Novek had been, for one of very few times in his life, caught completely flat-footed. This Ber was beyond anything he'd ever seen before — it was a speed Skill, obviously. But that didn't help the sting to his ego. He'd been three meters back, what he'd thought was safely out of reach of a Ber that was laying on the ground. He had his finger on the trigger of a coach gun he had pointed directly at his target — and then in the blink of an eye, he no longer had the gun in his hand at all.

  It had happened literally as he was blinking. The Ber had somehow seen him start to blink, and moved while he couldn't see the movement in time to react. The gun was slapped out of his paw, and two hands had wrapped around Novek's neck in an iron grip.

  One of the hands had made a grab for Siya on his back, but — as Novek had noticed previously — the kit could see even when he shouldn't be able to. Such as through things, or those too distant to make out. Regardless of how the kit saw it coming, Siya had leapt off his back, and the hands closed on nothing. Good. That made this simpler — he'd probably have perhaps fifteen seconds once the Ber crushed his trachea, so he'd need to make it count.

  He might not be able to kill this Trant jackass, but he could — maybe — break an arm, or claw out his eyes. Something to give the others time to react. He would not be used as leverage, or worse — a hostage that got them all captured. The rest of that chasing group would be here in minutes, at most, now that they'd stopped on the road.

  Novek had just come to this conclusion as Trant was finishing his threat, and was keeping himself carefully limp until the last moment to avoid giving anything away.

  Then suddenly the pressure on his neck vanished, and hot blood sprayed Novek in the face, blinding him. He knelt reflexively, covering his face for the assumed attack, but none came. Still wiping the sticky mess out of his eyes, he heard what could only be the awkward sounding cadence of the retreating Ber.

  Novek looked up from his crouch just in time to see Nat unfreeze in some weird pose with his hands out — holding… a glove? What?

  No time to worry about it, then. He looked behind him on the ground, spotted the green eyes staring up at him, and scooped up Siya in one paw. Then the coach gun — safety on, in the other.

  Novek looked over to Nat, who was now staring wide-eyed at the thing in his hand. He put both force and volume into his next command: “No explanations. No discussion. We. Are. Leaving.”

  He turned to move to the coach, but the kid was just standing there holding the… oh it wasn't a glove. Turning back, he put Siya in his spot on his neck, took the offending item out of Nat's hands, and threw it casually behind him, then put his paw on Nat's shoulder. Novek used the voice he reserved with rookies after their first day fighting people, rather than training or clearing out groups of Ber, “Hey, you did good. Let's get on the coach, okay? I'll help you drive.”

  Lyn was peering out the side, “I agree. It's past time to leave. You both okay?”

  Helping Nat up onto the driver's bench, Novek answered simply, “Yeah, we'll be fine. Close up tight, we're going to move fast.”

  “Also, just to let you know, I'm going to borrow some of your odds and ends to splint Ellie's arm.” Lyn retreated back into the coach, their pale face and dimly glowing blue eyes vanishing, followed by the sound of the side door closing and latching.

  Once Nat had been helped up, Novek took a final glance around then, holding onto Siya with one arm, leapt to the bench himself and sat next to Nat. The kid was gathering the reins up and belting himself in, keeping his eyes down on the horses and not looking at Novek. Ah, the blood, right. Well, nothing to be done for it right now.

  And with all possible haste, they resumed their interrupted escape, lit only by the dim hooded lanterns. More than enough for Novek, but it dawned on him that Nat might not be the best night-driver. “Are you able to see well enough?”

  Nat shrugged non-committally. “The horses can well enough. I just need to see the road.”

  Novek considered, then looked upwards and spoke, “Hey, Moira? Can you do something to help with that?”

  Good idea — and yes, I can.

  Dim lines of blueish-white sprang up in front of Nat that stayed somewhat in place as Nat moved his head — ah, it was showing the outline of the road.

  How's that? I don't want to light up the entire road and spook the horses. I can only see as far as the aether bubble though, sorry.

  Nat was now looking around animatedly, the lines adjusting as he did so. “Can you add anything else? What else can this do?”

  Well, I could put up some details like travel speed and so on, if you think it would be useful. This is called a heads-up-display, by the way. If anything uses aether in my range, which extends beyond the bubble, I'll also mark it for you so you can see the direction. Let me know if you want it brighter, or dimmer.

  “Oh, that'd be great.” Nat's head continued to swivel while he mumbled to himself, or maybe Moira, about possibilities.

  Novek whispered, “Thank you, Moira.”

  A quiet voice meant only for him sounded in his ear, Thank you, as well.

  Novek looked behind him, made sure that Siya was comfortable, and slid the small hatch to the coach cabin open. “Hey, could I get some cloth or something? I need to clean the coach gun off.”

  Ellie's response sounded somewhat embarrassed, “Oh, absolutely. I'm sorry about that. There should be something suitable in the driver's bench. You can open it without getting up. There should also be a couple extra shells in there — I've started secreting them all over, just in case nights like this keep happening while I'm around all of you.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “I assure you this isn't normal, even for me, and I do this sort of thing for a living. We — all of us — have managed to step in something, or several things. Also, when you have a moment, I'd like my crossbow back; we may not be out of this yet.”

  Lyn finished inspecting Ellie's arm and then wrapped it tightly with a couple of Novek's crossbow bolts to keep it from further damage during the ride. They looked around the coach interior briefly, came to a decision, and knocked on the driver's slot, “Hey, Ellie's all set, could you come back grab this, Novek? It's a bit heavy.”

  They could just manage to hear Novek check with Nat, “You okay by yourself for a minute?”

  “Well, Moira's here too, but I'll be fine.”

  Novek then rotated in position, and took a single long-legged step onto to the sideboard of the coach. Being tall was so unfair.

  Lyn unbolted the side door — no more surprises for them tonight, thanks — and Novek leaned in to take his crossbow.

  Then the real reason Lyn had asked Novek to come back became obvious as they pointed quietly at the body of the Brin that was still pinned in place.

  “Ah.” To his credit, Novek understood immediately. He reached past Lyn and pulled the bolt out of the wood and leg of the body both. The other one he left as he hefted the body of the Tiger that resembled a younger Novek too strongly to be mere coincidence, out the door. Ellie, for her part, sat quietly; but if Lyn had noticed the similarity, then Ellie — with far more experience with Ankarran species, likely had as well.

  The body made a soft thump as it hit the road, but Moira had conveniently begun explaining some new modifications to the aether display to Nat as Novek had leaned in. If he heard, he was pretending that he didn't — which was enough.

  That finished, Novek accepted the crossbow and bolts they were now holding out just fine — and used that as an excuse to look over Ellie as well; the big softy.

  “Thanks, Lyn. Glad you're okay, Ellie.” And with that, Novek stepped back up to keep watch next to Nat, in case more trouble decided to show up.

  They came to the crossroads that would continue towards Labbat, or head north towards Tanner's Mill, as Lyn now thought of it. After they had turned north, there was a brief discussion and Ellie insisted she'd take over driving from Nat on the less well maintained road. They slowed slightly, and Novek gave her a helping paw up to the seat, though Nat stayed up top, and Novek instead moved his watch to leaning out the window, facing backwards.

  Nat and the rest of them had largely been sitting in silence since before the crossroads. Nat had obviously been stewing a bit, and his thoughts started spilling out. “He could follow me in the Talent — he had these green glowing aetheric eyes that tracked me.”

  Clearly realizing that he wasn't making it easy for the others to hear him, Nat raised his voice and leaned to speak into the slot to the cabin. “Oh, that reminds me — Moira, are you able to build an indicator that shows me the relative time dilation, like you did with the speed of the coach?”

  Sure. We'll do that the next time you practice.

  “Moira started burning his eyes, so he couldn't see me, but he started shaking them back and forth.”

  Lyn made a quick correction, “Round orbs, stone-like, mid-face?”

  Yep.

  “Elin'amen don't have eyes — they see with their fur, and also somewhat like I do. The orbs were an aether coating on his nose — they can smell directionally, that's why it spins. Even so, he'll likely be disoriented for a few days.”

  Well, crap. That would have been good to know.

  “I'll spend some time going over the Ber we've met, or are likely to meet as soon as we're safe. I think it's worth prioritizing.”

  Novek nodded approvingly, “Good plan. Appreciated, Lyn.”

  Nat continued like they hadn't switched gears, “I didn't want to cut his fingers off. I'm sorry, Novek.”

  “Don't worry about it kid. You did good. Everyone's fine.”

  Lyn considered approaches and chose distraction. “I noticed you moved multiple times for less than the full Talent duration, rather than fewer, longer activations.”

  “Oh, that was because I needed to pick things up. The stuff Novek left on the bench, finding Ellie's gun. I had to pop out to grab things to be able to move them, and then again to load them. I've never loaded a shotgun before, and Novek said load the second set of shells, right? ‘Shell B’ or whatever. But there's no color in the Talent by default so then I needed Moira to flash some light on them. It took me a few minutes to get that loaded — the first time it wouldn't close all the way.”

  Ellie offered, “I'll show you how to do it, later.”

  “Anyway, but I needed to make sure nobody saw me moving things around, so I put it out on the exterior step, then retrieved it with a Talent pulse so… Trant… wouldn't see it, even if he saw me frozen — I assumed he had good night vision, since he was running in the dark. But, well, I guess nobody was paying attention to me or saw anything.”

  “Actually, it's a good bet that Trant saw you. He just didn't consider you a threat. If you'd approached him, he likely would have grabbed you.”

  “What? In my Talent?”

  “Unlikely, but as soon as you froze, he'd have gotten a hold of you and then ignited his hands so you couldn't escape.”

  “Why would he have done that?”

  Lyn considered their answer carefully, then settled on a half-truth with a glaring lie of omission. “Because you were the only threat to him, here — thus the highest value target.”

  While they couldn't see Nat's face, the puzzlement was obvious in his voice, “Highest value target?”

  Novek decided it was time to contextualize the evening, “Yeah, it's obvious. They're head-hunting new elite conscripts. Aggressively. Too aggressively. I think that there might be a war on.”

  Ellie sucked in a breath, “You think war is coming?”

  “No, I think it got here a week ago, and we're only finding out.”

  The conversation stopped entirely for a few minutes before Nat popped another question somewhat out of the blue. “So, Novek — why did you tell me to give the gun to Ellie? I thought you were going to take it — or did I mishear? ‘Ellie's gonna’, right? Give it to her? How did you know she was going to get free?”

  “Oh, um. Because of the way he was holding her — the grip near her wrists due to the height difference.”

  “Why would that help? Ellie — how did you get him to let go of you?” Lyn could see Nat turn and look curiously at Ellie's arms — the makeshift splint made Lyn cringe, but needs must.

  “Oh, simple, I can lubricate my forearms.”

  “Do you have a Mechanic Talent like Novek, and it has some literal elbow grease thing?”

  “Not exactly — my Talent is for Animal husbandry.”

  “Sorry, I'm not familiar with that one. What does it do?”

  “Well, one of the things is help with animal breeding — usually horses for me, but sometimes other animals. They might need help getting pregnant, checking on positioning of the fetus, or just that things are progressing properly. Sometimes I'll help turn a badly oriented foal, and of course with delivery. Lubrication is important, because almost all of that work is done, quite literally, by hand.”

  Nat drew out his first word, clearly not getting it. “Okay, but why would Novek know that?”

  “Because he's a good boy.”

  Furrowing his brow, Nat squinted through the slot as he turned to peer into the cabin interior at Novek. He glanced over to Ellie on the bench with him, then back to the grinning Tiger. Lyn almost chuckled, watching the realization make its way slowly across Nat's face — first an inclined eyebrow as he started to form a question. Pursed lips preparing a follow-up which never came as the new question died on his lips. The whole process repeated once, and then ended with his mouth hanging open. Ah, there it was, he got it.

  Nat looked over at Ellie, who just shrugged back at him. Lyn could see him start to stand, raising his hands in front of him, “Nope. No. That's it. I'm out. Novek! We're trading spots! I'm going in the coach with Lyn.”