He didn’t know what to do.
It wasn’t thunder in the distance. It so obviously wasn’t thunder, Mirian wondered how they could have ever convinced themselves it was. Each distant boom she could hear in the east shouted out death.
Clutching the left side of the boat, she stared at the shore and wondered if the reinforcements had been in time. Wondered if the Imperial army had been pushed back across the border or if they were even now pressing into Aydori. Wondered if fighting uphill in the woods put an army that marched in straight lines at enough of a disadvantage. Wondered if Imperial numbers would tell as they always had. Wondered if the fighting would come down to the river. Wondered what she’d do if it did.
Wondered how she’d find Lord Hagen in a battle.
In an extended lull in the shooting, she relaxed into the quiet and realized, after a moment, that it wasn’t as quiet as it had been. This new sound reminded her of a winter wind roaring through the trees in the park. But it wasn’t winter and the new leaves on the poplars along the shore were nearly still.
Shifting on the seat, Mirian stared past the front of the boat at the river. The banks rose, narrowed, and the river itself…She squinted, trying to force the distance closer.
The river itself disappeared.
The roaring grew louder, like a storm through the chimney pots.
Rivers didn’t just disappear. That was impossible. Therefore, there had to be a logical explanation. Lower lip caught between her teeth, Mirian glanced over at the shore, back at the river…
If the Imperial army had to fight its way uphill into Aydori, then in order to get to the border the river would have to flow downhill. And water didn’t so much flow downhill as fall.
She had a vague memory of her mother mentioning a recent social column and a report of Lord and Lady Berin picnicking at Border Falls with their household. The writer had gone on at length about how fast and dangerous the falls were in the spring.
The paper hadn’t mentioned exactly where Border Falls was.
Geography suggested Mirian had found it.
Without the oars, she had no way to steer the boat. The only thing she had any command over was herself. Moving quickly, before she could change her mind, Mirian stood, stepped up onto the seat, and launched herself into the river.
She surfaced closer to the shore than the boat, although that could have been because the boat was moving faster now without her in it. Wet wool wrapped around her legs as her skirt soaked up water. Stupid! You should have taken it off before you jumped! The water was so cold it drove the air from her lungs, and she had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her hands felt as though they were covered in a thin layer of grease. Not swimming as much as steering diagonally through the current, she kept her eyes locked on a muddy bit of riverbank and struggled to keep her head above water.
Just don’t panic and you’ll be fine.
She didn’t realize there were rocks close to the surface until her legs slammed into one. The impact spun her around, coughing and choking. A wave closed over her head. If not for her skirts, the water would have tumbled her end over end, but the weight kept her upright enough that when her legs hit another rock, she managed to push off and surface. A glimpse of quiet water between her and the shore, then she was under again.
The next rock she hit, she hit with the entire right side of her body. Before the river swept her away, she managed to get her arm around it, leg bent high, foot jammed into a crack. Pushing off with everything she had left, she rose up out of the water far enough to twist down over the rock into the quiet pool.
Cold and hurting, she thrashed her way to the shore and flopped out onto the mud.
Every movement disturbed the flies that covered the dead. Clouds of them rose from where they were feasting and laying eggs to swarm around his muzzle, trying to land in his mouth and on his eyes. Tomas shook his head to dislodge them and wished he could shake a thought back into it. Should he join the battle still going on, deep in the Aydori woods? Or should he join what was left of the Pack in Trouge and bring them—bring Danika—the news that Ryder was dead. She’d need to know. They’d all need to know. The Pack was leaderless now.
Tail clamped tight, he limped back and forth across the scar in the earth that still smelled of his brother, wishing someone would just appear and tell him what to do.
Because Ryder was dead and…
Ears up, he turned toward the river. He could hear voices; two men speaking Pyrahn. Pyrahn soldiers, having run from the duchy with the Imperials on their heels, had fought and died beside the Pack and the Aydori 1st. Maybe these men were wounded. Maybe he could help them. Maybe they’d know what he should do.
It wasn’t easy covering uneven terrain with one front leg unable to bear his full weight, but for the sake of doing something, of doing anything, he managed it. Moving toward the voices, he picked his way diagonally down the slope toward the river, going around obstacles he’d have jumped without thinking another time. At the water’s edge, he turned upstream. The men were no longer talking, but he thought he knew where they were. Or had been. He moved a little faster.
Rounding one of the many stumps created by artillery fire, he saw a pair of old men bent over a body, stripping it of its uniform. An Aydori uniform. The same green and brown Harry’d worn yesterday morning when he’d died standing between Pyrahn refugees and the Imperial army.
Not soldiers. Scavengers.
Tomas launched himself forward, forgetting the pain. He couldn’t stop the howl from ripping free. He was close enough the warning didn’t matter. The scavengers jerked away from the half-naked body, but before they could run, he crushed the scream in the throat of the man nearest the water, taking him down, tearing out mouthfuls of flesh. When he turned, blood dripping from his muzzle, the other man was running up toward the larger trees.
Stupid man. He had hands. He could climb after him.
No. The silver in the wound kept him from changing. He had to end the chase before his quarry reached a tree large enough to climb.
Leaping the body, Tomas stumbled and nearly fell as the impact of his paw with the ground shot lines of pain out from the impacted piece of silver. He switched back to three legs and kept going. Uphill was easier than down and rage lent him strength.
They reached the ridge together. Tomas lunged forward and closed his teeth on a mouthful of filthy fabric. This close, even over the blood still coating his muzzle, he could smell young man, not old and under that, something sharp, bitter…if hunger had scent…
A bare heel slammed into his bad shoulder.
Tumbling back down the slope, Tomas landed on his left side, pawed the cloth from his teeth, and, snarling, fought his way back onto his feet in time to see the surviving scavenger dive through a break in the trees and run deeper into Aydori. He had to be trying to get to the river above the rapids. It was the only way back to Pyrahn that didn’t go past Tomas.
Pushing himself past the pain, Tomas followed, holding tightly to a single coherent thought: Stop him.
A scrap of fabric caught on a branch.
Fresh blood in a footprint.
The only living scent in the woods, impossible to lose.
Snapping and growling as he shoved through the underbrush, Tomas emerged onto bare ground, looking down over the river. He could hear the roar/hiss of water dropping over a jumble of rock. Saw the scavenger fling himself from ledge to ledge then suddenly end his wild descent, realizing there was no safety here. If he tried to cross, the river would take him. White showed all around his eyes as he twisted and looked up.