It wasn't too difficult to judge a person's character, particularly if mansid-inspired clarity was involved. Aquint had a thief's heart, and his interests were almost entirely selfish. But he had no love for the Felk, especially those that had subjugated this city of his birth. He specifically didn't like this war because it interfered with the comforts of his life.
"I'd like to have my sword back before things happen," Radstac said as they approached one of the Registry's entrances.
Aquint gave her a glance. It was flat, indifferent, yet she knew it was full of loathing. "That won't be a problem."
They entered the large stone building. Radstac was no longer affecting her limp. It felt good to be moving about normally. Her balance was right, her reflexes at the ready. She was primed, just as though this were a battlefield and she was preparing to face an enemy.
She had never had an opinion regarding who she favored to win a particular war. It was a pointless frill for a mercenary. But perhaps she did have a conviction about this Felk war. After all, if the Felk did manage to conquer every other state of the Isthmus, then that unified Isthmus would no longer supply her with the reliable conflicts that allowed her to earn her livelihood. Certainly the Southsoil didn't produce enough wars to keep her employed. The Southern Continent, though a shadow of its former pre-Upheavals glory, was still too civilized to engage routinely in internal hostilities.
Also, she couldn't get her mansid leaves anywhere but here.
Sentries immediately passed her and Aquint through, and they moved along chilly corridors. Radstac wondered if they would encounter that same fussy officer with the pinched lips who'd made things difficult for her and Deo when they first arrived in Callah.
Aquint led her into a room where a uniformed clerk appeared. His eyes moved rapidly between them, while his face remained bland.
"Describe the sword," Aquint said to her.
She did so, and the clerk went scurrying into a partitioned alcove, emerging a moment later bearing her sheathed combat sword. She took it, examined it, feeling that a piece of herself had been returned to her. It was nearly a sentimental experience.
She strapped it on, and Aquint led her out. The clerk had been nervous in their presence. The Registry's sentries, too, had betrayed an uneasiness. It was surely their status as Internal Security agents that prompted this reaction. Aquint had told her and Deo repeatedly that their positions overrode any normal military authority.
What measure of power, then, did this Abraxis wield? Aquint had said he was second in the empire only to Matokin. It was a formidable figure they were going to tangle with today.
They wound through a few more corridors, finally coming to a high-ceilinged chamber that Radstac recognized. A pair of robed mages was already present. They gave her and Aquint timid anxious glances. One of the wizards held a figurine of smooth purple glass in her hand, her thumb stroking it persistently. This was the Far Speak mage, Radstac concluded. Waiting for the word from Felk to open the arrival portal, which would be the job of the other wizard.
She and Aquint stood and waited. Aquint maintained a cool demeanor. For the first time Radstac spared a thought to wonder who this man had been before this war, before he had become so successful a collaborator. Surely he had engaged in some illicit enterprise. She couldn't quite imagine Aquint living an honest life. If she had to guess, she would say he'd been a black marketeer.
The message Aquint had sent to Felk had alerted Lord Abraxis that arrests of the key figures in the Callahan rebel underground were imminent. It also invited Abraxis to participate in the subsequent interrogations. Abraxis's reply indicated that he would accept the invitation.
The Far Speak wizard's grip on the glass figurine tightened, and her eyes closed. When she opened them and looked to her fellow magician, the Far Movement wizard started the busy process of conjuring the portal that linked to the one being opened at this same moment in the city of Felk.
Radstac was acutely conscious of the shifting energies in the room. She watched as the air in the center of the chamber wavered in a way that contradicted all natural principles. Magic, though, she knew, was as natural as any other precept of nature. It existed, as did those who had an innate affinity to practice it.
It was only that those users could pervert magic to their own unnatural ends that made it dangerous.
A figure—robed, tall, trim almost to the point of gauntness—emerged from the patch of disorderly air. He had a confident stride, cold and expressionless eyes. He showed no more response from materializing out of the portal than he might have if he'd merely walked across this room.
From Abraxis's right shoulder hung a small red cloth bag.
Aquint stepped forward and saluted. "Lord Abraxis, welcome to Callah." The two wizards of the garrison huddled excitedly together, sneaking looks at the mage from Felk. Radstac supposed that Abraxis was something of a celebrity to these magicians.
"Have the arrests been made?" Abraxis asked bluntly. There was no trace of friendliness in his voice. This was a man who likely associated with no one but those of comparable status and power. Underlings were not to be fraternized with.
"I have been holding the order until your arrival," Aquint said.
"My time is very valuable. Why have you delayed?"
"I thought you would enjoy seeing the rebels' downfall for yourself, Lord."
"I am interested in results, nothing more. I believe I've made mention of that fact before."
Aquint didn't flinch from the cool edge of Abraxis's tone. "You have, Lord. However, since you are here, and the operation is set, perhaps..."
Abraxis's gaze shifted past Aquint, picking out Radstac for the first time. His eyes dismissed her, and he looked again at Aquint. "Very well. I will observe. But I perceive that you are doing this to demonstrate to me how useful an agent you are. I don't especially object to that. However, if you fail in this, my disappointment will be proportionally dire."
Aquint took this without blinking. He escorted Abraxis back through the corridors, Radstac behind the two, palm atop her sword's pommel. Aquint mentioned that he had recruited other agents for this assignment, but Abraxis made no comment, evidently truly uninterested in the details.
They came out again into the marketplace that abutted the Registry. Aquint picked a path through the stalls and the bustle. They wound among the hagglers, the fast-handed merchants, the poorer patrons eyeing goods too costly for them. Quickly their tiny entourage was out of sight of the sentries at the Registry's entrance.
Ahead there was a stall with a red and yellow canvas awning. A large man with a brimmed hat pulled low over a blemished face was tending it. A few nondescript goods were on display.
Radstac let out a breath, drew another, slowly, smoothly. She fell a further deliberate step behind Aquint and Abraxis. As the pair reached the stall, she stooped and snapped the blade from her right kidskin boot. At the same moment, Tyber grabbed up a piece of pottery and stepped out from the stall, directly into Abraxis's path.
"Now, here's a person of obvious taste and refinement!" Tyber cried with the false merriment of a vendor. "Surely you, my friend, can appreciate the precious quality of this—this—this fine thing here in my hand! As to the price, well..."
Abraxis halted. Aquint stepped ahead to brush aside the impertinent merchant, but Tyber wasn't budging easily. Radstac moved forward, senses primed, the knife balanced in her hand.
"Were it not for the completely justified but godsdamned murderous taxes imposed by our righteous Felk visitors, I might be able to offer you a true bargain. Nevertheless, you'll find the price I ask so astonishingly reasonable that a man as wise and perceptive as yourself will jump at—"
Radstac reached for the red carrying bag's strap. She would cut it, like a common sneak thief, and make off with the prize. Before she could reach the bag, however, Abraxis's tall bony frame stiffened, and the mage spun sharply about.
She had done nothing to betray herself. Her stealth had b
een impeccable. Magic. Some sort of protective spell cast over the bag. It made sense.
Abraxis's cold eyes came alive. Aquint was still pretending to hold off Tyber, who had cut short his spiel, seeing that Radstac's gambit had failed.
Radstac saw it all with the honed clarity of mansid. Abraxis brought a hand up out of his drab robe. The long fingers were splayed. His lips moved, rapidly, with much contorting. She still had the flat throwing blade in hand. She was in jeopardy. As with the casting of the Far Movement spell, she perceived now a fluctuation of abstract energies in the air about the scene. Abraxis was about to loose on her some brand of destructive magic.
Tyber roughly shoved aside Aquint. His brimmed hat tumbled off his head. He had insisted on having a part in this today, despite the fact that, as Radstac had learned, he was already wanted by the garrison. Something about an attempted bribing of a Felk officer. The Minstrel, initially opposed to Tyber's participation, had eventually relented.
Lifting the piece of cheap pottery the full extension of his arm, Tyber brought it slamming down on Abraxis's skull. It shattered into unrecognizable shards, and the mage staggered heavily, mouth gaping in pain, interrupting whatever incantation he was reciting.
Tyber had done it without the least hesitation, once he'd seen that Radstac was in danger.
Abraxis stumbled a further step, doubled over, trying to stay on his feet. Radstac made a second grab at the bag, but the wizard twisted out of the way with surprising litheness. There was of course nothing for it. She was going to have to kill him. Already a commotion was growing around this scene, vendors and patrons looking to see what was happening. The tumult was going to call the attention of the Felk soldiers very soon.
Radstac would swing the blade up into Abraxis's abdomen, gutting the wizard. She saw he was already bleeding from his scalp, dark droplets flecking the ground. She planted her feet, seized a handful of his robe and cocked back her arm, muscles pulling taut.
At that moment Tyber's face erupted into flame. A sharp maddened shriek accompanied this, as Tyber reeled to one side, hands clawing at the licking tongues of fire that had appeared so suddenly and impossibly, without any combustion. He blundered hard into Aquint, who in turn crashed against the stall with the red and yellow awning, tumbling the rest of its wares to the ground.
Radstac smelled the terrible cooking meat on the air.
She swung with the blade, but the fire had been an effective distraction. Abraxis took advantage of it, twisting himself once again, so that the knife sliced through the robe's fabric, glancing off flesh, then bone, but not cutting deeply enough to bring the wizard down.
She knew that she was going to be the next thing to burst into flame. She let go of the blade, rather than trying to pull it out of the tangle of Abraxis's robe. Tyber fell, his head roaring with fire, as thick and bright as the head of a torch. He writhed and made more awful noises. Aquint was trying to scramble back onto his feet.
Abraxis was grimacing, but his lips were working again, his hands in motion. Radstac felt a heat gathering over her, harsh and dry and smothering. In another eye blink, she knew, she would be enveloped in the fiery magic.
The bolt struck Abraxis in his back, just to the left of his backbone. He reared up to his full height. Deo had smuggled the crossbow into the marketplace, wrapping it in a small rug. He had taken up a sniper's vantage near the edge of the market. Radstac hadn't expected that they would require his services. She had, frankly, foreseen this episode much differently from how it was turning out. A fast cut and run. Abraxis not knowing what was happening until it was too late. She had put much faith in her own abilities.
The heat around her was climbing. But she was faster than this magic. She had survived so very many battles by simply being faster than her enemies.
Her heavy combat sword seemed to leap eagerly from its sheath into her ready hands, an ominous weight, the blade glinting sinisterly. She swung it as she had swung it many times before, a hard clean hack, backed by her sinewy strength and the tenacity of her simple philosophy. Survive. Always survive. Beat the enemy, whoever it may be.
Radstac's blade caught the mage's throat just below the ear. The metal went into the flesh, did not pause for the bone it met and came back out into the air, showering blood in a wide thick spray.
The head dropped to the ground, rolled wetly, came to a stop. The body held itself upright an instant, acting now without any directives, then collapsed gracelessly.
Radstac sheathed her sword and tore the red bag from the headless corpse's shoulder. With her other hand, she seized and wrenched Aquint onto his feet. His eyes were wide and horrified. On the ground, Tyber had gone silent.
It had all happened quite fast, as such things often did. But it was most certainly time to flee the scene.
Deo had already disappeared from the market. Radstac held the bag hard to herself as she and Aquint sprinted off. It was, quite possibly, the fate of the Felk war that was inside this bag. And Radstac found she did indeed have an opinion about that war.
PRAULTH (5)
These weren't maps of ancient engagements, celebrated by fastidious military scholars and studied with compulsive exactitude by University students. She had been one of those students, one of the most astute and promising, in fact. War studies had consumed the bulk of her intellectual interest. Master Honnis had been her caustic mentor, a man she had judged to be as intent and single-minded as herself. She had been wrong. Honnis had lived a life she knew nothing of, a life that included the active practicing of magic and participation in a vast scouting network that had kept track of this war since its inception.
Not faded brittle papers, these. Not testimonials of warfare that had occurred a hundredwinter and more before her birth, and which absorbed her strictly as an intellectual abstraction, without any true thought ever given to the unruly bloodshed and final human cost of the events.
No. These maps and intelligence reports spread before her were very much alive. They were news of events occurring in the present and still unfolding, and very much requiring her attention.
And like many things that occurred in the here and now, these events were not going as planned.
Praulth was on her feet, staring down at the maps as Merse delivered them, the ink still glistening. The Far Speak magician was apparently receiving field intelligence from a number of different sources, which was serving to give Praulth a clearer picture of what was happening north of this city of Petgrad.
The cluster of minor diplomats inhabiting the auditorium pressed near to get a look, sensing something important transpiring. Praulth's scarf of metallic red kept swaying into her line of sight, and with a grunt of annoyance she unknotted it and tossed it behind her. Now, she realized with clear understanding, wasn't the time to worry about how she was going to look for any future portraits.
An ambassador's assistant from Ebzo jostled her left elbow. "What's going on?" he wanted to know, eyes squinting confusedly at the arrayed maps. "Is the Alliance winning?"
Praulth felt the very uncharacteristic urge to backhand the man across his balding skull. Instead she called, "Xink!"
He was at her side immediately. "General Praulth?"
"Clear any extraneous personnel. I need room to work."
It was a treat for Xink, being ordered to take some positive physical action on her behalf. He wasn't gentle about clearing the curious from the auditorium's dais.
Praulth had remained vigilant here throughout the day and now into the night. She had received the reports of initial visual contact between the Felk and Alliance forces. Cultat had arrayed the aggregate army, which he led according to Praulth's instructions. A "vulnerability" was placed among the front ranks, a company of noticeably weak strength, bait that Dardas was meant to recognize. Apparently he had, for the Alliance scouts had then reported that the Felk were moving small units east and west, presumably having discovered the Alliance's flanking gambits. These, too, were bait, however; and if Dardas had
followed through, using (here Praulth adjusted for the magical capabilities of the Felk) Far Movement wizards to transport companies against the Alliance flankers, then the Felk army would have left itself susceptible to an attack that would have cut it in two.
But that wasn't what had happened.
Dardas had evidently abandoned his maneuvers against the Alliance's flanks. New strategies were arising, ones not documented in war studies texts that she knew from memory. Dardas was adapting. Dardas was strategizing in the present. Dardas would have to be engaged by an equal tactician.
"Tell me what's happening."
She looked up abruptly. Merse was standing on the opposite side of the table, plainly addressing her, though his eyes looked past her and weren't quite focused. His hand clutched the familiar-looking bracelet.
"Who's asking?"
"Cultat," Merse said. "I'm speaking to a scout here, and she is relaying the words to you. Praulth, time is crucial. What is happening?"
"The Felk aren't moving to outflank your forces," she said. "The trap has failed." She heard several gasps from the diplomats who had regrouped a safe distance from the dais. Xink, standing off to one side now, turned his head sharply toward her. The words felt like knives in her throat.
Merse gazed blankly and silently, merely a vessel at the moment waiting for more words to be poured into him. Praulth's fists bunched.
"So, there's to be no Battle of Torran Flats."
"No, Premier," Praulth said, struggling to keep her voice from choking. The trap had failed. She had failed. But this wasn't over yet. "We'll have to fight another battle."
In her mind she imagined the fearsome Petgradite premier astride his horse, officers from dozens of disparate states looking to him for victory, troops by the thousands trusting that they were in the capable military hands of the Alliance's leader. She imagined the night winds blowing, the stark moon overhead, the torches flickering and the arms and armored bodies creaking and clanging. An army waiting to act. And Cultat there at its heart.
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