--26--
	They walked without speaking to each other for most of the day.  Jess maintained her slight lead and she looked like nothing so much as a girl out for a stroll.  But Sebastian saw the way her shoulders sometimes shook and when her hands clenched into fists, and then he wanted to hold her again.  He remembered the feel of her breasts, with the long scars around her nipples, and another on the side of her neck, and he wondered what she was going back to face in the city.
	  They stopped to rest several times along the way.  But when Sebastian had lost his pack in the river, it had taken all of their food with it.  Toward evening his hunger was so sharp he found it difficult to think about anything else.  Jess must have felt the same way, because she stopped abruptly in mid-step to watch a flock of birds nesting in a tree above them.
	“How are you at hunting?” she said.
	“How do you think?” he said.
	“We'd better get to the city soon, then.  I wouldn't know how to cook anything if we did catch it.  When I lived at Silver Street, all of my meals came from a cart,” Jess said.
	She took a fat metal box out of one of the pockets sewn on her pants leg.  At first he thought it was her matches again, until she opened it and shook out a two pieces of wood the size and thickness of his little finger.  She stuck one in her mouth and held the other out to him.
	“For chewing,” she said.
	“I know.  I used to know some mice at home, and they always chewed these things for their teeth.  But you don’t need them,” he said.
	“It doesn’t hurt to look like you fit in, sometimes.  It’s not much, but I thought it might help keep your mind off of supper,” Jess said.
	Her fingers brushed against his as she gave it to him, and she let them linger just a bit.
	“You’re just like your big sister, aren’t you?  Rushing off to play the hero.  There must be something about wolves that make them all insane,” she said.
	The twig was soft pine and it was coated with something that made it taste a little like cheese.  They weren’t something he had ever been fond of, but having something in his teeth did ease the pain in his stomach a bit.
	“What are you going to do when you get to Jaspertree?” he said.
	“I’m going to find Marcus and make him tell me what happened to my friend.  Then I might kill him,” she said.
	“That won’t bring her back.  But it would just make you like him,” he said.
	She stopped in her tracks and whirled around to face him, teeth bared.  There were tears in her eyes again, and a fierceness that made him put his hands around his throat.
	“Spend your life as a slave, then tell me that again.  He owes me blood for every one of my friends he killed,” she said
	“But you’re better than that.  Aren’t you?” he said “It’s against the law.”
	“Against the law?  There isn’t any law at home, just Marcus, and he always gets what he wants.  There isn’t anything else I can do,” Jess said.
	“And everyone just puts up with that?  There are six thousand people in Jaspertree.  He can’t kill all of them,” Sebastian said.
	“He has the army.  To fight him, people would have to fight their own sons and daughters,” Jess said.
	She started walking again, going faster now like she was trying to outrun something.  He was afraid she wanted to get away from him, but when he ran after her she didn’t try to avoid him.
	“I want to help you.  But I won’t do anything immoral,” he said.
	“Jaspertree is the wrong city for you, then,” she said.
	Their path crested one final hill, then went down sharply to a point where the riverbank was just above the water.  Here, Jess stopped again and lay down on her stomach at the edge of the bank.  She dabbled her fingers in the water first, and licked them the way you were supposed to do to check if it was clean.  She made a face at the taste, but put her muzzle in the water and drank.
	He hesitated a moment before joining her, a few ancient instincts telling him to look for predators first.  He didn’t want to run into any more surprises, either.  One angry soldier with a gun was quite enough for one day.  When he was satisfied, he lay down next to her with a modest amount of space between them.  Thirst was dangerous, too, and there was no telling when they would find another place where they could drink.  There was a slight metallic taste to the water, but not enough to keep him from drinking his fill.
	When she was finished, Jess turned over on her side to watch him.  This was the first time she had really looked at him since that morning, and it was difficult for him to keep calm.  He remember the feel of her breath on him and the light brown of her eyes flecked with green.
	“Your mother never told you what… who you are?” she said.
	“Never.  I mean, I knew I was different.  But there were always more important things to think about,” he said.
	“What could be more important than that?  Didn’t it ever bother you the way people would cross the street when they saw you?  That the only time they treated you like you were worth talking to was when they wanted something from you?  If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was a whore, I don’t think people would have even looked at me,” she said.
	“That never happened to me.  Until yesterday,” he said.
	“It happened all of the time, you just didn’t see.  It wouldn’t have been obvious, of course.  It’s amazing how polite people can be sometimes, while all the time they hate you and blame you for everything that’s wrong with the world,” she said.
	“Maybe it was better that I was so blind.  There was never anyone who understood,” he said.
	“I'm here now,” Jess said.
	She sat up on the very edge of the bank with her feet in the water and she plucked absently at the blades of grass that grew there.  Every one she picked, she threw into the river to float away and disappear.  He sat up and turned a bit to look at her, crossing his legs under him to keep his feet dry.  More of the little purple flowers grew here, and he plucked a small bouquet of them while he sought for the right words to say to her.
	“You must think I’m the worst person you ever met.  In fact, I hope that this is so,” she said.
	He opened his mouth to answer her, but he was interrupted by the now familiar sound of a gun being cocked.  They both spun around to face the noise, and he put a hand on Jess’s arm to keep her down.  Last time, she had been lucky.  This time, he was certain she would get shot if she leaped.
	A coyote came strolling out of the trees, ears flat and rifle raised.  He was dressed in the same sort of uniform that their attacker had worn with the same ragged patch on the sleeve where the rank insignia had been torn off.  Instead, a lieutenant’s stripes had been chalked just below the rip.  When he was clear of the trees he barked a command, and three more soldiers emerged in a circle around them.  All of them were armed with rifles, but most kept the guns slung over their shoulders.  As backup, they carried one old-fashioned sword each and these were the weapons pointed at them now.
	Jess stood up with her hands spread open in front of her.  Sebastian jumped up too, afraid he was going to have to restrain her, but she dodged away from him and took a couple of steps towards the coyote.  He adjusted his grip on his rifle and raised it higher, pointing it at her chest, but the way that his hands shook it would be a wonder if he hit either of them.
	“What do you think you’re doing, harrassing innocent travellers?  Is that what you’re out here for?  Do you really have nothing better to do?” Jess said.
	“You don’t need to know that.  You and the rabbit are under arrest.  Come peacefully and you won’t be hurt,” the coyote said.
	“Why should we?  You’re no militia soldiers, anyone can see that.  Even if you were, this is a public road,” Jess said.
	“Not anymore.  I am Lieutenant Crossfield, I have the gun, and you are tresspassing.  That’s all you need to know right now,” the coyote said.
	“You didn’t mark the road.  How were we supposed to know?” Sebastian said.
	Jess took another step forward and put the flat of her palm over the barrel of Crossfield’s gun.  He growled and Sebastian heard the gun's hammer click back, but Jess didn’t so much as blink.
	“I know who you are.  You think I’m here to spy on you for President Keppler, and that’s why you’re scared of me.  But if you’d open your eyes, you’d see I’m not,” she said, and she tapped at her collar with one finger.
	“That doesn’t prove anything.  You killed one of my soldiers,” Crossfield said.
	“He attacked us,” Jess said.
	“No doubt he had a reason.  You can explain yourself to the Captain when you see him.  For now, if you resist, I will have you shot,” Crossfield said.
	He barked again and two of his companions came towards them.  One, a tall female cougar with a scar across her muzzle, grabbed Sebastian’s arms and pinned them behind his back.  He tried to struggle, but she was bigger than he was and he could feel her claws digging in to his wrists.
	The other one, a fox, was bright enough not to try to grab Jess, especially when she whirled around to show her teeth to him.  She didn’t look as wild as she had been yesterday morning, but there was no doubt that anyone who touched her would get bitten.  Instead, the fox pointed a small pistol at her stomach, until she raised her hands to the level of her chest and kept them there.  She glanced over at Sebastian, but the cougar who was holding him had already tied his hands behind his back and there was nothing he could do to help her.
	Their captors surrounded them closely so there was no way they could escape, and they were led along a narrow dirt path.  The trail wound around the trees and kept clear of any opening that was big enough to hold two people together.  It went deeper into the forest than Sebastian had ever been before, and that worried him.  There wasn’t anyone who would miss him, except his mother, and there was no telling who these soldiers really were.  The two of them could end up dead, or worse.
	Even so, he couldn't resist taking the chance to look around.  It looked like, at one time, some effort had been made to hide the trail from being seen by anyone on the main road.  Some of the bushes that grew in neat rows along either side looked like they had been planted, and all of the soldiers scuffed their feet to erase their footprints.  Now, though, it had seen so much recent traffic that it would only be a wonder if someone missed seeing it.
	After several minutes they stopped in a wide circle of trees that had a number of crude log benches set at every point of the compass.  There were only three other obvious paths, each leading off from one of the cardinal directions.  Each of these trails were wide and deeply grooved from use.  They were too well used for wilderness trails, and Sebastian didn't believe them in the least.  Even the road to Shelby's Ford had been dotted with clumps of grass and rocks that had been washed down by the rain.  They might be good enough to fool anyone who had spent all of their life in the city, but he thought he could have laid a better cover by himself.
	The lieutenant and two of the other soldiers continued along a barely visible north-western path, leaving the cougar to watch them.  She accepted this responsibility without a word of protest, but it didn’t do anything to help her temper.  When her friends were gone she grabbed Sebastian by the scruff of his neck and twisted until the pain brought tears to his eyes.  When Jess started forward to help him, the cat put her knife to his throat.
	“Sit down, murderer.  I saw what was left of my brother after you got done with him,” she said.
	“He was going to shoot me.  I was only defending myself,” Jess said.
	“You could have surrendered.  He wouldn't have hurt you.  He was just a little boy,” the cougar said.
	“He was big enough to pick up a rifle and threaten to shoot someone with it,”  Jess said.
	She backed away from them until the backs of her legs bumped into the bench behind her, but she didn’t sit down.  The cougar tightened her grip and Sebastian could feel the blade of the knife cutting into his skin.  A thin trickle of blood dripped down to stain his collar, but he bit his lip, determined not to let her know he felt anything.
	“You tore his throat out with your teeth.  What kind of a monster are you that you could do such a thing?” the cougar said.
	“She was scared,” Sebastian said.
	“You would defend her.  Animals like you always stick together, don’t you?  Half-breed son of a bitch,” the cougar said.
	“You're damn right I will.  She’s the only person who has shown me kindness since I left home.  Everyone else has tried to rob me, or kill me, ” he said.
	“She’s a weasel, you only have to look at her to see that.  Even you should know how mad they are,” the cat said.
	Jess lowered herself slowly onto the bench and put her hands on her knees so they were visible.  Their captor relaxed a little and moved the knife back so it was only touching his throat, but she didn’t let him go.  She dragged him to the other side of the clearing and put her back against a tree.
	“Your brother was afraid of someone,” Jess said.
	“Yes, of you.  He'd have known what you are,” the cougar said.
	“But we'd only just met.  I didn't even know he was there until he came out of the bushes.  Your little rebellion is out of its depth, isn't it?  The handful of you can't fight the entire city,” Jess said.
	“You just shut up.  If it were up to me, I’d see both of you dead,” the cat said.
	Lieutenant Crossfield came out of the forest between the south and south-west paths.  He grabbed the knife out of the cat's hand and pulled Sebastian away from her, all without breaking stride.
	“It isn’t up to you, Corporal, and that’s just as well.  We are supposed to uphold what law there is, not debase it even further,” he said.
	“I was left alone with two dangerous unknowns.  I thought that fear was the best way to control them,” she said.
	“Is that why you were the only one who was frightened?  Of a mouse and a rabbit?” said Jess.
	“It kept you in line, didn’t it?  You would have done anything I said,” the Corporal said.
	“That’s because I’m not a heartless bitch,” Jess said.
	The cougar lunged across the clearing at Jess, who gave her a sweet smile in return.  Lieutenant Crossfield stepped between them and he slapped his subordinate across the muzzle when she snarled at him.  Sebastian held his breath, waiting for one of them to spring, and he wondered if he would be able to get out of the way in time.
	A moment later, a strange grey fox wearing an antique leather cuirass came out of the north, flanked by the same two soldiers who had followed Crossfield away.  He had a captain’s stripes painted on one of the straps of his breatplate, but he didn’t look like any of the officers who had occasionally come through Shelby's Ford.  They had all worn fine silk clothes and shiny ceremonial armor, or they had medals pinned on their coats.  The fox’s armor was scratched and battered and it and all of his equipment was plain and well used.  He took the knife out of Crossfield’s hand and held it out to the corporal, hilt first.
	“One thing I asked of all of you was that prisoners were to be treated with respect.  No matter who they were,” the Captain said.
	“They’re murderers,” the Corporal said.
	“Unfortunate things can happen when you attack strangers without reason.  I’m sorry about your brother, but if he attacked them first, Jess didn’t do anything wrong,” the Captain said.
	The Corporal snatched her knife out of his hand and slunk off to one side of the clearing, to keep an eye on the eastern path.  The captain wiped his palm on his pants like he had been handling something dirty, and he gave Jess a thin smile.
	“Here you are again, Miss Bryar.  I had hoped that you and that girlfriend of yours would be a long way from here by now,” the Captain said.
	“After what happened to the Scylla, I had to come back,” Jess said.
	“Yes, I’m sorry about that.  But it was the only ship we could have used, and I was sure that Marcus wouldn’t attack a civilian vessel with a well-known captain,” the Captain said.
	“Sorry doesn’t help me, Thomas.  It doesn’t look like you’re helping anybody skulking around the trees like this.  What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Jess said.
	Jess shook off the hand he had laid on her shoulder and spun around to take in the whole circle of trees with a dismissive wave.  Thomas’ ears drooped a little,  and a hint of embarrassment flashed across his face.
	“Surviving.  There was another riot a few days after you left.  Who started it, and why, is still unknown, but several warehouses were burned, including several that belonged to Marcus.  And his son was hurt in the fighting,” Thomas said.
	“So you ran away out here?  That was brave of you.  Did you bring Elizabeth, or was she too stubborn to come?” Jess said.
	“She stayed.  They weren’t looking for her.  Will you join us?  You know what will happen to you if you go back into Jaspertree alone, and we need the help,” Thomas said.
	“I won’t be alone, if you can keep your people from killing my friend here,” Jess said.
	Thomas looked at him for the first time since coming into the circle, and Sebastian froze and tried not to look guilty.  While they had been talking, he had twisted his wrists back and forth in his bonds, trying to get some blood back into his fingers.  He’d had only limited success at that, but he had been able to twist his right hand around just right so he could reach the knot in the middle of the cord.  But the awkward angle meant it was difficult to get a decent grip on the rope, and he was nowhere close to getting loose.
	“So, the bunny is yours?  Were you really going to take him into that cesspool with you?” Thomas said.
	“No, she wasn’t.  I was taking myself, if that’s any business of yours.  Are you normally so frightened of unarmed rabbits that you feel you have to tie them up?”  Sebastian said.
	“But you’re a wolf, too, and I’m sure that Lieutenant Crossfield felt we couldn’t take any chances,” Thomas said.
	Without taking his eyes off of Thomas, Sebastian pulled again and he felt the rope give a little more.  That let him get his claws into it at last and after that it was simple enough to undo the knots.
	“That’s discrimination.  What’s wrong with wolves?” he said 
	“Nothing,” Thomas said, waving his hands as if to ward off the accusation “It’s just the new mercenaries Marcus hired to protect him.  They’re all wolves, and they’re very loyal to him.  If he sends them after us, we could be in a lot of trouble.”
	The final knot came undone and he swung his arms around to fling the rope at Thomas.  It hit the big fox in his knees, making him blink and take a step back, and Sebastian went after him, fists balled.  He had always avoided fights at home, but now all he wanted to do was hit the fox in front of him.  Somewhere in the background, he heard the cougar shout, and he heard the click of a rifle being cocked.
	It was Jess’s hand on his arm that stopped him.  Her fingers brushed his arm so lightly he barely felt her, but it held him more firmly than the ropes had.
	“That doesn’t do any good.  Push it back, hide it away.  You don’t need to give them any more reason to be afraid of you,” she said.
	But Thomas didn’t look like he was afraid.  He was smiling, and he put a gentle hand on Sebastian's other arm.
	“Listen to Jess.  Keep it safe so you can use it later.  You could really help us out, if you’re willing,” he said.
	Sebastian retreated as Thomas came towards him, until he bumped into the Corporal, who put her hands around his arms.  She held him differently now, her fingers tight but not painful, like he was something she didn’t want to lose.  He shut his eyes and wished he had stayed at home.