Praulth hadn't dreamt of glories, not during her childhood in Dral Blidst. Her ambitions had involved only a deepening of her education, and those had led her directly to the University. Febretree was her refuge, a staunch fortress of learning, where intellect was celebrated above all else, where she could achieve and succeed and surpass. Where the very inclinations that had made her life so uncomfortable among her timber trade family here made her a fourth-phase student of first ranking, one with a very promising future.
She would have been content. She would have kept to her course and climbed from Thinker to Attache. She would have striven, and one day she would have taken her rightful place as head of the University's historical war studies.
If Master Honnis hadn't chosen her to study the Felk war, if Xink had never appeared in her life, if Cultat hadn't brought her here to Petgrad...
How different her life would have been, how normal, how predictable. And what a waste if she had never achieved this new, more exciting identity.
General Praulth, chief strategist of the Alliance. It was a worthy title. Now she had to make certain that the Alliance defeated the Felk. History remembered the victors.
She had examined the recent reports of the conquest of Trael. The Felk had initially surrounded the city, like water in a rising river encircling a stone. But there was a delay before the actual invasion commenced. It was a curiosity. Cultat's scouts, however, attested to the lag, and Praulth trusted them for their accuracy.
She had puzzled over the anomaly. It vexed her. She could deduce no military advantage in the postponement, not unless General Weisel meant to provoke a surrender.
But it wasn't Weisel, she reminded herself unnecessarily. It was Dardas. And Dardas wouldn't have wasted time in this manner, wouldn't have allowed the people of Trael the courtesy of deliberating their surrender. Sook had successfully surrendered to the Felk, but only because they had done so preemptively, before the great enemy horde was at their borders.
Something else must have been afoot at Trael, Praulth had concluded. Some other military operation... perhaps some smaller action. And Dardas/Weisel had been awaiting the results before committing his forces to overrunning the city.
It barely made sense. At least, as far as it fit with Dardas's historical tactics. And there, of course, was the thought that was most disturbing. Perhaps it wasn't Dardas any longer. Maybe Cultat's godsdamned nephew had succeeded in assassinating Weisel, and thereby had killed off the brilliant war commander who was living a resurrected life within that body.
What that would mean, most catastrophically, was that Praulth's ingenious plan to reenact the Battle of Torran Flats would prove useless. A new Felk war leader wouldn't recognize the battle pattern. Wouldn't try to recreate one of Dardas's greatest Northland victories. Wouldn't fall into the trap that Praulth had devised, whereby the Alliance forces would move suddenly and decisively and hack the Felk army in two, which would almost certainly be a crippling blow.
Praulth had said nothing of this to Premier Cultat or anyone else, not even Xink. It meant, of course, that she was committing this newly formed Alliance to a strategy that might fail utterly. And if this Alliance was defeated, there would be no other force that could rise up against the Felk advance. This was the last desperate chance, before the Felk conquered their way southward, all the way to Febretree and Dral Blidst.
Then the Felk would possess all of the Isthmus.
She wouldn't allow it. Whatever her personal goals and her ambitions for her place in history, she had no desire to live under an invader's rule.
She had turned several corners, onto various streets, without giving her direction much thought. She paused now, looking over her surroundings, looking upward. The district's towers were still there, stark and looming and just a little bit sinister in the cloud-muted moonlight and the glow of the huge city.
But this particular street wasn't familiar. Around her were the monuments of municipal buildings, but at this late watch there was no activity within or among them. A wind sounded through the great gully of the street, whistling eerily. She had come to think of Petgrad as a place of constant bustle, but this patch of it at least was quite inert at the moment.
Praulth glanced all about. She saw no one.
Petgrad had changed over the past quarter-lune or so. She was peripherally aware of the disruptions and burdens the rash influx of refugees had caused. People were fleeing ahead of the Felk, streaming south. Petgrad, no doubt, looked like an obvious sanctuary, the greatest strongest city of the southern half of the Isthmus. Surely the Felk wouldn't dare go against it.
It was foolish thinking, but Praulth understood it. She also understood that Petgrad's food supplies weren't inexhaustible. Nor was its housing. Something on the order of thousands of war fugitives had crossed into the city in a disastrously short time. Native Petgradites were raising irate protests.
But that wasn't Praulth's concern. She was no desperate stray evading the war. She was in that war. Granted, she wasn't riding off with Cultat and the Petgrad contingent of the Alliance; she would never walk a battlefield or be put in physical harm's way. But her contribution was invaluable, and her sacrifice was noble. After all, she had foregone a promising academic career—
Praulth heard a ruckus, above the whistling of the night wind. The large buildings in this district weren't jammed together side by side. They were separated by alleyways, and along these refuse had accumulated, probably over a long time. More recent deposits of trash were evident, including slops and offal from whatever kitchens serviced these institutions.
She had halted nearby the mouth of one of these alleys. The commotion was coming from there. Sounds of somebody rooting among the rubbish. It was dark down there, and the noises abruptly set her heart speeding. Memories of being caught out late in Dral Blidst's woods, hurrying homeward, hearing unidentifiable animal sounds in the trees around her, scavengers tearing at wild meat, no doubt scenting her as well.
Praulth backed away. There was still no one else within sight. She looked skyward, trying to orient herself. She couldn't have wandered too far. She could get back to her rooms quickly enough. Surely she was no farther than a few streets away. Xink would be there waiting for her, and quite suddenly she wanted very much to see him.
But the ruckus from the dark alleyway increased, something heavy now being tumbled over on its side, and at last a voice, savage and unintelligible and enraged, rose in the darkness. It scarcely sounded human, and it put a terrible deep chill into Praulth that the night alone could not have managed. She felt eyes watching her from that alley.
Then she heard footfalls. Coming up that alleyway. And more of those furious gibbering cries.
Praulth turned and started to run; and before she'd made her first fleeing step, she knew that the thing in the alley was human, and that made it all the more frightening. She tried to draw breath to shout, but fear froze everything she needed to make the noise.
The creature from the alley smelled of the foul slops it had been scavenging. It overtook her and knocked her to the ground from behind and laid a terrible weight on her.
She heard and felt the fabric of her clothing being rent.
* * *
Dardas the Conqueror. Dardas the Fox. Dardas the Invincible. There was one other moniker that history had awarded the Northland war master. What was it?
Dardas the Butcher. Yes, that was right.
He had earned every one of those titles. Likely he had been known by many more, names whispered fearfully, conjuring up images of implacable bloodshed, a relentless army sweeping the cold bleak reaches of the Northern Continent... and Dardas commanding its every crushing move.
How many had been slain in his campaigns, in total? How many deaths was that one man responsible for? The number could never be counted. It could never be guessed. One might as readily number the drops of water necessary to fill a lake.
And that number was only growing. U'delph had been a slaughter. Surely othe
r such atrocities awaited.
"Beauty?"
Dardas. Dardas. Undying Dardas. There, that was yet another name for him. But none would ever know him by it. Weisel would take the credit for Dardas's deeds in this modern age.
"What's happened?"
In Dardas's original life two hundred and fifty years ago, he had faced quite a few adversaries. He was hardly the only war commander the contentious Northern Continent had produced. He had contemporaries, some quite skilled. Some of those warlords raised armies and did battle and held off Dardas's advances... for a time. But none of those foes were remembered. They had all been pulverized by the legend that the Butcher had left indelibly behind.
"By the madness of the gods, Praulth, what's happened to you?"
To be remembered she had to defeat Dardas, even if he was only in the guise of General Weisel. Besides, when she wrote her history of this war, she could reveal the truth of things, fantastic though it was.
Xink was holding her, fussing over her torn clothes, making a useless nuisance of himself. Just draw me a bath, she told him. But he acted as if he hadn't heard.
Praulth was tired. She was cold. She hurt, here and there. She hurt within. But she had made it back to these rooms. When it had all finished, she had picked herself up from the street and come here.
Perhaps there was yet one more name for Dardas, she thought. Dardas the Rapist. For what was his invasion but the unwanted penetration of the Isthmus by the Felk army?
Just heat some water and fill the tub. I will wash myself. I will scrub myself. I will scour away every last thing that has been done to me, and it will not deter me, will not daunt me, will not stand between me and my victory over my rightful adversary.
But Xink, sobbing now, still didn't hear her.
AQUINT (3)
The shock was so great that his first reaction was to laugh. He put his hands on his sides, put back his head, and guffawed, loud and long. It was just so... so... so audacious! By the gods, the nerve it must have taken.
"I think the joke's lost on me," Cat finally said, with his usual disapproval.
They were outside the Registry, looking up at the north face of the building.
"The cheek!" Aquint managed, bringing his laughter under control. "The grit, the fortitude. What is the matter with you, lad? Can't you appreciate the magnitude of this stunt?"
"You might want to appreciate it a little less loudly," the boy said, his eyes flickering around at the other people.
Naturally, the sight had gathered a crowd. There was a lot of pointing and excited muttered comments. It was causing quite a stir.
Soldiers from the garrison were keeping everybody back, but dispersing the crowd wouldn't do much good. They would only reassemble a little farther away. Besides, the giant sigil could be seen from many streets away.
That obviously had been the whole idea behind it.
Aquint shook his head, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
"I'm stunned," he said.
"Then maybe you should try to act it," Cat said.
"Laughter is a way of dealing with shock. You might give it a try sometime."
"I don't feel like laughing," the boy said.
Aquint sighed. "When do you? Lad, the younger you are when you sample the joys and merriments of life, the better your memories of your youth will be."
Cat gave him a flat look. "Will that include all the times I've almost starved in the streets? Or been beaten? Or nearly been stabbed to death because someone wanted what I had?"
Aquint shrugged. Sometimes, there was just no talking to the boy.
"Well, never mind," Aquint said, adopting a businesslike tone. "What do you make of it?"
"Of what?" Cat asked, probably just to be difficult.
"What do you think, boy? That bold and enormous display there on the outer wall of the Registry. The giant circle with the slash through it, rendered in black paint. What do you make of it?"
Cat considered a moment, then said, blandly, "I'll bet the Broken Circle is responsible for it."
For a moment, Aquint was almost tempted to cuff the boy. Instead, he chuckled. "All right, Cat. Fun's over. Now, let's get to work. Come along."
It was early morning. The two of them had received an urgent summons from Governor Jesile. Now Aquint understood what it was all about.
Evidently, sometime during the night, somebody had scaled the north outside wall of the Registry and painted the Broken Circle's emblem there on the white stone. Probably there had been more than one person involved in the stunt. What was truly remarkable was that it had been accomplished almost literally under the noses of the garrison, without raising the alarm.
And that, Aquint judged, took real daring. Whatever else, it was an admirable feat.
He and Cat went around to one of the Registry's other entrances. They made their way to Jesile's office.
Aquint expected to find the Felk governor ranting and furious. He was prepared to let Jesile vent his frustrations by barking orders and demanding that the Circle be brought in, right now.
Instead, Colonel Jesile was at his desk, immersed in paperwork, his hard face showing no special emotion. He glanced up when Aquint and Cat were admitted.
He didn't offer them seats, didn't say anything for a long, curiously blank moment. Then he said, conversationally, "I've been contemplating the particular placement."
Aquint blinked. "How's that, Governor?"
"They chose the north wall," Jesile said, as if pointing out something obvious.
"So they did," said Aquint.
"You don't find that significant?"
"More significant than the fact that the perpetrator or perpetrators managed the deed at all?" Aquint didn't see what the colonel was getting at.
Jesile drummed his fingers among the opened scrolls on his desk. "You're not a Felk native."
It wasn't a question but Aquint answered anyway, "No, I am not." Then he added, with just a slight edge to his voice, "I'm a Callahan by birth." It was information Jesile surely already knew.
"If you were of Felk," the governor said, "you'd understand why those rebel bleeders painted that offense on the north wall."
Suddenly, Aquint did understand. Felk was to the north. It was, in fact, the northernmost city-state of the Isthmus. The Broken Circle had no doubt chosen the northern face of the Registry deliberately for this operation, as a way of demonstrating their most poignant defiance.
"So they've got flair," Aquint finally said, realizing as he did that he was being as drolly aggravating as Cat had been with him earlier.
"Flair?" Jesile said, spearing Aquint with his eyes. For a moment he seemed on the edge of an angry retort. Then he said, maintaining his calm manner, "Very well. We'll agree they've got... flair. I hope you'll also agree that this crime cannot go unanswered."
Aquint, even with his first reaction of stunned laughter, had known this. He had feared it.
"You're quite right," he said to Jesile. He felt Cat giving him a long, subtle sidelong look.
Jesile nodded. "Good. There will have to be visible punitive measures. Can you, at this time, locate any members of the so-called Broken Circle, which is currently operating against the lawful Felk occupation of Callah?"
It was a withering, formal question, and Aquint almost sagged under the weight of it.
"No," he said at last, voice suddenly hoarse, "I can't."
Colonel Jesile nodded again. He made a notation on one of the scrolls on his desk.
"Very well," Jesile said. "I suggest that you and your associates in the Internal Security Corps continue—and perhaps, if I might advise, step up—your efforts to locate the rebel underground here in Callah. In the meantime, I am forced to take actions more aggressive and severe than I would normally be inclined to take. The matter is out of my hands. What occurred last night wasn't merely an act of vandalism. It was a formal declaration of war, as far as I'm concerned."
Aquint nearly interrupted, but caught himself an
d held silent, dreading what was coming.
"If these people of Callah don't want the peace we've brought them," Jesile said, "then they can experience the alternative. Ten citizens will be rounded up at random. They will be flogged at the top of the watch, starting today at midday, in the public square. At the start of each subsequent watch, they will receive another regulation flogging. It will continue until the ten victims are all dead... or until at least one member of the Broken Circle comes forward and surrenders to this command."
Jesile waved the back of his hand at Aquint and Cat.
"That's all. Dismissed."
The two of them exited the office, a numb silence between them.
* * *
There was nothing even remotely amusing about that giant symbol now. It glared down menacingly as Aquint led Cat quickly away from the Registry.
Aquint's thoughts were moving fast. He had anticipated that Jesile would react militantly. But he hadn't expected the Felk governor to take these measures. Ten innocent Callahans were going to be killed. They were going to be beaten to death. Aquint nurtured no illusions that any self-sacrificing member of the Broken Circle was going to actually come forward to stop it. Things didn't work that way.
He looked back, almost involuntarily, at the receding north wall of the Registry. Whoever had managed the escapade had surely used a rope secured to the roof. What that must have been like, dangling there in the night, slapping black paint against stone, swinging gradually across the wall to complete the huge circle and slash, all while the Registry guards milled about obliviously below.
Yes, a bold and audacious feat, Aquint brooded. And one that was going to have dire consequences.
"Who do these godsdamned rebels think they are?" he suddenly exploded, there in the street.
Cat cautioned him to keep his voice down.
Aquint continued, more quietly but just as intently, "This Broken Circle, what good do they think they're doing?"
"I believe they're rebelling against the Felk," Cat said.
Aquint ignored the droll tone this time. "They're rebelling, are they? Then they should rebel. What have they accomplished so far? They've killed one Felk soldier. One! And that was as likely an accident as a premeditated act. They're just stirring up trouble for everybody else."
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