She lifted her head, and Cultat was still there, waiting.
"Battle of Torran Rats," she said; then she explained.
'WHAT HAVE YOU to do with it?"
She was sitting on the bed, at its foot, still robed, holding herself rigidly. Xink had put his hand gently to her shoulder after leading her back here; but she hadn't responded, and he'd withdrawn it.
He was standing now in a far corner of the chamber, eyes downcast. He had heard her question.
"I... don't know what it means. Beauty—" He cut himself off.
Petgrad. It was the largest and most powerful of the southern city-states, located not too far from Febretree. However, no single state of the Isthmus could, at this stage, muster a force to stand against the Felk. Cultat was trying to gather an alliance of the remaining free states. It was a formidable task. But he needed more than an army to meet Weisel and the Felk.
Cultat, Petgrad's premier, had visited her. Specifically. She had known some while now that Trael was the next logical step for the Felk. Devising a plan of counterattack, however... that had been a categorically different task for her—far more difficult, far more rewarding. But she had succeeded. She was certain. The Battle of Torran Flats. Use the tactics of Dardas against the Felk military leader; turn the tables.
Afterward Cultat, that great fierce man, had gone with his entourage. Obviously the entire meeting was meant to be secret. Honnis had directed Xink—who'd waited all the while inside one of the archways into the dome—to return her to their quarters.
Xink was doubtlessly a part of this ... though she still didn't know exactly what this was.
"You're working with Honnis, too," she said. Her sandaled feet still felt cold from that old underground chamber.
"Working ... with ... ?"
She was staring directly at him now, but he was still watching the floor.
"How conveniently you appeared," she said, a quiver tugging at her voice. "And with you these comfortable quarters. And so I neglected my other studies. Honnis means for me to work exclusively on his war project— means to squeeze every possible effort from me. And so I am kept... k-k-kept happy. By you. You ..."
He was awash in blurs now, as if the lamplight overhead had turned to liquid. Through the haze, she saw him take a few steps toward her, hesitate.
"B— Praulth. Please. I beg you to believe. If it's a machination, I've only played the slightest role in it. Surely if you're being used, so am I."
"You?" It was a sob.
"And I don't care. I'm grateful for the time we've had together ... the times I hope we'll still have. I don't care if—why—Honnis—"
"He put you on to me," she said; then stopped and choked down the tears, fiercely. She would not whimper like a child. "He ... what? Offered a reward, perhaps, to you? Payment?"
Wiping her eyes, she saw him clearer, his handsome face etched with pain, tears of his own in his limpid blue eyes, the flecks of gold in them sparkling.
"I have loved you, Praulth. I have. I wish to go on doing so."
"What are you getting?"
"You're beautiful to me. When I first saw you, you were like a radiant child—"
"I'm not a child."
It was the first sharp thing she'd ever said to him, the first she had dared to say. But now she dared. In among the churning confusion and fear, she most certainly felt anger.
He hastily licked his lips. "I—I know you are not—"
"What reward are you getting from Honnis for... for being with me?" Hateful, so hateful to say the words, to even think the thoughts.
Xink drew a breath, drew himself erect. He shook his head once, as if to clear it. His features became composed. "Master Honnis has promised me an eventual seat on the sociology council. He has the means to leverage it."
It was a confession. Praulth stared at her lover, her beautiful lover, feeling the hotness in her throat, feeling emotions tearing and ripping.
But Xink wasn't done. "I have also fallen genuinely in love with you during the course of this. My heart belongs to you—whether you choose to reject it or not, it's yours. Now and forever. In this ... I'm helpless."
He spoke it in the same level divulging tone, even as the tears continued to ooze from his eyes.
Believe? Disbelieve? It seemed impossible. So much to sort through. Her very existence had been upended tonight; but perhaps it hadn't been utterly destroyed after all.
Xink remained where he was. Waiting. Waiting for her judgment, her pronouncement of sentence.
She gazed at him, and, yes, he was still beautiful, and, yes, her heart soared even as it desperately ached. Her mind whirled.
Evidently Cultat was in cahoots with Honnis—the war studies master using her, Praulth, to predict Weisel's movements ... and now Cultat using her to formulate the winning plan of battle.
It was overwhelming.
Praulth lifted a trembling hand toward Xink. A look of hope flowed over his face.
"Come to me," she said. "We must talk. We have ... so much to talk about."
RADSTAC (3)
SHE ROCKED UP and forward, standing on the stirrups, and took the arrow just above her right breast.
Do the thing that'll most confuse your enemies.
It had carried over a substantial distance. She'd seen the startled bird wing and squawk into the sky, far back in the brush—the creature's movement too sudden, its cry too alarmed. Whoever was back there was a terrifically skilled—or lucky—archer.
The arrow had lost some of its momentum. Still, it hit more than hard enough to punch her off the saddle. She went with the movement, rolling her body at the hips, reaching out and seizing Deo's heavy buckled belt as she tumbled toward the ground. He came off his saddle with a half-yelp of surprise. She managed not to pull his full weight down on top of herself.
The shaft had bit into her weathered leather armor, the flanged head lodged there. If it had gone past her, struck her employer, her charge ... well, she would have failed in this her first job as a bodyguard/escort. That wouldn't have sat well with her. Actually it was possible the arrow had been meant to go past their noses, a warning, but the archer was either off the mark or so talented he or she could cut it just that finely; either way, Radstac hadn't felt inclined to risk it.
Their horses fussed, but neither reared. They had landed between the beasts, just a few paces from the riverbank where they'd been heading. Water the horses, fill the waterskins. A brief rest. Deo talking, telling one of an apparently limitless store of anecdotes about the topsy-turvy travails of growing up as a noble in Petgrad. Then she'd seen the bird. Instinct sprang like a coiled trap.
He was scrambling for his feet. Radstac, still gripping his belt, kept him on the ground. She rolled, stayed low, getting her scabbard out from under her but not yet drawing the combat sword. Her head swiveled. She checked every bearing. They were on a northward road, a minor one. Brush on one side, thick; trees over there. There the river.
They weren't alone. More than just the archer. She saw the telltales—the bushes stirring in the breezeless midday, the small swirls of dust. There—and there. She heard, over the river's disinterested gurgle, the crackle of the brush. Closing from three different points. It was a good ambush.
She turned, still on her elbows, and had a throwing knife in her right hand. Deo had loosed his sword. He remained on the ground. Rugged face set—primed, not panicky. His eyes were picking out the more obvious signs of their waylayers.
"Stay," she said and, in a ball, rolled herself under the strong black-bodied horse she'd been allocated. She came out, up onto her feet, the sword flashing into her left hand—the hand that wore the weighted leather glove, its hooks still retracted.
The startled face looked up at her, a body prowling through the tall yellow grass on its belly. Her metal-toed boot struck the brow above the shock-wide left eye. Then she performed another pivot, hearing the arrow's whistle going through the air she no longer occupied. Not as good a shot. Different arch
er, this one.
Back to the horses. Deo up on one knee but holding there, sword in a two-fisted grip at the ready. She went past. Three figures were racing up the road, charging. They wore mismatched bits of armor. One carried a shield, also a cudgel. The other two, swords.
She flung the throwing knife—hard, accurate trajectory, into the shield with a resounding thump. Her heavy sword came up for the other two assailants, both of whom were chopping their swords for her, downward strokes, side by side. She caught both blades against her sword, her sinewy left shoulder absorbing the impacts. Neither of their weapons was going to break her blade.
The one with the club had had his shield jammed violently back against his body by the force of the throwing knife, whose tip had spiked through the shield's metal mantle and into the wood beneath. He was still blundering forward.
Radstac reached, tore the knife free, kicked the clubber's knee out from under him; down he went.
The scarred bracer on her right wrist caught the blow as one of the swords tried another chop. She stepped out— seeing two more here, two more here, figures coming out of the trees and scrub.
The finely balanced throwing knife launched again. Her combat sword jumped nimbly from her left to her right hand. Out from her glove came the paired prongs, her left leathered fist a fighting weight. She swung, hearing and feeling hooks catch a too-slow limb as she turned the other way with her sword. Deo still behind her. Herself between him and these ambushers, quite a few of them. Another arrow now, this one picking off a bit of her left earlobe; she'd barely moved in time. Spinning, parrying, chopping, dancing just outside of the blows, but they were closing.
They were good, but she was better. But they had numbers. They weren't going to have an easy time of it, though. They—
"Stop it! Stop."
She hopped back, cut a hard slice out of the air to keep anyone from immediately following.
"Stop it! We lay down."
Deo's sword hit the ground. He had called the surrender.
She waited, stance firm, head swiveling once more, meeting the ambushers' eyes, seeing that the words were heard. Waited until all movement stopped. Then she let her sword fall to the ground—a step away, still in reach for her. She wiped her hooks on her black leggings, gave the hand a fast snap, and retracted the prongs into their glove. The pain from her ear was at once intense and remote. Blood was pouring warmly down her neck.
Twelve, she counted, including the initial archer who was now approaching from farthest away. She'd hurt a few; none were dead.
Bandits, obviously. Their interests, traditionally, were merchant caravans, the ones that moved in the high summer, on larger roads. No doubt, however, the Felk war had seriously disrupted trade. By now those caravans that had ventured forth had returned to the Southsoil or their home city-states.
One among the bandits strode forward, waving down everyone's weapons, an air of command about her. "Desist!" The group held their places. "That means you, too!" She threw this last back over her shoulder at the archer, tall and young, coming up the road.
Radstac slid a glance at Deo. He was watching the woman, measuring, studying. His posture was confident. A look of calm about him.
The woman was short and exaggeratedly muscled. She halted several paces off, her body seeming to plant itself.
"If you've killed any of my people, you die." She said it to Radstac like someone explaining a dice game's rules.
"She's in my employ," Deo said to the muscular woman. "If you intend to kill her, after we have laid down arms, she'll hear it through me. Not from you."
Radstac heard the resolute tone in his smooth, eloquent voice. Hard wood beneath attractive varnish.
"Then for your sake," the woman said, "I hope you've been worth the trouble of ambushing."
"Worth it? Monetarily?" Deo asked, tone becoming almost droll. He put a hand into his coat pocket. He wore traveler's clothes of purely functional cut; but of course he wore them particularly well. The man would look suave dressed in a sack. "I should think so." His hand came out smoothly, then shook, rattling the coins.
A very distinct sound, Radstac thought, the sound of money.
That focused everyone's attention, keenly. When Deo opened the hand and let the midday sun gleam lovingly all over that gold, the group was mesmerized.
At that Deo turned. His hand swept behind him, and the goldies went flashing into the river just a few steps away. A lively current, foam around the rock outcroppings. It wasn't a wide river—they hadn't been concerned about fording it—but it was no streamlet either.
No less than five of the bandits raced for the bank, including—incredibly—the one that Radstac had ripped with her hooks.
The short woman shouted, "Godsdamn you fools! Leave it!"
They hit the water anyway. Radstac's sword was still only a step away.
Deo put back his head and laughed. He had a laugh as fine as his smile, as sincere and rich. The archer who'd shot away a part of Radstac's ear was now standing behind the woman who was spitting more exasperated orders.
The archer had meant that second arrow to kill her. The head of his first arrow, which she'd put herself in the way of purposely, was still jammed into her armor above her right breast, though the shaft had snapped off when she hit the ground.
"You're laughing yourself toward a slit throat."
Deo's chuckling trailed off, but he only smiled back at the woman's glare.
"A demonstration." He slapped the same pocket, made the contents jingle. 'There is more. But everything I carry, every scrap of money, is a bent copper compared to what I can offer. To the wealth I can tap. I can make you rich. Every single one of you. I can write a promissory note, to be redeemed in the Noble State of Petgrad... if you will do what I say."
"Let you go?" sneered the woman.
Deo took an easy step forward, still showing no fear. "Take me north. To the Felk. To their army. I wish to intercept it. I will assassinate the individual who leads that army. Get me to him, and I'll glut you with more money than you'd want to spend in your lifetimes."
THEY WERE IN the bandits' tent for negotiations, though there was nothing to negotiate, really. Deo had made his offer, his very generous offer, and it had plainly already been accepted, despite the perfunctory dickering on the part of the bandit leader. She had introduced herself as Anzal.
They sat on the canvas floor, Radstac behind Deo. She was wearing her weapons once more. The bandit leader didn't like her, though none in the gang had died of the wounds she'd inflicted. Radstac herself had smeared a bit of plaster on her ear, using the small aid kit that she carried. The chunk that had been torn from her lobe was gone; she didn't give it any more thought than she did her body's scars.
Anzal named a staggering sum of money. Deo nodded. She doubled the sum. He nodded still.
He shook a page of paper from a sheaf he removed from his coat pocket. It bore a dark border and much official-looking print, stamped here and there.
"Promissory note," he said.
"To be filled in... ?" Anzal was trying to hide the hunger in her eyes.
"When you've gotten me to the Felk war commander, of course. Or"—he grunted a tiny chuckle—"just before, I suppose. Or," he said, a sober crease appearing between his red brows, "you could murder my bodyguard, hold a blade to my throat, and force me to sign now. And when you got to Petgrad and the Municipal Funds Office, they would read the name I had written. It would be a code word. You would never leave that city. You would never see daylight for the remainder of your lives, which wouldn't last long."
He had not given his name to these people, Radstac realized, her scarred face remaining bland.
Shortly after the negotations, she and Deo left the tent, picked through the small camp, past the campfire, and went to where their own tent was pitched. The archer who had nicked Radstac's ear was scowling at her. So were most of the others. A guard or guards would stand outside their tent through the night.
&nbs
p; No one would come in, though. She laid her sword alongside their blankets, leaving the glove on her hand. The tent's interior was dark. She would probably chew a bit of mansid later.
They lay together, heads touching, blankets across their legs, breathing words at each other that nobody would overhear.
"What of your ambassadorial mission to Trael?" She had been waiting some while to ask. "Your uncle's plan to gather an alliance."
"It's too late for Trael. The Felk are already making for it. Cultat knows so."
"So why send you there?"
"I'm expendable." Deo's voice was steady. "I don't imply that Cultat wants me dead. I know he cares for me, for all of his family. But he cares—must care—for his people more. And so we of that family
must make the first sacrifices as Petgradites in this war, which is why I volunteered. He is right to have made the judgment."
"But you won't obey it?" Radstac's voice was equally level.
"The Felk are not stoppable. I don't believe that even the alliance my uncle is hoping for will stand against their strength. They are led by a man named Weisel. He is the key. Our field intelligence indicates that he is a master war commander. If I eliminate that one ..."
She heard the eagerness now. He wanted to do this. Badly.
"The Felk will still have their mighty army and their wizards and—"
"No one to lead."
She allowed him to cut her off. It was what she'd expected him to say.
"Cultat has sent emissaries to all the major states. To Q'ang, Ebzo, Grat, Ompellus Prime. To the smaller cities as well. Dral Blidst. Hingo. Places you've never heard of. Insane. Impossible. Petgrad has fought wars with just about every place I've mentioned. Well... not us. Not in our lifetime. But in generations past. And the rivalries persist, culturally embedded. If he waits until he's sealed an accord with all those disparate states ..." He grunted a laugh. "By that time the Felk will possess the Isthmus."
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