sawmill. “In them carriages?”
The road had been empty all morning. Three coaches careening past this farm at full speed would be noted, day or night. “Yes.”
“You won’t catch ’em.”
“Not today. But we will.”
After a long moment, the girl nodded. “All right then.”
It sounded like a benediction. Mirian nodded in turn and joined Tomas on the road. “We can do this,” she said as she handed him half the sausage. “We can run and walk and find food and…” To her surprise, he held the piece of sausage to his nose and took a deep breath.
“You were upwind,” he told her, eyes watering. “And these trousers are itchy enough.”
Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, Mirian bounced off Tomas’ arm, grabbed it, stopped. “What?”
“There’s a horse coming.”
“With a rider?” She was too tired to be embarrassed by his expression. “Right. Of course.” After a moment, she realized she still held his arm and released it. The fields on both sides of the road were dead grass and small cedars and a low evergreen Mirian didn’t know the name of. Not relevant, she told herself and then aloud: “Should we hide?”
Tomas moved around to put himself between her and the approaching rider. “No time. If you see an enemy run, you can’t stop yourself from giving chase.”
“You’re going to chase the horse?”
“What?” He threw a confused glance back over his shoulder. “No. If we run now, the rider will chase us. Because we’re running.”
Not entirely certain that applied to those without the option of having four legs, Mirian was about to protest when the horse appeared around a curve, disappeared into a dip in the road, and suddenly reappeared impossibly close. Quickly buttoning her jacket, she tried to look as though she’d been displaced by war rather than like an active enemy of the empire. She watched the road in front of her feet, concentrated on the swing of her skirt against her legs, and looked up at the last minute, unable to help herself.
The rider wore a familiar uniform, Imperial purple jacket over black trousers and boots, bicorn crammed down on his head. Tomas had said the empire would have taken over the mill. The destruction at the farm was proof soldiers had gone to Herdon, so, on this road, the mill was the only logical destination. Horse and rider had nothing to do with the two of them.
If the soldiers who’d taken the Mage-pack were worried Tomas had survived, they’d set up an ambush. Captain Reiter and his men hadn’t had time to get far enough in front of them to send a courier back. All very logical, but Mirian’s palms were wet, and her heart pounded in time with the horse’s hooves anyway.