Chard dumped an armload of dead wood by the small fire pit, and frowned across it at the wagon. “We could tie them to that tree, Cap.”
“She was tied to a tree the last time,” Reiter muttered, shoving his fire-starter in among the kindling. Flame smothered by the force he’d used, he had to pull it out and try again.
“Yes, sir, but this time she’s on the drugs.”
“Then she won’t care where she is.”
“But…”
Reiter raised his head and locked eyes with Chard. “They stay where they are.”
Chard proved to be smarter than he looked. “Yes, sir. I’ll get more wood.”
You won’t fight for it, will you? Reiter thought watching him walk away. You know what you believe, but you’re a good soldier, for all your mouth, and you follow orders.
“Tomas? Tomas, can you hear me?” Hair catching against the floor of the wagon, Mirian struggled to get as close to Tomas as she could. Tied as they were, she couldn’t touch him. The drug still controlled him, locked him in his head with his dead, left him muttering about Ryder and Harry and the taste of blood in his mouth. “Tomas, please be quiet!”
She thought she’d regained enough control of her mind that she could get herself free, risk burns by setting fire to the rope, but then what? She couldn’t escape without Tomas, and he never quite managed to shake off the delirium before Captain Reiter used the drug again.
The only thing that kept her from sinking into despair was that her rudimentary healer-craft overcame the drug more quickly every time. Soon or later, she’d be aware with time enough to free them both from the ropes and remove the silver before Tomas’ mutterings alerted the captain. If she could force Tomas to change, hopefully the change itself would expel the drug as it had healed his shoulder.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t start until she could finish. If the captain caught her during the attempt, she had no doubt he’d ensure that it would be the last attempt.
Here and now, discomfort had her so distracted, she was afraid she couldn’t concentrate long enough to light even an actual candle.
“Ryder!” Tomas rolled his head toward her, eyes focused on the past. “No!”
Reiter was feeding sticks into the small blaze when he heard the boy’s raving turn to words. “I’m starting to think I should’ve had a longer breakfast and minded my own flaming business,” he muttered as he used a taper to light a small lantern.
It had been easy to tell Chard that their prisoners would remain in the wagon but less easy to live with that decision when he dropped down off the seat into the box and found the young wo…found the mage staring up at him. As the boy’s eyes focused only intermittently, Reiter tended to her first.
When he raised the canteen to her mouth, she shook her head. “You have to drink.”
She shook her head again. The lantern didn’t throw light enough to be sure, but he thought she blushed.
Oh.
He knew what he’d told Chard, and if she’d just pissed herself…well, he’d seen people survive much worse. It was a different thing entirely to specifically refuse her.
“Your word you won’t try to escape, and I’ll take you far enough out of the firelight for a little privacy.”
To his surprise, she frowned thoughtfully up at him and, after a long moment’s consideration, said, “You have my word.”
“Chard!”
“Sir!”
“Get up here and get the boy in your sights. You hear me yell, you shoot him. You hear her yell, you shoot him. She comes back without me, you shoot him. You smell anything burning, you shoot him.”
Her frown had changed from thoughtful to annoyed. “I gave you my word.”
“You did. It strikes me you’re the type to lie if it was practical.”
To his greater surprise, she laughed, winced as it pulled the bruise on her jaw, and said, “Sensible.”
He found himself wanting to know what her laugh sounded like when it wasn’t so bitter.
They didn’t speak again and, when she was done, he took the boy as well although he forgot to check the silver pin until both prisoners were once again tied and drugged.
The skin around it was red and a little puffy. When Reiter touched the pin, the boy moaned, sounding even younger than he looked.
At the fire, Reiter sat with his back once again to the wagon and grunted his thanks as Chard handed him a mug of tea.
“I heard a rumor once, Cap, that we took Derbia because Emperor Leopald’s da, that being Emperor Armoud…”
“I know who the last emperor was, Chard.”
“Yeah, ’course you do, Cap.”
“You heard a rumor,” Reiter prodded after a moment. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t encourage Chard, but he needed the distraction.
“Right. So this rumor says Emperor Armoud really likes tea and that’s why we took Derbia.”
“It’s possible.”
“But you were in Derbia, right, Cap? I mean not then, but the Spears got sent to put down the revolution, and when I got pulled to this…” The shadow of his gesture flapped around the fire like a crow over a corpse. “…mission back in Karis, I heard you saved the emperor’s nephew’s life from a mage when you were a sergeant and that’s why you got made an officer. And then that’s why you got sent on this, because you fought that mage.”
He hadn’t so much fought the mage as shot him in the back before he got a chance to do much of anything. Very few soldiers in the Imperial army had any experience with mages, and those who did knew only the village healers or gardeners or blacksmiths and didn’t believe they were dangerous. It had been dumb luck that the emperor’s idiot nephew had been directly in the mage’s line of fire and had overreacted to Reiter’s shot.
Reiter remembered the man-shaped torch in the market. It seemed there was a chance it hadn’t been an overreaction.
“Cap? Is it true?”
“It’s true enough.”
The army had set up a checkpoint at what had been the border between the Duchies of Pyrahn and Traiton and was now the new provincial border. Reiter doubted there was an actual reason for it as both duchies had been effectively conquered at the same time, but someone in a position to make decisions had thought it was a good idea.
Reiter returned the salute of the fresh-faced lieutenant on the gate, noted two of the three rankers under him were anything but fresh—both too broken to return to the front—and handed over his orders. The lieutenant’s eyes widened at the Imperial seal, and his hand shook when he handed the papers back.
“Your prisoners…”
“His Imperial Majesty’s prisoners.”
The boy, and he couldn’t have been older than the boy tied in the back, paled under his freckles. “Yes, sir. But she’s…I mean, she’s…”
A young woman tied, drugged, bruised clearly made him uncomfortable. Good.
“She’s His Imperial Majesty’s prisoner,” Reiter repeated.
“Yes, sir. What did she…?” His voice trailed off under Reiter’s stare. He backed away from the wagon and saluted again. “Very good, sir.”
Fraris, the only city of any size in Traiton, was visible from the border. They wouldn’t make it across the new province to the old Imperial border by dark, but they’d be there tomorrow.
“You know, Cap, he was a good dog.”
It took Reiter a moment to understand what Chard was talking about. “He wasn’t a dog.”
“Yeah, I know, but…I don’t see why he’s an abomination, either. Best, he said the beastmen are abominations because the church says so, but Best is like crazy religious. I even heard him pray when we weren’t under fire. How does the church know?”
The church obeyed the emperor. Or at least the new Prelate did and the church obeyed him. Reiter didn’t think he’d tell Chard that. It’d be just like Chard to complain about it in front of the wrong people and make Reiter responsible for him going under the lash.