"Your messenger," she said. "The one who came to Febretree. Merse. He said your neighboring states were all agreeing to the alliance, ready to pool resources and manpower against the Felk."
"See the ease with which the words are said? Yes. It's a sensible plan. It's the only chance the free lands have against the Felk. But details kill sensible plans. Niggling and old grudges cloud otherwise rational minds. We states, we cities and townships and peoples, we've had our strifes in the past. Waged little wars against each other's borders. Spoken unforgivable insults. All that must be set aside, but it takes great effort, even in the face of so overwhelming a threat as the butchering Felk and their diabolical wizards. Since your arrival you've received all the current field intelligence regarding the Felk?"
"Of course, Premier."
"That's fine. Your aide can wait here. Come in now, won't you, and show these squabblers the excellence of your abilities."
* * *
Her hesitancy had been a simple case of stage fright. Her academic life hadn't prepared her to face a roomful of people who were hanging on and judging her every word. Her years at the University had been ones of private efforts and solitary studies, of judgments rendered by individual instructors. One could pass an entire lune at Febretree, if one tried, without having direct spoken contact with anyone.
But the maps spread over the large table were so irresistible, so familiar. She had seen them before, renderings delivered to her by Master Honnis. These were a comprehensive history of the Felk war, so far. And history was most certainly what this was. However this war was resolved, it would alter the future of the Isthmus for hundredwinters and more.
She didn't now entertain these grand thoughts. Her mind was occupied with the meat of it all, with the movements and maneuvers of the Felk army, with the tactics that belonged only to Dardas the Butcher and no one else. She orally reenacted the war for the assembled notables and envoys. The early Felk conquests of Callah and Windal. The brutal slaughter of U'delph, which was preceded by the Felk's first wholesale use of Far Movement magic in the field. Then the surrender of Sook, followed by the army's southward move toward the city-state of Trael.
Praulth illuminated it all, the military designs, the logic of warfare, the peculiar marks of Dardas's brilliant strategies. She answered questions when they were put to her. She didn't hesitate now. She felt no misgivings, no self-doubts. She was equal to this task. Xink was waiting outside, but she didn't need him for this.
Finally someone, a figure in much finery who, if Praulth recalled correctly, was from Ompellus Prime, said, "Impressive. Now, will you deign to tell us why the Felk have halted cold only a day or two from Trael? It seems to me they might be considering a new course, toward, say, the city of Grat. Or, worse, my own state."
"You would rather the Felk monsters crushed us? What a miserable, selfish creature—"
"Don't pretend to parts you can't play. By the sanity of the gods, how often have you kindhearted ones of Grat wished for our downfall? How often have you poisoned our crops? How—"
"As a response to the abduction of our beloved Jade Priestess!"
"She wanted to leave, fool! She had found love with our prince."
"If it's crop poisoning, I'd like it explained how the river that irrigates our fields turns black twice a lune with filth dumped in it by you people upriver in Hassilc."
"It's not your river when it flows through our lands."
"Fiend!"
"Imbecile!"
By now the exchange had five or six participants. It was quite a vehement display. Praulth felt she understood now the genuine reason for holding this conference here atop this tower. It was so no one could easily storm out of the room, not unless he or she meant to make that entire long and steep descent.
Cultat rose from his seat, an expression of put-upon disgust on his face. He drew a short—and presumably decorative—sword from his belt and banged its bejeweled pommel three times on the tabletop, hard enough to leave an indentation.
"This is precisely what I mean," he said, addressing no one in particular in his robust voice. "Something intelligent is said, and the price we pay are ten useless outbursts. Silence... please. Now, Praulth, our esteemed delegate from Ompellus Prime raises a good point. Our intelligence informs us that the Felk remain encamped a short distance from Trael. They've been stalled thus several days now. Why would they do this?"
"Yes, girl, why?"
"Oh, do tell us."
These last were sarcastic mutterings from among the nearly twenty members assembled. Praulth found she didn't like their offhand scorn. They didn't appreciate her. Her analytical abilities were a marvel. No one else could have predicted the Felk movements so far in this war so accurately. Honnis himself had said so.
The field intelligence to which Cultat referred was thanks to a secret elite unit of Petgradite wizards, a small force literally bred for their abilities to use the Far Speak magic. Honnis had relayed their war news to her at the University. Merse himself belonged to the family of gifted nobles.
This inner chamber appeared to be a formal dining hall converted for the occasion into this conference site. Lushly woven tapestries adorned the walls. Each one appeared to display multiple pictures or abstract motifs among its fabulously intricate threads, depending on at what distance one stood to view it.
Praulth hadn't taken a seat at the table. She'd stood, ignoring her tired legs, indicating this map and that, lecturing this body on the war's history, revealing its secrets. Now she straightened, folded her hands, and asked coolly, "Why is there no representative from Trael here?"
Cultat's blue eyes flickered away, came back to her. "That diplomatic mission failed," he said bluntly.
Praulth knew that meant a member of the premier's family had been lost. Cultat had used his own kin to deliver the initial proposals for an alliance.
Her eyes swept the assembly. Finally she said, "I don't know why the Felk have halted their advance."
Someone laughed, a short unkind burst, and the chamber erupted in protest. What good was this girl, then? What sort of military expert was Cultat trying to foist on them? Praulth stood and weathered it stoically, while anger bloomed hotter inside her. She would explain in detail to these fools her scheme to use the Battle of Torran Flats against the Felk general.
While this was happening an attendant entered, went quietly to Cultat's side, and spoke urgent words to the premier. Praulth, ignoring the assembly's ignorant barbs—how much they sounded like her family just now—for the moment, watched surprise spread across Cultat's craggy face. The attendant presented a sheet of paper.
Once more Cultat brought the hubbub to an end by banging his pommel on the table.
"I may have an answer as to why we've no delegate from Trael here at this table," Cultat said. "A small party has just arrived in the city bearing this." He held aloft the paper, a densely printed document of some sort. "It's a government promissory note, for an extraordinary amount of money, which I have no intention of honoring during this crisis, and it is signed by my nephew. Why is this of interest? Because the little band that presented this—bandits, I believe—tell a tale of my nephew abandoning his mission to Trael in order to pursue a goal of his own choosing. He meant to infiltrate the Felk horde and assassinate its leader. Now, if he succeeded in this grand ambition, might that not explain why the Felk army has remained immobile these past several days?"
Cultat smiled, proud, even smug. Once again the room came shrilly alive with overlapping voices.
Praulth's first thoughts were to wonder if those were the same bandits they had met on the road, those who had seemed intent on taking the slower clandestine woodland trails to Petgrad. But these thoughts were deliberate and momentary distractions.
She felt a cold and heavy sinking in her chest. It took her a moment to identify the feeling as disappointment. Dardas... assassinated? It couldn't be. It was too haphazard, too unworthy of the great Northland war commander. That some minor
relative of the premier had snuck into that camp and murdered the host body of Weisel, killing the brilliant military mind that lived within... it was almost offensive. She couldn't absorb it.
After all, she wanted to be the one who defeated Dardas.
AQUINT (1)
"What do you mean, they're gone?"
Cat regarded him with a withering, disapproving stare. "I'd think that's a simple enough sentence to have penetrated your hangover."
Aquint made an effort not to groan out loud as he pushed up onto his elbows. This bed was big and soft, and he remembered having at least one soft companion in it last night. Now, she, or they, were gone, and there was just his young confederate here in the room.
He'd had a lot of wine last night. It was easy to have a lot of wine when you didn't have any worries about being able to pay your tab. He was enjoying this luxurious apartment and the generous stipend he was collecting as an agent of the Felk Internal Security Corps. The fact that, as a native of this conquered city of Callah, he still regarded the Felk as basically evil wasn't interfering noticeably with his performance in their service.
Aquint ran a hand over his bleary face.
"The rebels?" he asked, focusing. "You're talking about the group that's holed up in my old warehouse?"
Cat continued to stare with those judgmental eyes. The boy had never approved of any of Aquint's recreational habits.
"Was holed up there."
"When... when did they go?" Aquint sat up straighter, his head whirling, but determined not to let it show.
"Sometime between the last time I checked up on them and just half a watch ago."
"You're sure?" Aquint asked.
Cat looked offended by the question, and rightly so, Aquint thought. The boy moved like a shadow and was as good a spy as any Aquint had ever known.
Aquint reached for his scattered clothes. As he did he felt his gorge suddenly lurching dangerously. Cat wordlessly handed him a big cup full of cool water. Aquint drank it down, gratefully, feeling it restore him somewhat.
His mind was slowly starting to churn. If what the lad said was right, and the rebels had vacated their lair, then it did indeed mean trouble. As an Internal Security agent he was charged with rooting out traitors and revolutionaries here in Callah. He had already had some real success in that duty. He had broken a clever counterfeiting scheme that had flooded the local economy with worthless duplicates of the Felk-issued scrip.
He had also, with Cat's inestimable help, tracked a bona fide group of rebels to the same warehouse where he had once run a freight hauling business, before this war. He had also done some smuggling and black marketeering on the side, but that was neither here nor there.
Aquint had planned to feed those rebels one by one to his superior, Lord Abraxis, head of the Corps. Job security was important, especially since if Aquint was hunting rebels in Callah, he got to stay in Callah and enjoy all the benefits of his position.
Of course, as far as rebels went, this was a motley bunch, hardly worth anybody's effort to arrest. Aquint, however, preferred that nobody knew that but he and Cat. He had even picked out their first trophy catch, the man who had been behind that counterfeiting operation, the Minstrel. That one, at least, had committed a real crime. Besides the forgery business, he'd killed a Felk soldier, which had brought the wrath of the garrison down on all the people of occupied Callah.
Aquint dressed, drank more water, and gathered himself together. Cat waited patiently. Aquint combed his fingers through his hair as he thought.
"I waited too long," he finally said, fatalistically.
"You're just realizing that?"
"Forgive me, lad, my mind's still somewhat adrift."
"On a lake of wine," Cat scowled.
"I waited too long to start turning them over to Colonel Jesile's troops," Aquint said, repeating himself with great self-recrimination.
"This isn't going to help us," Cat said.
Jesile was the Felk governor of the city-state. As far as occupiers went, he was a sane and sensible man, not a sadist, not a barbarian.
"Do you have any idea where the rebels went?" Aquint asked the boy desperately.
"Don't you think I might have mentioned it by now if I did?"
Aquint still wasn't sure he wasn't going to vomit. Having that group hiding in his own abandoned warehouse had been like holding a pair of Headsmen cards when one was playing Dashes. It was a great secret advantage.
He had been too smug about it all, he realized. He thought he'd had the game all sewn up.
He shook his head several times, determined to clear it. Cat was right. This wallowing wasn't going to help anything.
"All right. This is bad but not catastrophic. I want those rebels found, and I want to do it without any help from the Felk garrison. I still want us to come out of this looking better than them, for when I report to Abraxis. You got a look at their faces, the night you spied on the rebels, right?"
The boy shrugged. "Sure. But this is a big city. Finding a handful of individuals—"
"Now, don't get pessimistic on me, Cat. We've got other things in our favor. Remember those circles with the slashes through them? The ones that appeared all over the city during the Lacfoddalmendowl festival? I think we can finally use that to our own advantage."
* * *
Everyone of fighting age had been absorbed into the Felk army when that force had overrun Callah, several lunes ago now. Aquint wore his arm in a sling to maintain the pretense that he had been wounded, and thus was currently on soft duty here in Callah. So far, the disguise was working.
Callah was a beautiful city, to Aquint's eyes anyway. Even occupied as it was by these Felk bleeders, it gladdened his heart to be home. He hated this war. It was a big messy waste. Sure, it was affording him opportunities to skim and scam monies out of the Felk coffers, but he had been doing just fine before, with his legitimate and illegitimate businesses.
How many had died on battlefields since this thing began? It was a lot, to say nothing of the absolute atrocity that had been committed at the city-state of U'delph, when the Felk had butchered and burned until the place was nothing more than a corpse-filled ruin. Aquint had been a part of that terrible carnage, and it had sickened him. It sickened him still to think about it.
The sun was peeking out from the clouds, bright enough to make Aquint wince every time he fell under its direct rays. That really had been an awful lot of wine, but he was collecting good wages these days, on top of the walking around scrip Governor Jesile's office had issued him. He couldn't help but spend a little on the pleasures of life.
That scrip had been rendered effectively worthless by the flood of phony notes that had apparently gotten into circulation. Aquint had heard that Jesile meant to combat this by imposing severe taxes in an effort to rebalance the local economy. The thinking was that it was more efficient than a complete recall of the paper money.
Good luck with that, Aquint thought. Further oppressing these conquered people with heavy taxes wasn't going to help pacify them. Quite the opposite, it might create more rebellious attitudes.
But that debacle with the Felk scrip wasn't Aquint's problem, not directly, at least.
He walked the streets, enjoying the cooling autumn breeze. He could almost imagine, at moments like this, that the war had never happened, that the Felk and their soldiers and their magicians had never poured south out of the Isthmus's northernmost state.
Someday, this war was going to have to end. But what if the Felk won it? And considering how powerful they were, the betting man's odds were with them. That would mean things would be like this forever, Callah occupied by a foreign force. Callah owned by the Felk.
Aquint shook his head, snapping himself out of the gloomy reverie. He could brood the next time he had a belly full of liquor. Right now, he had work to do.
He entered a cafe and ordered a light breakfast, bland foods he thought his stomach could handle. It was a busy eatery, and he was inevitably
recognized and greeted. He still had quite a number of acquaintances here in Callah, among those too old or too infirm to have been drafted.
"Aquint, if I didn't know better I'd say you were playing up that wounded arm of yours just a bit," said a large elderly man named Gownick, whom Aquint had invited to join him at his table.
"You can imagine how anxious I am to return to the fighting," Aquint said, ruefully. He ate his eggs and biscuits slowly, careful not to upset his stomach.
"What's it like working for the Felk?" Gownick asked. He was drinking a large cup of tea. It was a blunt question, with confrontational undertones.
Aquint set down his fork. Gownick had been in the hauling business, too, before the Felk arrived and conscripted his wagons and horses.
"It's like being apprenticed to a master you despise," Aquint said. "You wish him dead every day, but you're stuck with him until your term of service is up."
Gownick nodded, grimly. "That's how I figured. If you'd been smart enough to have been a tenwinter or two older you never would have gotten into this mess."
"Next time I'll know." Aquint smiled.
They chatted amiably after that, while Aquint finished his meal. He felt better for having the food in him, soaking up last night's dregs.
"Gownick," he said suddenly, in a low voice, "can I trust you?"
The older man blinked. "We were rivals in the old days, Aquint, not enemies. We're not enemies now."
"I'll take that to mean you won't go blabbing what I tell you."
"You may take it as such," Gownick said, but there was eagerness in the old businessman's eyes.
Aquint looked around the cafe. Then he huddled closer to the older man, opened his jacket, and removed a swatch of coarse cloth.
"See?"
"What am I looking at, Aquint?" Gownick frowned.
"This was nailed to the door of the garrison barracks this morning."
"So?"
"So? Look at it, man. That pattern. It doesn't look familiar to you?" Aquint asked in an urgent whisper.
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