Wartorn: Resurrection

RASTAC (2)

SHE HAD NEVER been so high off the ground in her life. They built magnificent tall buildings in the Southsoil's grander cities, to be sure; but these Petgradites had something of a mania for towers, it seemed. In this administrative district of the city, the great stone spires punched toward the sky. This was evidently the tallest of all:

She was looking out through a wall made of glass—expertly cut, no. warps—and it made for an extraordinary view. She had chewed a corner of a mansid leaf before making the formidable climb up this tower's endless stairways. Petgrad's lights winked with individual clarity and life as she looked down on their array.

She would need to procure more leaves soon.

"There you are."

This level was near the top of the tower, perhaps the very top, just underneath the cupola of luminous metal that capped the structure. Deo had undertaken the climb with her, not needing to pause to rest any more than she had.

She saw the indistinct reflection in the glass and turned. The chamber was large and stylishly

under-furnished, its every surface polished to a high gloss. Dusky red stone underfoot, brass fixtures twinkling from the walls here and there. There was incense burning, a cool, very pleasant scent.

Deo turned from the nighttime view of the city as well. He and Radstac had spent time together the past several days. A fine few days. He had made good on his intention to hire her, though as yet, she'd done nothing but receive the goldies he put into her hand. She had retrieved her heavy combat sword from the Public Armory. And waited. It was possible, of course, he was merely paying for the use of her body; possible even that he wasn't a relative of Petgrad's premier at all, just some rich fool out to impress his new lover.

She hadn't thought so, though. It wasn't that difficult to measure a man's character, and Deo rang true.

"Uncle," he said now, crossing the gleaming floor toward the tall shape that had entered through doors of blood-oak wood.

Her eyes went to this new figure. Tall, solid but not stocky, red hair much longer and fuller than Deo's, the same shade but shot through with a goldish blond. He wore a beard over features far craggier than those Deo had. The beard had grey in it. The blue eyes were stonier. But these two looked very much like relatives.

Radstac watched as the two men—at least two ten winters apart in age, probably more—came together and spoke. She couldn't hear the words, but the rich sounds emanating from the older man made patterns that were almost tangible, dipping, rising, like music ...

One had to travel to the Isthmus to get fresh mansid leaves of such quality.

Eventually they turned and came toward her. The bearded one led. He wore a long lounging coat, sumptuous fabric, unsashed, its tails brushing the floor. Soft silent black shoes on his feet. The whites of his fierce blue eyes were reddened, but he didn't reveal his fatigue in his gait or the set of his coarse—and decidedly handsome—face.

"Na Niroki Cultat," Deo said, behind, formally, "Premier of the Noble State of—"

"I'm guessing she's deduced that by now, Nephew." Cultat halted. His hands folded themselves at his back. He looked at her, closely, briefly, then shifted his gaze past, to the panoramic window.

She had surrendered her weapons before being admitted to this chamber, including her glove. Deo had told her to do so, and she was working for him: There were also quite a few guards on the premises.

This Cultat was a fighter. She didn't need any mansid-inspired clarity to see that. Deo had dueling scars on his arms. She would wager that his uncle had them as well— and that whoever had put them there hadn't had an easy time of it.

"What do you think of our city?" He had a voice comfortable at command, but this was just a question, an honest one.

"Attractive. Clean. Prosperous."

"Better cities back home, I'd guess. Home"—a thoughtful hum rumbled briefly in his throat—"I daresay ... Republic of Dilloqi. Yes?"

Her colorless eyes widened. She hadn't told Deo the specifics of her origins.

"Thought so. I went south once, before my University days. To the Southsoil, with a pair of comrades more reckless and fearless and asinine even than I. I abandoned my duties, my family. We rode to the city of Ichuloo. We were there for Modyah Te Mody's abdication of her rule. Heard the criers in the streets. All three of us grotesquely drunk. Stumbled our way to the palace to see. I vomited out my guts on the way. Saw the soldiers turning back the crowds. Screaming, hysterics, violence—"

"A dark episode in Ichuloo's history," Radstac said, trying to equate this poised premier with the rash young idiot he was sketching for her.

"Indeed. Was a beautiful city, though." His gaze was still past her, through the glass. "What do you think of our people here?"

"As a people... blind fools. Individually is another matter."

"Yes. It's always that way, isn't it? When my two friends and I rode back, my father put me in a cell. He had a legal order for it. I'd reneged on my duties, you see, though to me at that age everything that was ever asked of me was a vast imposition. I was a premier's son, and I wanted, essentially, to be thoroughly indulged until the time came for me to assume my father's place. The burden of the premier's

post is often lifted from a parent's back and set on that of its child. But it is not always so. The Noble Ministry has the power to block an ascendancy, and with me, they would very likely have done so, but I was too obtuse to really see that. My days in that cell my father put me in, though—and there were quite some many days—along with my time at the University ... well, it all served me. I learned. I grew."

He drew a slow breath, not lost in his thoughts, not rambling out loud.

"The game of it, then ... how to make these people of Petgrad see reality. How?"

"I have come up against that quandary myself since arriving here," she said. In the tiny squiggly veins of his eyes she read the code of this man, this premier, this highest authority—literally—in the city. Atop his tower, gazing down on his domain. Yet he did not seem aloof. He cared for his people; yes, that was plain. But he saw them clearly, and he was troubled.

As leader of a city-state that lay in the path of the Felk, he should be troubled, Radstac thought.

"You expected us to be arming for war," Cultat said. "Adding numbers to our military. Grabbing up every mercenary and every farmer with an axe claiming to be a mercenary that came within reach."

Radstac said simply, "Yes."

"We do have an army, and it is maintained. At a cost the people grouse about. We've made a reputation for ourselves, you see. Petgrad, a powerful city, well-defended, a stable leadership structure. We don't lose our wars. When we're intruded upon, we set things right—successfully, decisively."

His jaw shifted beneath his beard. "In fact, no one has made a successful move against us in over a hundredwinter. You see the fatal snare of that, I'm sure."

"I do. Of course." She caught sight of Deo still lingering behind Cultat. Not nervously, though the premier's presence, even in this casual dress, was quite forceful. He must seem a titan garbed in the doubtlessly grand raiment of his office, she thought. Or wearing armor, a sword in his fist.

"My word alone isn't enough to build up and mobilize the army," he continued. "It requires a mandate of the people, endorsement by the Ministry. But first we of Petgrad must admit that we are no longer the strongest.

"Uncle." Deo stepped forward. He was wearing a sort of uniform tonight, a simple and elegant ensemble, red and gold, near the colors of Cultat's hair.

"I've seen to it my children learned proper behavior with less fuss than what I went through. Perhaps their offspring will have an even easier time of it. You, Deo, though ... my elder sister was quite fond of you. Rightly so. She turned you out as she saw fit. Didn't want you anywhere near being a possible successor to our father. Just as she herself refused to her death to be a candidate for premier. Do you regret that?"

"Of course not, Uncle." He smiled his warm, winsome smile.

"Naturally," Cultat pronounced. "I've regaled you often enough, in agonizing detail, with tales of what this post entails. And you're so finely suited for the role you play. Handsome noble. Philanthropist. Benefactor of the arts. Make a few speeches, sweep the Ministry's daughters off their feet at state functions. The people adore you. Sensible people stay away from onerous tasks—at least those chores that others are willing to shoulder. Gods pity me, I was willing to accept mine."

'To all our good fortune," Deo said.

Cultat gazed levelly now at his nephew, somberness joining the secret fatigue he carried in his eyes. "And now there's a task for you." His rich voice was low, soft.

"One I'm willing and ready to take on."

Cultat's head dipped in a slow nod. "She's to be the one, then?"

Radstac waited, as she had waited these past several days. She watched the two men.

"Yes, Uncle," Deo answered. "You gave me leave to make my own choice."

"I'm aware of that." Something hard moved under his voice. Family they were, she thought, but this matter was serious, whatever it was, and these weren't frivolous men. "I know that even the most libidinous rascal wouldn't make such a choice on the basis of someone's performance as a bed partner."

Cultat looked at her once more, closely, still a few paces away; yet it seemed the potent heat of him brushed her scarred face. "You'd better hire her, then," the Premier said.

"I've already done so."

"And explain the task you've volunteered for... the one you're now dragging her into." Without a further word or look, Cultat exited the chamber.

"I AM NOT refusing," she said for the third time, emphatically. "But what you're after isn't my specialty. I'm a combatant. I go into battles, face the enemy in the open. I'm not an escort."

"Understood," Deo said.

She had collected her weapons from the tower's guards, and they had descended. Now they were walking the streets, the watch growing late. Someone with a dilettante's voice and zeal was singing in a pub as they passed, with what sounded like the rest of the place coming in on the choruses.

"You're still my choice."

"It's your choice to make," she said, tone level.

"Yes. So Uncle made clear."

"So I make clear as well. You've hired me. I work for you. What you say is what happens."

"That's purely your professional self speaking?"

Her eyebrows, a darker red than his, pulled together. "Of course. How else would I say such a thing?"

"The words lovers choose can sometimes be very, very strange. I've heard my share." They were turning onto an avenue lined with shops that bustled in the day. Here the night was nearly still.

"I imagine you've heard your share and then some," she said. She looked sidelong at his ruggedly appealing features. If he aged along the lines of his uncle, he wouldn't want for carnal companionship until he was too old to care about it. "Do you think I would behave unprofessionally because of the few good fucks we've had?"

"Ah, Radstac, I do enjoy that melodic Southsoil accent."

"You adore women who speak vulgarities."

"What right-thinking male doesn't?"

They walked a bit in the silence. Wings beat the air— but not feathers. Her keen ears caught the leathery sounds. One of those flying rodents of the Isthmus. She didn't see the creature, however. Two figures in the modest uniforms of Petgrad police were walking the street's other side, going the opposite way. The female of the pair offered a salute that was more a wave, teeth flashing in a happy grin. Deo returned it with an equally casual gesture.

"When do we leave?" she asked. Her palm alit on her sword's heavy scratched pommel. It felt good to be wearing the weapon again; felt good to be hired. Even if the job had turned out to be something unexpected.

"Tomorrow. I can supply you with as many mansid leaves as you like, or you can see to the procurement yourself I'll be happy to cover the purchase above your work fee."

She very nearly broke stride. The small bite of leaf she'd chewed just before the visit to Cultat's tower had dissipated. Deo had sprung surprises on her from the first, but none had caught her entirely off guard.

Do the smart thing, do the economical thing, do the safe thing, do the thing you find most self-fulfilling. It was her code, presenting its points one by one.

"If you can get my leaves from the lair I specify," she said, "then I'll gladly let you see to it."

"Done." He sounded like a merchant sealing a sale or a gambler finalizing a bet. "I'll show you what supplies I want to bring. Tell me what's practical—what we should have, what we don't need."

"It's going to be quite a trip."

"Hardly compares to the one you've already made from home," he pointed out.

"It wasn't distance I was referring to."

He nodded. "You really shouldn't have misgivings about being ... underqualified. There's a perfectly good reason Cultat or I haven't hired the proper specialist for this mission. It's that there are no experienced professionals in this field. None here in Petgrad anyway. None among our own military—men and women who bear arms and have not fought a battle in their lives. Nor did their progenitors. So it becomes as much a matter of character as one of appropriate credentials. I trust you."

"That's the nephew of the premier of Petgrad speaking, not an overwrought lover?" She permitted

herself a small trickle of her rather harsh-sounding laughter.

"Yes." His tone was solemn. "The nephew of the premier ... cheated out of the post by his mother. And by her brother. I do love my uncle. Most sincerely. But my life has not gone as it should."

The silence returned.

Quite a trip, Radstac mused. It indeed promised to be. She would see Deo safely delivered to Trael, which was one of the city-states to Petgrad's north. It was presently— along with a few other Isthmus nations—in the path of the south-moving Felk.

There Deo would convey Cultat's message to the leaders of Trael. That message was simple. The remaining free states of the Isthmus must unite now against the Felk.

Other members of the premier's family were making similar ambassadorial journeys to other cities, seeking to create the alliance that Cultat envisioned. Petgrad was the most powerful nation in the south. It did not have to politically appease or parley with its neighbors. So long had it held this uncontested status, in fact, that it had no proper staff of diplomats. Now it was up to Cultat's relations to spread the word, for who else would be heard in those rival royal courts? And, according to Cultat, who else should bear the burden of this undertaking but his own blood?

So, to Trael it was.

Radstac shrugged to herself as she walked with her employer/lover, hand still upon her sword's pommel. So long as she got paid.