Thread and Tracks

The first thing Miuki noticed when Fen finished binding her wounds was how quiet the world had become.

Not truly quiet.

Leon was arguing with a dead boar somewhere down the road.

One of the teamsters was hammering a bent wheel brace back into place. Horses snorted and stamped. Kame and Sandore spoke in low voices near the ridge.

But the din of the battle had gone out of the air.

Fen tied off the last bandage beneath Miuki's ribs and sat back.

“You are going to rest.”

Miuki nodded.

Fen narrowed her eyes.

“Actually rest.”

Another nod.

“I know the difference.”

Miuki looked at her.

Fen held the stare for several seconds, then seemed to decide that was the best agreement she was going to get.

“Fine. If anything starts bleeding again, tell me before you pass out.”

She gathered her tools and moved away.

Miuki remained sitting on the stump at the side of the road.

She closed her eyes.

At first there was only pain.

Her shoulder throbbed where the bristleback had hammered through her guard. Her ribs burned each time she breathed too deeply. Every bruise seemed to have discovered its own heartbeat.

Miuki let herself feel all of it.

Then she began to breathe.

Slowly.

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

She listened for the wind.

There was always wind if one was patient enough.

A current moved along the road from the river, cool against the sweat on her skin.

Miuki followed it.

Not with her body.

With something quieter.

The pain did not disappear. Volanthes was not kind enough for that.

But it changed.

The ache in her shoulder became heat.

The heat became pressure.

The pressure became something she could place outside herself for a little while.

Green light gathered faintly beneath her bandages, beneath her skin.

A few tiny leaves appeared along the back of her hand.

Then flowers.

Not the brilliant manifestations she had worn in battle.

Smaller things.

Green-white petals no larger than a fingernail.

They opened and closed with her breathing.

The torn muscles beneath Fen's bandages loosened.

Her pulse slowed.

The trembling in her left hand stopped.

Miuki stayed there until the world felt like hers again.

When she opened her eyes, Pixal was sitting cross-legged in front of her with a needle between her teeth.

Miuki stared.

Pixal removed the needle.

“You broke your clothes.”

“My armor.”

Pixal nodded.

Several pieces of Miuki's damaged armor lay beside her.

Pixal had already found thread somewhere.

“You know how to repair armor?”

“I know how to repair things made by people who expect other people to wear them.”

“That is not a sensible answer.”

“It is absolutely an answer.”

Pixal held up a torn fastening strap.

“This part was terrible to begin with.”

“It held.”

“Until a giant pig hit you.”

“A boar.”

Pixal gave her a look.

Miuki decided not to continue that argument.

Pixal worked quickly.

Very quickly.

Her fingers were small, precise, and practiced. She reinforced a split seam, replaced a torn leather tie, then stitched one of the padded underlayers with the neat efficiency of someone who had done the work hundreds of times.

Miuki watched her.

“You sew.”

Pixal did not look up.

“A girl has hobbies.”

“Next!” she said, finishing with the last piece in front of her. She looked at Miuki and pointed at her left arm.

Miuki's left bracer had taken the worst of the damage after her shield broke. The leather beneath it was soaked with blood.

Pixal reached for the buckles.

“I can do that.”

“One handed? With your arm in that state?”

Miuki looked at her left arm.

Then at Pixal.

Pixal smiled sweetly.

“Thought so.”

Miuki nodded.

Pixal undid the bracer.

The leather came away reluctantly.

Beneath it, a braided prayer cord was tied around Miuki’s forearm.

Several narrow strips of old cloth, each covered in faded writing, had been braided together so tightly that no single prayer could be read. Blood had darkened one side almost black.

Pixal's expression changed.

Only slightly.

She touched the braid.

“This is soaked. We should take it off before it dries like that.”

Her fingers slipped beneath the cord.

Miuki's hand closed around her wrist.

“No.”

The word came out harder than she intended.

Pixal stopped.

Miuki realized how tightly she was holding her.

She released her immediately.

For half a second, neither spoke.

Then Miuki looked away.

“It stays.”

Pixal's eyes dropped to the cord.

“Religious thing?”

Miuki seized the excuse.

“Yes.”

It was not a lie.

Not entirely.

Miuki adjusted the braid herself.

The movement shifted it farther than she intended.

Just for an instant.

Enough.

Pixal saw the crude tattoo beneath.

A split chevron over a short vertical bar.

Below it, numbers.

Prisoner designation.

Pixal knew the symbol.

She had seen it years ago at the House of Returning Light on the arms of orphans who had come from a mining camp.

Veyra Hollow.

The Pit.

For one strange moment, the entire morning rearranged itself in her head.

Miuki's voice when she explained Blackglass.

The way she had looked at Pixal and then deliberately chosen not to ask questions.

Pixal's face did not change.

That was one of the things she was very good at.

Pixal quickly looked back to the damaged bracer.

“Fine. Religious things are exempt from laundry.”

Pixal picked up her needle.

Miuki exhaled and almost smiled with relief.

Almost.

Pixal went back to work cleaning and mending Miuki’s armor.

She did not mention the prayer cord again.

• • •

Sandore found Kame crouched over the dead man on the hill.

The man looked less impressive in death.

That bothered Sandore more than he expected.

No black officer's coat.

No insignia.

No Remnant uniform.

Just patched hunting leathers, mud-caked boots, and the hands of someone who spent his life outdoors.

Kame had laid the man's belongings beside him.

A skinning knife.

Wire.

Snare hooks.

A small whetstone.

Three iron traps.

A pouch of dried meat.

And gold.

Sandore picked up one of the coins.

Imperial issue.

Old, but gold never expired.

The emperor's face had been scored with a knife.

Kame glanced at it.

“Payment.”

“Probably.”

“Not a soldier.”

Sandore looked at the dead man's clothes again.

“No.”

Kame turned one of the traps over in his hands.

“Local make.”

“You recognize it?”

Kame nodded, “The style, at least.”

He pointed toward the man's boots.

“Same leather people use around Dunmere. Repairs look local too.”

Sandore frowned.

“A trapper.”

“Looks like one.”

“Working with the Remnant.”

Kame did not answer immediately.

He looked at the dead man.

“Maybe… sir.”

Sandore heard the distinction.

“You don't think he volunteered.”

“I think a man who owns three traps, wears locally repaired boots, and gets paid in imperial gold is more likely to be hired help than an imperialist.”

“Bribed.”

“Or bribed and threatened.”

Sandore looked toward the ridge.

The handler had escaped that way.

“So somebody recruits locals to support the operation.”

“Or forces them.”

Kame stood.

“Captain, there is more.”

He led Sandore uphill through the brush.

They found the transport wagon in a shallow hollow fifty yards from the road.

It had been pulled beneath cut branches and covered with brush.

The bed was reinforced.

The sides were scored.

Deeply.

Kame ran two fingers along one gouge.

“Bristleback.”

Sandore looked at the width between the marks.

“How did they get that thing into this?”

“Unhappily.”

There were restraint rings bolted into the wagon bed.

Hair caught in one.

Blood in another.

Sandore's mouth tightened.

Tracks led away from the wagon and deeper into the woods.

Several men.

At least one heavy team.

Kame indicated the rutted trail behind the wagon. The weight of the bristleback had given them depth.

“I can follow this back, sir.”

Sandore looked west.

The sun had begun its descent.

“How long?”

“Unknown.”

“Could you keep it through darkness?”

“Yes, sir.”

That answer came without hesitation.

Sandore believed him.

He also looked back toward the road.

A wounded lieutenant.

A damaged wagon.

Civilians.

A frightened caravan.

And a village they could still reach before full dark.

“No.”

Kame looked up.

“We go to Dunmere.”

Kame nodded once.

No argument.

Sandore added, “Tomorrow, if the trail still holds, we come back.”

“It will hold.”

“You're certain?”

“The weather is good. And in good weather, tracks are patient.”

Sandore looked at him.

He almost smiled.

“I would rather follow patient tracks in daylight than hostile men at night.”

“That is my preference too, sir.”

That mattered more to Sandore than he let show.

“All right. Mark the location. We move when the wagon is ready.”

Kame looked back toward the hidden transport.

“Captain.”

“Yes?”

“The wolves weren't choosing the targets.”

“I know.”

“The people were.”

Sandore's eyes went to the blood on the restraint ring. He nodded.

Neither said anything else.

• • •

When he had to encounter problems in his life, Leon preferred the ones that could be solved by hitting them harder.

The bristleback was no longer one of those problems.

It was dead.

That should have simplified matters.

It did not.

Leon stood beside the carcass with both hands on his hips.

The bristleback remained in the middle of the road.

It was enormous.

It was also leaking.

A lot.

One of the teamsters stood beside him.

“So.”

Leon looked at him.

The teamster looked at the carcass.

“We need that moved.”

“I had gathered that.”

Another teamster arrived with a rope.

Leon pointed.

“Good. Rope.”

The man handed it to him.

Leon stared at the rope.

Then at the boar.

Then back at the man.

“This is not enough rope.”

“It is all the rope I have.”

Leon sighed.

They tied it around one hind leg.

Then around the other.

Three men took hold.

Leon braced himself.

“Ready?”

“No,” said the first teamster.

“Good enough. Pull.”

They pulled.

Nothing happened.

Leon looked down.

The carcass had not moved an inch.

The second teamster grunted.

“Again.”

They pulled harder.

The boar shifted.

Slightly.

A wet sound came from underneath it.

Everyone stopped.

Leon closed his eyes.

“I'm not looking.”

“You should probably look.”

“I have killed men with my bare hands. I am not afraid of blood.”

“Then look.”

“I am making a choice not to.”

A fourth man joined them.

Then Pell.

Pell's hands were still red from the runaway team's reins.

He looked at the bristleback.

Then at Leon.

“This seems familiar.”

Leon pointed at him.

“Do not start.”

They pulled again.

The carcass moved a foot.

The remaining tusk caught in a rut.

The rope went taut.

Then snapped.

Leon fell backward into the road.

The teamsters went down with him.

Pell remained standing.

Barely.

For several seconds nobody spoke.

Leon lay flat on his back and stared at the sky.

“I hate this pig.”

Pell looked down at him.

“It’s a boar.”

Leon sat up.

“Not you too.”

Eventually they found more rope.

Then a chain.

Then a long piece of timber to use as a lever.

The operation became less like moving an animal and more like relocating a siege engine nobody had asked for.

Leon ended up shoulder-deep against the bristleback's flank pulling a rope while two teamsters pushed from the other side.

“Pull!”

“I am pulling!”

“Pull harder!”

“I am pulling a dead rhinoceros uphill!”

“Boar,” someone said.

Leon made a sound that convinced everyone to stop correcting him.

At last the carcass rolled.

Unfortunately, it rolled toward Leon.

He jumped aside.

The bristleback turned over once, slowly, horribly, and came to rest half off the road.

Everyone stared at it.

Leon pointed.

“That counts.”

The caravan master looked at the half still blocking the wheel track.

“It does not.”

Leon looked at Pell.

Pell looked at Leon.

Leon sighed.

“Get the timber.”

By the time they finished, the bristleback lay fully off the road, Leon was covered in mud, blood, foam, and several substances he had decided not to identify.

He stood with his arms held away from his body.

Pixal walked past carrying Miuki's repaired bracer.

She stopped.

Looked at him.

Looked at the boar.

Then looked back at him.

“No.” He told her before she could say anything.

Leon pointed at her.

“Whatever you are about to say: No.”

Pixal smiled. Broadly.

“I wasn't going to say anything.”

She continued toward the wagon.

Leon looked down at himself.

Pell handed him a rag and a waterskin.

Leon took them.

“This is not enough rag.”

“No,” Pell agreed.

It was not.

• • •

The caravan was ready to move before sunset.

Miuki climbed back into the rear wagon under Fen's supervision. Her armor was repaired as well as it could be without a proper workbench, her wounds were bound, and the faint green glow beneath her skin had faded, but not before it had sped her healing up nicely. The pain was less now, but she was certainly still hoping for more rest before any significant exertion.

Pixal sat nearby, threading the last needle back into a small roll of cloth she had produced from somewhere.

She did not look at Miuki's left arm.

Not once.

Outside, Kame finished marking the hidden wagon's location on his map.

Sandore gave the order to head to Dunmere.

No one objected.

The trail into the hills could wait for daylight.