She wasn't done addressing the assembly, and they were all still staring. Some had the good sense to look scared.
"The war news comes. You all hear it. It washes down from the north, no different than news of crop failures in other cities—stories you place great faith in, seeing how there's a potential for profit there for some of you. You know what you hear of the Felk is true. You know this war is categorically different from those you've known in the past. Different from those your grandmothers and grandfathers knew. This is a war beyond the scope of you childish Isthmusers. And yet it's real. And it's coming this way. Frightens you, doesn't it? Petrifies you. Because by the time the Felk reach here, they'll have absorbed the man-power and resources of gods know how many city-states. You'll be calling it the Felk Empire by then. And they've got magic on their side, and that's maybe most terrifying of all to you. They'll be unstoppable. Certainly more than a match for your army as it now stands. And you—you people of some wealth, maybe of some rank and power— what do you do? Sit on your asses, swill beer, and reassure yourselves that the danger doesn't exist. Stories for children you said, you pathetic fop?"
She might have spat then, might have hurled her cup into the faces turned her way. But her tirade had done nothing but make her disgust rise to a boil. They were still staring, still in shock. It was a fair guess that these merchants and landowners weren't often spoken to in this manner.
The landlord with the tweaked nose stayed out of sight as she marched out of the pub, using the exit that led to the latrine.
Evening had settled over Petgrad while she'd wasted time in the pub. Late summer light grew paler. High clouds were discussing the possibility of rain. Still, autumn was very near, maybe already here. It might be a winter war, depending on how long it lasted.
Insects buzzed out of her way as she emerged from the latrine stall.
She heard footsteps—someone not trying to move stealthily, someone waiting to use the pisser... or waiting for her.
He was turned from the spray of waning sunlight that spattered down into this unroofed nook alongside the pub. The grey hood showed only a solid jaw, the suggestion of lips twisted into something resembling a smile. He stood well, balanced so as to move in any direction, though the stance would appear entirely casual to a citizen's glance.
"The barkeeper asked me to see if you would give him his nose back."
"I dropped it in there. There's a hole in the floor, and it doesn't smell good down there."
"Well, Noseless Solly isn't such a bad moniker."
"Are we going to fight, fuck, or are you going to show me that face, you've been hiding and explain what you want from me?"
She smiled, that same disquieting expression.
He raised his hands, rolled the cowl off his face, and returned the smile. His was quite disarming. His face was what women would call rugged, not handsome. They stared a moment.
The moment lingered.
THE RUGGEDNESS OF his features, which offered soft bewitching blue eyes among hard planes and heavy bones, extended to his body as well. A solid physique, lean but wiry. Snaky muscles that coiled. Dueler's scars on the upper arms. Roughened hands.
Radstac liked how those rough hands handled her. She liked that Deo—so he gave her for his name—enjoyed being handled back. Males who imagined they were the unquestioned orchestrators of sex were the most tedious of partners ... unless they changed their attitudes under her not especially gentle ministrations.
Deo had brought her to this opulent room. Carpeted floors, frivolous and costly looking art on the walls. A monstrously big bed. They had made use of its entire surface.
He wasn't, evidently, a postcoital cuddler. She was glad of that. Being nuzzled and having useless declarations murmured at her once the event had... uncorked—so the
expression went—was irritating enough sometimes to cancel out the pleasure of the whole incident.
Neither, though, was Deo one of those that fled the scene immediately afterward—or, in this case, one that would evict her without delay. Instead, he climbed from the bed, stretched his naked body, pulling taut muscles even tighter, and padded over pale carpeting to a circular stone table where several colored bottles stood.
"What would make you happy?" His fingers lifted a varnished wood cup.
"Water."
He didn't give her a look, poured it, poured something dark purple for himself, and returned to the bed.
She took the cup and swallowed. She guessed him to be about her age, just at the start of his fourth tenwinter. His years hadn't been pampered; so his body attested. This room pointed to wealth, but he wasn't swollen and lazy. Wasn't like those wretched merchants in the pub, too afraid to even consider the possibility that their comfortable positions might be in jeopardy.
Deo had spoken against that one merchant, the one with the face hair. Well, maybe hadn't spoken against; more, he had acknowledged the legitimacy of the war news from the north. She had learned in that pub that Petgrad's military, despite the threat of the Felk, hadn't even been mobilized. Apparently this whole city was under a spell of obliviousness. It was infuriating, not the least because it was going to make it hard for her to find work here. She might have to push on farther north.
"Do you object to the word mercenary ... or should I find another?" Deo asked.
"It's a perfectly fine word. I can never get sell-sword past my lips without lisping it."
He drank. She could smell it. Something alcoholic, but it didn't reek; an undertone of berries to it.
"You've seen more than one campaign."
"And you've outlived a duel or two."
He looked at her scars; some were more dramatic than others. She looked at his, tiny white stripes across his sleek, hard arms. She never minded anyone looking. Some got terribly aroused by the sight of her mistreated flesh. Once one of this particular ilk had turned dangerous. He would never be so again.
Her clothes—everything, armor, boots, her leather glove and its hooks—were scattered from the doorway to the foot of the bed, along with Deo's cowl and underclothing. No weapons in reach. This didn't bother her.
Staying here in the city would be the safe thing to do. That was an article of her personal code, the rules she had devised, the rules that her particular life had taught her. They wouldn't work for others. Most people didn't pay enough attention to their lives, didn't try to understand the sense; they just muddled along, not even aware enough to see how easily it could end. How quickly. How simply.
She sipped more water. It was purer even than the relatively clean supply in the public cisterns. She stretched her supine body on the immensely soft bed, hearing a vertebra pop.
"I like that. The smile. The real one."
She floated her eyes toward him. Do the safe thing. The safe thing was to stay in Petgrad and wait until someone purchased her services. Striking north now was risky. So was crossing over to the Felk side to sell her sword. The Felk didn't need mercenaries, not at this point, not after they'd absorbed substantial troop numbers from their earlier conquests.
"I wasn't aware I was smiling," she said.
"Exactly. I also like your accent."
"We don't have accents. You do."
"Fair enough. It's very subtle. I've met Southsoilers, a lot of them. I've always wanted to hire one as a storyteller, just to hear that enunciation. Wouldn't matter in the least what the story was."
"Must be amusing to be able to afford a ... storyteller."
"Said I wanted to hire one. Didn't say I had the money."
This wordplay was, she thought, almost as enjoyable as the sex. How odd that was. And how fantastically rare. Good lovers almost never made good conversationalists. Deo drank more of his purple drink, lounging back on a few of the bed's abundant pillows.
"What is the matter with these people?" she asked, as if picking up a thread of conversation from earlier. "Those merchants in that pub... don't they realize a Felk onslaught is inevitable?"
"Do you actually think resistance could be successful?"
"I don't know. I don't make it my business to know. I don't hire myself out as an officer or a strategist. I'm a fighter. Personally, I'm quite successful."
"Always pick the winning side?"
Her barking laugh was, she knew, something like her normal smile—disconcerting.
"Hardly," she said. "But wars don't go on until every last soldier is slain. One head of state or the other surrenders or capitulates to terms, usually well before the slaughter gets irreversibly messy. I fight for whichever side hires me. I fight well. I fight till someone says stop. I don't win the wars or lose them. I participate."
His laugh was much warmer than hers. His blue eyes moved over her body again, not lingering on the scars.
"Everyone's afraid," Deo said. "Yes. Everyone. It's war, but it's not war that we recognize. You pointed that out yourself, rather articulately I thought."
"I thought so as well."
"I was in disguise at that pub for the same reason you were there—to sound out the views of the people. I've been doing it a lot lately and keep encountering the same thing."
"How can that be?"
"The people have good Uves here in Petgrad. We've had generations of reasonable prosperity. We like things stable, grounded. Why upset a good thing? This war, these Felk... they'll upset it. Most certainly. But the people won't face it."
"So"—her hand glided out, her finger tracing a vein along his firm shoulder—"I've wasted a journey here."
"Wasted?" He gave her a wry, mock-injured look.
"An unhired mercenary is somebody walking about with a sword and nowhere to stick it."
"Where is your sword?"
"Public Armory." She felt a yawn overtake her. The bed was ethereally soft and comfortable.
"You'd better go retrieve it, then." Deo's gaze pulled her drifting eyes back open. "I wish to hire you. I should also tell you who I am."
"Someone with the money to afford a mercenary, I hope."
"Yes. That. I am also Na Niroki Deo." He hadn't expected her to recognize the full title. "I'm the nephew of the premier of Petgrad."
RAVEN (1)
"WELL, GO ON. Walk through it."
Raven recognized the bullying tone even before she identified the voice's owner. This wasn't the first time she'd been harassed.
The mocking command was followed immediately and inevitably by a firm hand backed by a strong arm that shoved her face-first into the corridor's stone wall. The stone was cold. It was always cold, even in summer. This was Felk, after all, the Isthmus's northernmost city, and its climate wasn't as gentle as it was rumored to be in the south.
There was nothing gentle about this place in particular. This was the Academy.
Raven didn't try to turn her head. She heard laughter and counted at least three among her assailants.
"I can't," Raven said, slowly and deliberately. She knew it did no good to show either fear or defiance.
"Of course you can," said the girl who now had her tightly pinned. The girl was called Hert, and she certainly lived up to her name. "You're a wizard, aren't you?"
"She sure thinks she is," said one of the others. More laughter followed.
"I'm not," Raven said, as steadily as before, keeping control over her fear. Discipline was key to everything. "I'm in training. Just like you."
"Oh, but you're so smart," said Hert. "So talented. You're the one who always wants the toughest exercises. If it was up to you, we'd all spend every watch studying and practicing. No sleep, no food. Not even a piss break."
It wasn't true. But Raven didn't expect the others to share her zeal. Many of the Academy's students behaved like undisciplined children. She behaved like a student who meant to graduate to greater things. Much greater things.
The hand pressed her harder. Raven's forehead and nose were now being mashed against the wall.
"I said, walk through the wall."
"I can't." Raven could barely get the words out. She tasted the wall's stone on her lips.
"Oh, come on," Hert said. "It's just a transport spell. You can do it. And we want to see." The
laughter that followed was louder and crueler.
Raven sighed. She didn't have time for this. The long day's lessons were done, but she had studying to do in her room.
Just a transport spell. That was laughable, though Raven certainly didn't join in the laughter. The Far Movement magic that opened the portals through which people and even military equipment (so the gossip went) could be moved was very powerful. Only highly skilled and specialized mages could work it, and it required more than one wizard to do it. A mage had to be present at both ends of the transport corridor; the two had to be working in perfect harmony; they had to call upon powers far beyond Raven's present abilities. And even with all these efforts, they could only open portals that were very narrow—just enough, say, for a wagon to get through—and those portals could only be sustained for a limited time.
There was no point in mentioning any of this to Hert, however.
"Do it," Hert was saying, and now her tone turned darker with the promise of impending violence. "Do it!"
There were monitors who patrolled the corridors, but none were nearby at the moment. Of course.
Raven was going to have to do something.
She sighed again, then started gathering herself. She focused her mind and reached for those forces that aided in the acts of magic. Those forces, she'd been taught, were natural and always present. It was just a matter of tapping them, though it required a certain inherent talent and a great deal of discipline. Raven possessed both those ingredients.
She felt the power move through her in a kind of giddy rush.
Suddenly a discharge of sparks burst around her head. Her unbecoming dark hair rose up on end.
The hand left her back. Someone gasped sharply.
Raven let the minor spell dissipate. At last she turned, being careful to wear an apologetic look on her somewhat homely face.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I tried but I couldn't get through the wall."
Hert, who was as large as Raven but far more muscular, retreated a step, then caught herself. It wouldn't do to show any weakness in front of her cronies. Probably she would punch Raven now, just for good measure.
But luck, finally, was on Raven's side. A monitor came around the corner at that moment, waving one of those paddles they so generously used on students' backsides. Everyone scattered. Raven made straight for her quarters.
RAVEN LEANED BACK on her stool and rubbed her burning eyes. She had no idea what time it was or how long she had been poring over her studies, and she really didn't care. She was determined not to sleep until she had mastered the lesson they'd spent the day studying.
Though there was no test scheduled for tomorrow, that was no guarantee that there wouldn't be one. Unannounced tests were the norm, not the exception for magicians in training. What was more, since the tests were often of a practical rather than a theoretical nature, failing one could be injurious, if not actually fatal.
Rising to her feet, Raven stretched and walked a few steps, all the movement her cramped cubicle would allow. Students' cubicles were designed to be utilitarian, not comfortable. Hers was barely large enough to accommodate a sleeping pallet, her study desk and stool, and a chamber pot.
There was no mirror. The Academy didn't provide one, and Raven had seen no point in purchasing one for herself. She already knew what she looked like.
Her mother had named her Raven in hopes that the girl child would grow to match her own grace and beauty. The truth was, her mother had always been very proud of her own good looks. It was her beauty that once caught the eye of a rich and powerful man of the city of Felk and moved him to relocate her from her small village home into his bed as his mistress.
She had fulfilled that role willingly and with enthusiasm for many years, until she had become pregnant. At that time, her lover "retired" her, but with a s
tipend that enabled her to return to her old home and set herself up comfortably without having to work.
As her looks began to fade at last, she had hopes that her daughter would blossom and follow in her footsteps.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. Raven had been a chubby baby, and rather than melting away when she matured, her baby fat solidified and grew. Despite her mother's admonishments to "stand up straight" and "arch your back, don't sit there like a lump," Raven grew from being a plump, awkward girl to being a plump, awkward young woman with stringy dark hair. She had also never grown beyond a very modest height.
Friends might have made her situation bearable, but she didn't have any. Her mother always held herself aloof and apart from the other villagers, feeling her years among the rich made her better than the rustic, rural folk she had grown up with.
The villagers responded to this attitude with undisguised scorn, which their children emulated in their own fashion by taunting, teasing, and socially debasing the young Raven every chance they got.
Denied any affection by those around her, Raven had retreated into her fantasies. Her mother had insisted that she learn to read, believing it was prerequisite for anyone hoping to someday move among the nobler set, and Raven proved to be an eager student. Quickly mastering the basics, she devoured any text or writing that came her way, and took to writing her own when the limited supply of new material was exhausted.
Turning a blind eye to her actual surroundings, Raven fashioned a dream world she could retreat to at will, a world built from bits and pieces she had heard or read about, other lands and the Isthmus's various city-states. The nearest city to her little village was Felk, where her mother had once lived with her father. It was an old city, and a large one, and thus fascinating to the lonesome, homely girl.
There was one fantasy in particular that she cherished and held dear: Someday she would seek out her father, and he would shower on her the affection and approval that her mother never gave her.
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