Wayward Rose

2

The fifth thing to go wrong came a good deal later, when they were both lying on the floor of an unfamiliar kitchen after vaulting through a window and closing the shutter behind them. "Do you think anybody's home?" Sabina asked once she was able to speak again. She'd never run so far or so fast in her entire life. It felt as if her heart were going to explode.

"Gods, I hope not," Dalibor said. His tongue rolled out of the side of his muzzle between his sentences, which Sabina found captivating. "But knowing our luck, they probably are."

"Who are you people?" asked wrong thing number five.

Dalibor whimpered but staggered back to his feet, rod held at the ready. Sabina couldn't move. She just rolled her head to the side and stared at the man who was accosting them. He seemed to be about her father's age, though somewhat grayer, more sun-worn, and significantly burlier. His beard was well-trimmed and his tunic clean. What most caught her attention, though, was the fine workmanship of the sword he was leveling at Dalibor.

"You're the one the guards are looking for, aren't you?" the man asked, his eyes never leaving Dalibor. "It's because of the girl, isn't it? You probably stole that fancy stick too." Dalibor snarled, baring all of his very sharp teeth, but he said nothing. "Come here, sweety," the man went on. "Get behind me. You're safe now. I won't let him hurt you any more."

Dalibor's eyes flicked to her, and he nodded, stepping back and lowering the ceremonial rod slightly. She shook her head at him, but he tilted his head and gestured for her to go. Sabina took a deep breath, pushed herself to her knees and crawled behind the man.

"Good boy," the man growled. "Now you stay right there, dog, while I bring the guards."

Dalibor stepped back again and caught Sabina's gaze. His eyes dropped to her dagger, and he flourished the rod in exactly the manner he had earlier before they charged the guard behind the villa. Sabina remembered his words—"Follow my lead"—and she finally understood. She sighed, stood up, and drew her knife. "I'm really sorry about this," she said and put the knife tight under the man's chin. "The guards are actually out for both of us."

"Why you lousy bitch!" the man said.

Dalibor rapped him hard on his sword hand, causing him to yelp and drop the sword. "You keep a civil tongue in your head," he said. "I'm fine with you insulting me, but you will treat her with some respect. Now let me be very clear with you." Dalibor set down his rod and picked up the man's fallen sword. "First, if you do not want my accomplice to give you a second mouth under your chin, you will keep your voice down. Second, if you do not want me to run you through with your own sword, you will tell me where I can find something to tie you up with while the two of us figure out where we go from here."

"You're not going to kill me," the man spat. "You don't have the guts."

Dalibor laughed, but the sound was so ugly and mirthless that it turned Sabina's stomach. The jackal grinned broadly, showing off every last one of his fangs. He put the tip of the sword against the man's belly. "I have murdered people who I loved very much," he said. He leaned his face close to their prisoner. There was a madness in Dalibor's eyes that Sabina felt to be very genuine, and, given the way the man under her knife tensed up, she knew that he found it real as well. "And since I definitely do not love you at all, if you should decide to be difficult, you're going to be the gutless one here real quick."

"There's a length of rope just inside the front door," the man wheezed.

"Good boy," Dalibor said. "Hold him tight. I'll be right back to either tie him up or gut him."

While she was waiting, hoping the trembling man didn't notice her own shaking, she decided to count that as the sixth thing to go wrong. She'd picked a crazy person to kidnap her.

Once the man was tied to one of the chairs at the table, Dalibor collapsed into another chair across from him. "Thank you for not making me kill you," he told the man. "I hate having to kill people."

"I knew you weren't going to kill me!" the man shouted.

Dalibor had the sword back and at the man's throat from across the table in under a second. "I said I hate doing it," he said. "Not that I won't. Now keep your voice down."

They spent an hour with the man, whose name, Sabina learned, was Tullus Fabricius. He was really a very pleasant fellow once all of them got past the entire mutual murder thing. He became especially friendly after Dalibor informed him that he was going to leave the "fancy stick" with him after they were gone as a sort of apology for breaking into his house and stealing his sword and some of his clothes. "It is stolen, though," Dalibor told him, cutting a hole in the back of one of Tullus's tunics for his tail. "So be careful of who you try to sell it to."

"No worries," Tullus said. "I know just the guy."

He was also kind enough to give them directions for a discreet route to the inn where Dalibor was staying. Sabina didn't ask any follow-up questions on why Tullus knew both how to sell stolen goods and how to avoid her father's guards, even though she dearly wanted to. This was all so exciting in an awful sort of way. She considered her excitement as she and Dalibor stole between the buildings and alleys of the city, peering around corners to make sure no guards were present. On the one hand, yes, everything about today was terrible. Her own father wanted her dead, she'd asked an apparent murderer to help her escape, and now she was crawling through the mud under a crumbling aqueduct trying to avoid the very people who were supposed to keep her safe. That was all very objectively awful.

But on the other hand, she had never had this much fun in her entire life. She'd gotten to use her Sanguine arts in a real fight. She'd held a man at knifepoint. She'd gotten to spend a non-trivial part of her day with a mostly naked and very attractive jackal, and the occasional lopsided sneers from his crooked fang set butterflies fluttering in her stomach every time.

She shook her head. That wasn't a thought she wanted to dwell on at the moment. Especially since the very attractive jackal was also apparently a cold-blooded killer. "Have you really murdered people?" she asked as they rested for a moment under the ruined arches of the old northern aqueduct.

Dalibor frowned at her briefly before continuing his scan of the surrounding area. "I worked as a caravan guard for years," he said. "I've killed plenty, brigands and beasts both."

"That's not really what you told Tullus, though," she prodded.

"Princess," he said. "I get that you're nervous. But this was your idea. I am fine with leaving you right here to fend for yourself and just heading home if you don't want me around."

"I don't want you to leave me, murderer or no," she said. "But you didn't answer the question either."

Dalibor sighed. "Yes, Princess," he said. "I have murdered innocent people as well. I hated it, I don't plan to do it again, and I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," she said. "Thank you for telling me. And you can call me Sabina." Dalibor grunted, and the two of them hurried to their next hiding spot.

The seventh thing to go wrong was waiting for them outside of the Drunken Goat, an inn on the northern edge of the city that was one of the only establishments for miles that would serve beast people. Sabina heard the voices before Dalibor peeked around the corner to check for trouble, and she nearly strangled him when she dragged him back by the collar of his tunic. She tried to shush the choking noises he made. "I recognize that voice," she whispered. "That's Malia, one of my father's Enforcers."

"Six of the dogs staying here are accounted for," came another voice, which Sabina recognized as Ignius, one of the newer Enforcers. "The seventh is still missing."

"Shit," Dalibor hissed. He pushed Sabina back from the corner, and they both dropped into a crouch against the wall to listen.

"Do we know who he is?" Malia asked.

"Registry has him listed as just Dalibor, no additional names," Ignius responded. "He claimed to be a cheese merchant from Aquitania."

"Shit!" Dalibor hissed again, clapping his hands over his muzzle to try and muffle his voice.

"That's got to be the stupidest cover story I've ever heard," Malia said. "Who would ever believe that?"

Sabina eyed Dalibor sideways, and the jackal looked back at her, eyes wide and hands still covering his muzzle. They didn't say anything to each other. Sabina had to admit, though, that Malia wasn't wrong. Even if it made her feel a little silly for believing Dalibor's story in the first place. First a murderer and now a liar? What had she gotten herself into?

"Well, whatever," Malia went on. "This must be the place. Some of the patricians talked about the jackal trying to sell them cheese at the villa. Of all the stupid covers. Find us a place to hide where we can watch for him to come back, Lucilius. And Ignius, report back to Gallius. We know who did it. At least one of the people involved, anyway. There's probably a whole pack of them. They're dogs, after all."

"Got it," Ignius said, and they listened to him run back towards the heart of the city.

"We have to get out of here," Dalibor whispered. Sabina nodded, and the two of them headed back the way they came until they were once again hiding under the ruined arches of the old northern aqueduct. Dalibor looked up into the archway, rapping the back of his head against the stone supports.

Sabina huddled on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her father's Enforcers were after them. She should have known he would send them. Why wouldn't he? They were her father's personal guards. There were always exactly six of them, one from each of the Legion's special Elite Orders. They served as Enforcers for six years, with two new members replacing the oldest every other year. Though, she granted, "guards" was more charitable than was likely due them. They were, of course, responsible for ensuring the emperor's continued safety, but they did more than that. They… well, enforced, the emperor's will throughout the empire. She knew full well that they hunted people down more often than they guarded against them, though that was something of a taboo topic of discussion.

But she knew them as people, too. Not just Gallius. Malia, the one leading the group they'd just avoided, was a Sanguine dancer herself. She had been the inspiration Sabina needed to sneak into clandestine training sessions with the retired veterans of the Sanguine Song. That someone who looked as plain bordering on ugly as Malia did could rise to the heights of an order known as seductive and disruptive operatives, male and female both, convinced Sabina she could do just as well herself. She liked Ignius and Geminia too, the two newest inductees. Ignius was fun and free spirited, a welcome change from the stoic and staid woman from the Azure Hand that he'd replaced. Geminia won Sabina's respect just by being a woman, which was a rarity amongst the enormous men typically recruited as defenders by the Auric Shield.

The other two Enforcers she didn't care for. Lucilius took the Sable Fang's reputation as unseen and emotionless killers far too seriously, and Navius, the medic from the Argent Flask, was not quiet about his disapproval of women being allowed in the Legion at all. But still. She knew them. They knew her. And now they were coming after her to deliver her back to her father so that he could kill her. They would never question her father's orders. And they would never give up the chase.

"I'm never going to see my stuff again," Dalibor moaned, continuing the constant rapping of his head against the stone. "At least I didn't bring my good lute on this trip."

"What are we going to do?" Sabina asked.

"All my clothes," Dalibor continued. "All my money. Gone. And the cheese."

"Look," Sabina snapped. "I get that you're upset about your stuff, okay? I'm upset about my stuff too. But we're in really big trouble here. My father's Enforcers are actively looking for us, and Gallius isn't going to let us get away."

"Who's Gallius?" Dalibor asked.

"The Verdant warlord who leads the Enforcers," Sabina told him.

"And when you say 'Enforcers,' are you talking about the Emperor's Six?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Shit." Dalibor smoothed his whiskers and held his hands tightly against his cheeks, still staring up into the shadowy stone above them. "It is dangerous business trying to outmaneuver a Verdant warlord."

"I know," Sabina said. "And… I don't know. I wasn't really worried about any of this until I realized that of course Gallius and the others would be assigned to find me. And now they are, and they know who you are and where you were staying, and they're looking specifically for us, and I picked a murderer I don't know anything about to kidnap me. Who even are you?"

The jackal sighed. "My name is Dalibor of Mtskheta, son of Radomir of Mtskheta, and I tend goats and cattle with my papa outside of Massilia in Aquitania."

"You heard Malia," Sabina said. "That's a stupid cover story. I can't believe I believed it." At that, Dalibor began to chuckle. "What's funny about this?"

"It's funny because she's right," he said, rubbing his eyes. "It is a stupid cover story. I'd never thought of it like that. But it's still true."

"Why should I believe you?" she asked. "You're probably just trying to get me out of the city so you can murder me too or ransom me off to—"

"Hush," Dalibor said. He put a hand on her head. She tensed immediately. She couldn't remember the last time somebody had touched her without her permission. Even her handmaids waited for her assent before dressing her. She found she didn't hate it. "Take a deep breath," Dalibor continued. "Panic serves only the enemy."

Something about that both calmed her down and reminded her of something. "Aren't you trained as a Verdant warlord too?" she asked.

"I only ever reached novice level," Dalibor said. "But yes, I was. Which is another reason I'd like you to try to be quiet, please. I need to think." He went back to rapping his head against the stones.

"Doesn't that hurt your ears?" she asked, watching him flatten his tall ears with each rap.

"Please stop talking," he begged. Sabina stopped asking questions and just watched him think. His crooked fang had caught his lip again, setting the butterflies loose on her once more. Soon, he started thinking aloud. "Our opponent knows us, but we know them in turn. They are looking for a jackal, possibly a naked jackal, but a jackal all the same. We cannot hide in this city since I cannot be disguised in any way that would mislead them. We cannot leave the city, since they will have guards posted at every gate. We have no resources, they have the resources of an entire empire. We know they have a warlord…" Dalibor's ears perked up, and he stopped rapping his head. "But they do not know the same of us." He clicked his tongue a few times then used it to fix his lip. "We have to signal surrender."

"What?" Sabina yelped. "No! We can't give up!"

"No, no," Dalibor said, still staring up into the arch above them. "The surrender signal is the first thing we're taught as warlords, so we can let an opposing warlord know to end a fight with as little loss of life as possible. But if the other side doesn't know you have a warlord, it's also the best way to succeed, because we're explicitly trained not to counter it. That way we always recognize the signal."

"So how do we do that?"

Dalibor looked at her and sighed. "By taking the worst possible course of action that does not lead to immediate failure," he said. "This is going to be unpleasant."

Sabina decided to count that as both the eighth and ninth things that had gone wrong. Eighth because Dalibor was right no matter how desperately she wanted him to be wrong. About anything. At all. Ever. Ninth because she was now trudging through the partially collapsed and absolutely sewage-filled cloaca the ancient Romans had built and used back when they were still around. "How did you even find this place?" Sabina asked, trying to distract herself from the smell of excrement both ancient and modern.

Dalibor had his tunic up over his muzzle, but Sabina couldn't imagine it was helping. Especially considering his sense of smell had to be much stronger than hers. "A tour guide pointed it out the first day I was in town," he said. "Our best hope is to hide out in here until after sunset, then head out to the river and just float downstream until we're past the walls."

Which is what they did. From where the cloaca opened onto the Tiber River, there was only one bridge they had to pass before they reached the outer walls of New Rome. It was guarded, both on the bridge and at river level, but the guards were looking only at the banks beside the city center, not the far side where Sabina and Dalibor floated with the current, only their noses, eyes, and ears above water. The gate on the road at the river's passage through the south walls was guarded, but the river itself was blocked only by a grate designed to stop boats, not people. Dalibor had them approach it underwater, come to the surface underneath the wall only for a quick breath of air, then exit the south side submerged once again. And then they were free.

"We're not safe yet," Dalibor told her as they wrung their tunics out on the far bank of the river outside the city walls. "We have to keep moving."

"We've been moving all day, Dalibor. I don't know if I can go much longer," Sabina told him. She felt a little odd being in just her underwear around him again, and wet underwear this time at that, even if he kept his back turned to her. She didn't keep her back turned to him, though. His wet fur let her see nearly every curve of the muscles that had been hidden before, and Dalibor was even fitter than she'd expected.

"We have to," Dalibor said. He shook his entire body violently, trying to shake as much water out of his fur as he could. "We have to get some distance between us and the city before they decide to start searching outside the walls." So once their tunics were as dry as they could get them and Dalibor had wrung his tail out yet again, they headed west through the suburbs and farms outside of New Rome until finally the bands of the Astral Remnants above burned with the light of the coming sunrise. Then, at last, Dalibor found a barn for them to sneak into and bed down in the hayloft. "We'll stay until sunrise," he told her. "Then we'll steal a horse and some food before we get back on the road."

By Sabina's count, the tenth and final thing that went wrong that day was Dalibor lying down and falling asleep in the hay without even bothering to take his tunic off for her. But by then, she really was too tired to care.