The horse half reared and tried to run, dragging the wagon forward and throwing Chard off the side into the box. He popped up again almost immediately and leaped to the ground, stumbled, grabbed for the rope, and murmured a long string of calming nonsense as the horse reared and plunged around him. He was brave, Mirian would give him that. She couldn’t have stood so close to those hooves.
Whether it was because the scent wasn’t repeated or because the horse found Chard reassuring, he calmed fairly quickly. Snorting and blowing, he allowed Chard to get one hand on his bridle and the other up under his mane.
“There now, you stupid git. What were you all up in yourself for, huh? You catch scent of…”
When he turned, Mirian put him to sleep.
Chard dropped and rolled between the horse’s legs.
The horse looked down, looked at Mirian, and shook his head hard enough the wagon creaked.
Tomas moaned.
If the horse got another less deliberate nose full of Pack…Mirian untied the end of his lead rope from the wagon and started around to the other side of the fire. The horse watched her go, stretched out his neck as the rope came up taut, and refused to move. Pulling didn’t help. Coaxing didn’t help.
Tomas moaned again.
“Fine. Have it your way.” As she sidled in close, he rolled his eyes but continued to stand right where he was. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” The clip attaching the rope to the bridle was too stiff for her too open. What difference did it make if he dragged the rope with him? So what if it got caught; he was huge. Someone would find him. Except…
She couldn’t leave him tied. Not having been tied.
The clip was brass. Brass felt bright. Sharp. The taste of vinegar across her tongue and she held a cooling sphere in her hand. The rope dropped to the ground. Another moment to drag Chard away, then she was up in the wagon, murmuring much the same calming nonsense as Tomas began to thrash.
One hand gripping his hip, Mirian burned the rope securing Tomas to the side of the wagon. He lay panting but still, so she jumped down to get the lantern and Chard’s knife. It would be safer to cut the ropes around his wrists and ankles. The knife was sharp, but the ropes were thick…
“I’m sorry! Oh, Tomas, I’m so sorry.” Blood dripped onto the wagon as she pulled the pieces of rope away from skin rubbed raw and red. His ankles were no better than his wrists except that she’d managed not to cut him while freeing them. Although she’d been tied the same way, her own skin—wrists and ankles—had been completely unmarked. She stared at her wrist and pushed the memory of Reiter’s touch to the back of her mind. Evidently, she could heal herself. That didn’t mean she should experiment on Tomas. The hole in his shoulder had closed when he changed, and these injuries were nothing in comparison.
When he changed…
The skin around the silver pin felt red and puffy. He keened as she hooked her fingernails under the head and yanked it out.
“Tomas? Tomas, can you hear me?”
No. Though his eyes moved back and forth under closed lids, the muttering hadn’t yet become words.
Thrusting the pin through a fold in her skirt, she wondered if he’d change as he began to shake off the drug. Would his body recognize what it needed? Mirian had no idea. She stripped him out of his shirt and stopped, hands on the waistband of his trousers. Tomas wouldn’t care. Would, in fact, prefer to be out of all clothing when he changed. Depending on how much or how little of his mind had returned, he might even be panicked by the feeling of being trapped in the cloth.
Mirian managed to get both sides of the flap unbuttoned without touching anything but the buttons. Leaving it lying closed, she took the lantern down to his feet, grabbed his trousers and pulled only to find Tomas’ weight held them in place.
“Fine.”
She’d been nearly drowned, captured by the Imperial army—twice—tied, drugged, and she’d killed two men. She wasn’t going to be recaptured because she was too missish to take off a man’s trousers, particularly when she’d seen that man naked on more than one occasion. Tugging the rough wool over damp skin, she clenched her teeth and kept her eyes locked on her hands. There was, after all, a difference between seeing and looking.
Like between killing and murdering.
Hysteria began bubbling up through the cracks. Mirian shoved it back down.
Untied and unclothed, Tomas began to thrash in earnest, arms and legs flung wide. Mirian rescued the lantern and slid back to the very end of the wagon. Mouth open, Tomas panted, every exhale a small cry that sounded equal parts pain and anger. He rocked up until he was half sitting, his eyes so wide they showed white all around—Mirian doubted he saw her—then he fell onto his side and changed.
He continued to pant in fur form, whining, still under the control of the drug.
Leaving the lantern where it was, Mirian crawled up beside him and lifted his head onto her lap. “Change again, Tomas. Please. One more time.” Curling forward, she pressed her face to his, breathing with him then slowing the rhythm. He slowed with her. They were breathing the same air. From her mouth into his. “Change, Tomas.”
A paw pushed at her leg, then a hand grabbed her skirt. “Mirian?”
Forehead to forehead, she kept breathing with him. “I’m here.”
“Head hurts.”
“I know.”
“Hungry.”
Her stomach growled and she straightened. “Me, too.” How long since they’d eaten? “Stay here. I’ll go get food.”
He started a protest but didn’t manage to finish it. While no longer under the control of the drug, he hadn’t managed to quite make it back to himself. By the time Mirian returned with a hunk of salt pork and half a loaf of dark bread, he’d changed again and gone to sleep. His tail twitched, but he didn’t wake when she stroked his shoulder.
She brought the lantern closer.
His fur now had a silver streak over the place the pin had been for the last two and a half days. The silver that had shattered his shoulder hadn’t left a mark, so this must have been the result of time.
“Tomas?”
His nose twitched when she waved the pork in front of it, but he didn’t wake. He’d slept after the last time he’d healed himself, so she stroked his head and backed away.
She was a little worried about the food. If she could purify water, could she purify pork? Would it be like water because it was being purified, or would it be healing because it was meat?
“Maybe they teach something useful in second year,” she muttered, leaving most of the meat and half the bread for Tomas. She emptied a canteen, set the last full one by the meat, and gathered up the rest.
The horse snorted, tail sweeping great arcs, as she moved upwind of him. He danced sideways until he was as far from the creek as he could get and remain in the clearing. Fine. They didn’t need to be friends. She filled the canteens, purifying the water, and left them by the wagon. The packs turned up two bedrolls, another fire-starter, and more money. A lot more money. As she slipped the worn leather purse into her jacket pocket, she touched the edge of something hard and had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. She’d tucked the telescope into her jacket that night in the shelter. The Imperials took everything else, took their clogs, tied her up and drugged her, and had carefully tucked the telescope she’d taken from a dead Imperial soldier back where they found it. And they had found it. She’d been half aware as a frowning woman had pressed careful hands against her ribs.