Wartorn: Resurrection (2 page)

Ah, that was it, Bryck finally decided. They can spare no troops. Too concerned about their own safety. It was an attitude that, once more, he couldn't rightly fault.

Still, it was disappointing, if not outright irritating. His journey here had been worthless. Drawing himself stiffly erect, he dipped into an exaggeratedly courtly bow, ready to deliver a mocking apology on behalf of the unworthy people of Udelph who had sent him, a lowly rider, to unfairly disturb this august ministry in its momentous defensive preparations.

Before he could deliver this speech, however, the chief minister said, "Rest assured, we have nothing but sympathy for your tragedy. Our offer of asylum is sincere."

"My thanks," Bryck pronounced. "But I must decline your generous proposal. Your fair state of Sook is too over-whelming in its grandeur to quarter one so common as myself" Yes, he was laying it on a bit thick, but there was no insult so fine as one couched in immaculate tact. "And so I make my farewell."

"To go where?" asked the spindly, apparently dimwitted lad.

Bryck nearly ignored him, but instead fixed the youngster with a dark gaze and said, "Home."

"To Udelph?" he asked, eyes widening with undisguised astonishment.

Perhaps the boy was a mascot, rather than a true minister, Bryck judged. Ah, bugger them all anyway. He turned from the table.

"You've no home to return to," came quietly from behind. "Don't you know that?"

Bryck halted before he reached the chamber door. He turned the words over in his mind, looking for whatever sense was to be made of them. It was drivel, he concluded. These ministers were idiots, the whole lot. Yet he found himself turning back toward the table.

It was the milky-eyed woman who'd spoken. Her pruned face was twisted into a look of profound commiseration. The others were staring with similar expressions. Despite the mild evening air, Bryck felt a cool fingertip tracing his backbone.

Without conscious will he found himself asking, "What do you mean?"

Silence once more; and now he recognized the tenor of the wordless pause. They were afraid to speak, as one will reflexively hesitate before imparting dire news to the individual it will most affect.

The chief minister folded his hands atop a scattering of paper, set his eyes to the table, then lifted them a moment later. His gaze was solemn.

"U'delph is no more."

Bryck did not react, outwardly or inwardly.
Nonsense,
was all he thought, the single word clanging through his head.

"Our scouts have informed us that the Felk overran the city last night."

Nonsense. Nonsense.

"It... has not been captured. It has been laid waste to. Likely as an example, so that other city-states will not put up resistance."

Nonsense.

"You have our sincerest sympathies."

Bryck made as if to speak, but no words came. His journey here had been a waste indeed. Three days and two nights, only to find this pack of moronic provincials playing at government. He had been quite correct, then, earlier when he imagined this group as players in a political farce. What could their scouts know that U'delph's did not? His city, he'd been told as he set out, had six days of safety left. It simply wasn't possible that the Felk armies had advanced so rapidly. It was ... nonsense.

He swallowed whatever pointless words he'd meant to utter, turned once more, and left the chamber.

Outside, in the courtyard, he called for his grey mount. It was eventually retrieved by the deaf lad with the wispy red beard. Evening had become night by the time Bryck rode out past Sook's limits, ignoring everyone and everything as he kicked the horse into a faster and faster stride. Its powerful hooves were soon tearing up patches of sod, as Bryck made for home.

ONE NEVER REALLY appreciated being alive until one had been dead ... at least once.

It was not the first time this thought had run through Dardas's mind, and would probably not be the last, but he found it inescapable as he stood outside his command pavilion staring out over the ant-like activity of the Felk army bivouac. To all outward appearances, he was observing the efficiency of his officers and their troops as they prepared for evening mess.

Well, on one level, he was, though he had seen it all thousands of times before. Annies didn't change much over the centuries, except for the uniforms and the effectiveness of the weapons. He could monitor the movement and mood of the troops without really focusing on them, his attention only drawn to any abnormality or break in the rhythm. What he was really doing was enjoying the sunset.

The fiery colors of the dying day were accented by the gathering clouds. They had bivouacked just south of U'delph, or what had been U'delphand was now a jumble of smoldering rubble. In fact, the smoke added to the spectacular colors of the sunset.

Strange how he had ceased to notice such trivialities when he was alive before. Now that the gods of fate had given him another chance at life, he had every intention of savoring every moment of it.

That fate, it seemed, had taken the form of Matokin, a powerful Felk magician with a vision for conquest who needed a general to run his army for him. Dardas still did not truly understand just how Matokin had gathered his consciousness from beyond the void and deposited it in a host body. Neither did he have any clear recollection of the time while he was dead.

He was, in fact, astounded to learn after having been revived that more than two hundred and fifty years had passed since he had last been an active participant in life. Still, he had adjusted to the incredible fact. He had a soldier's grim constancy and could adapt himself to
anything.
He was alive again now and planned to exploit the opportunity for as long as possible.

What was most troubling to him right now was this mage. Matokin had brought him back to life. Matokin, in a sense, owned his life. Dardas was unaccustomed to any status other than that of supreme and uncontested leader.

He had had little use for mages in his prior life, in fact had only minimal dealings with them. They were few and far between, throwbacks to an age before the Northern and Southern Continents had collapsed into disarray.

In Dardas's day magicians mostly conducted themselves as healers. He had never really understood them, nor cared enough to educate himself as to the mechanics and limitations of their skills. Such creatures were often shunned. But that, he acknowledged, had been a long time ago, and even quite some physical distance away. This was the Isthmus, which lay between the two great continents. Once, it had been nothing but a trade route. Times, evidently, had changed.

In contrast to that of his old military career, the force he was commanding now seemed to be crawling with mages, like parasites on a feral dog. In addition to healers, there were also communication mages and transportation mages. These were daunting, he had to admit. Being able to move troops and supplies instantaneously over great distances was, frankly, the ultimate weapon of this Felk army.

And now they had at last used that weapon, in their latest conquest. U'delph had, almost literally, never seen them coming ... or even if that city's scouts had seen their approach, they could do nothing against an army that was so suddenly and overwhelmingly upon them.

It was a war of magic. But it was still
war,
Dardas told himself. And war was his craft.

Inquiries as to where all these magicians had come from were swept aside with vague references to the Academy, a school in the northern city of Felk that Matokin had founded to train those with magic potential for positions in his force.

What was even worse was that Dardas now had to adapt to having a magician as an immediate superior. Matokin was not only a rising major power figure in these lands of the Isthmus, but one who literally held Dardas's continued life in his hands. Dardas's resurrection, he'd been told, would have to be periodically maintained by rejuvenation spells. Clearly this was a situation he would have to deal with eventually.

"Lord Weisel?"

Dardas was suddenly aware that his aide was trying to get his attention. Had been trying, in fact, for some time now. It was one of the annoying sidelights, he'd learned, of living in a host body. Getting used to being hailed by an-other name.

He fixed the aide with a flinty glare.

"I'll say this to you once," he said. "We are in the field, not in court. You will address me by my rank, not my title."

"Yes, Lord ... General."

"Now, what is it?"

"I was just wondering, sir, if you would be dining alone or with your officers tonight?"

Dardas suppressed his annoyance at having his reverie interrupted for such a trivial matter. The junior officer was barely in his twenties and standing duty as aide for the first time tonight, so he couldn't be expected to be familiar with the general's routines or proper protocol.

"I'll dine alone tonight," he said. "In my pavilion, I think."

"I'll see to it at once, sir," the aide responded and hurried away, obviously eager to get out from under his commander's scrutiny.

In spite of himself, Dardas was amused by the youth's discomfort. Among others, he had implemented the policy that officers from various units were to rotate through the position of his personal aide. Partly this was being done so he could familiarize himself with the officers under his command. More important, however, was that it allowed him to dismiss those favored officers who would normally have held the post permanently. They would be the ones most likely to notice the changes in the "Lord Weisel" they had known for years.

Even now, after only three campaigns, Dardas was overhearing murmured comments, most of them expressing pleasant surprise as to how effective a battle leader the previously discounted Lord Weisel was proving to be. Apparently there had been no small measure of protest and concern when Matokin had named Lord Weisel as the commander of the army.

It seemed Weisel, who affected pretenses of military aptitude, was traditionally indecisive and easily confused. The critics were pleased to admit the error of their misgivings, however, as the army was now functioning with superb efficiency.

Weisel was one of the few Felk lords who was
not
also a mage. Matokin had otherwise surrounded himself with wizards.

Dardas himself took little pride in his successes to date, however. The campaigns had been simplicity itself, child's play to one of his expertise and experience. In his former life, he had driven an army nearly across the width of the Northern Continent and, evidently, into historical legend. He had outmaneuvered, outdesigned, and crushed his enemies. Those had been
real
campaigns. He had also waged them without the help of magicians.

He was unaware of exactly how Matokin had originally gained control of the city-state of Felk. He had not been summoned back to life until the mage had settled on his grand plan, which was to unite all me city-states of the Isthmus under his rule.

At that point, Matokin had evidently realized that he needed someone with more military knowledge than was available to him to organize and lead the army, and had settled on Dardas as the most likely candidate. Dardas the Conqueror. Dardas the Invincible. Dardas the Fox. Dardas the Butcher. In his day, depending on who spoke, his name was said in awe, respect, fear, or loathing, but none would contest his devastating effectiveness in the field.

Of course, if Matokin had researched Dardas a bit more closely than simply reviewing his legendary string of victories, he might have thought twice about his choice.

The first campaign in this current war had been to overthrow Felk's neighboring state of Callah. There was no great challenge there for Dardas, as mere had been no open hostilities between the two city-states beyond border dispute skirmishes for many tenwinters. Callah was totally unprepared for an attack of the magnitude that Dardas had leveled at it, and fell in less than a quarter-lune.

The second campaign, against Windal, was even easier. Windal had failed to see the forces of Felk as a threat, assuming that die battle between Felk and Callah had been nothing but a personal dispute between the city-states' respective leaders. As such, they neglected to make any decent preparations, and when confronted by Dardas's army, now swollen by the assimilation of the surviving Callahan troops, they fell within a matter of days.

An even battle when one side was unprepared, and an-other when his forces outnumbered his opponents by nearly two to one. Nothing noteworthy there. Certainly nothing requiring a general of Dardas's unique talents. Any competent field commander could have managed as well. Of course, it was just as well that Matokin hadn't realized that, or Dardas likely would not be enjoying his second chance at life.

Of course, things should get a bit more interesting now, particularly with the annihilation of Udelph. The Isthmus's remaining city-states stretching to the south would no longer assume their own safety was guaranteed or that their usual defenses would suffice, since they were likely adequate only to repel skirmish-like onslaughts. Dardas was curious to see what his future enemies would come up with to try to halt him.

No, armies didn't change much, and so it didn't ultimately matter mat he was leading these Felk, and not his own people. It didn't matter that this was die Isthmus, not Northland, though how puny a strip of land this was by comparison. Had he lived long enough in his last life, he probably would have gotten around to conquering this land, once the disposition of the Northern Continent was firmly settled. Or he would have left the Isthmus for his heir, except that he had never produced one. Instead, he had died, and his army had unraveled. Northland had since reverted to a kind of general barbarism, so he was told.

Dardas's death had been natural. A fatal wrench to his heart that had made him bedridden, then released him into the void only a few days later. He recalled the experience, and it was a very strange tiling to recall one's own death.

"Your dinner is ready now, General."

It was the aide again. His composure regained, he was standing by the open flap of Dardas's pavilion. He was a clean-cut looking young man with delicate features. Probably, like most of the junior officers, the second son of a noble Felk family, whose father had bought his commission to keep him out from underfoot while the elder son was trained to run the family for the next generation.

Dardas nodded at him and entered the pavilion, only to stop short when he caught sight of his small dining table.

"What's that?" he said, his voice edged with accusation.

Taken aback, the aide blinked in confusion.

"It's your dinner, sir," he said. "Roast chicken and rabbit with wild onions and carrots. The cooks prepared it special for you."

The general stared at him.

"I assume that the fare for the troops is significantly less grand?" he said levelly.

"Well... of course," the aide said. "I mean, some of them may have foraged something, but the food that's issued them—"

"Take it away," Dardas ordered, interrupting. "I want you to go to the nearest squad circle and bring

me back a portion of whatever it is they're having. What's more, be sure the portion is no larger than that of any other soldier being served."

"Yes, sir!"

Do you have something against decent food?

It was the familiar, somewhat whiny voice of Lord Weisel intruding on the general's thoughts. One thing Dardas did have to admit to having difficulty with was adapting to the presence of a second mind in his head.

You wouldn't understand.

I understand that it's my body you're abusing.

And a decent body it was, too. Dardas appreciated the new vessel for his consciousness. Despite it being more than four tenwinters old, it was both fit and healthy... even reasonably attractive, not that it mattered. If only it hadn't come with the previous occupant still in residence.

Remember, I was summoned because I know more about running an army than you do.

But, as my advisor, you're supposed to be teaching me. How can I learn if you don't explain why you do things?

It seemed that Lord Weisel had consented to this arrangement on the basis that he would be second in power only to Matokin himself. Supposedly, Dardas's presence in Lord Weisel's body was to be as an advisor, helping to fill in the immense gaps in the noble's military knowledge.

It was unclear to Dardas if Matokin was genuinely unaware of the strength of the general's personality, or if he had intended all along that Dardas would be the dominant mind, but either way, the results were the same. Now
he
controlled the body as well as the army, and Lord Weisel was reduced to a sulking presence in the mental shadows.

Dardas had little respect for Lord Weisel, a not surprising view for a professional soldier and ruler to have of a pampered nobleman. Still, he felt it behooved him to maintain at least a pretense of courtesy. The man was, literally, his host. If nothing else, Lord Weisel was still his main source of information regarding this new land and age, so though it was annoying, it was in Dardas's best interest to humor Weisel's requests for instruction.

Very well. Consider what you said about my abusing your body.

What of it?

The same food you see as abusing your body is the main sustenance for your troops.

I don't understand.

Let me put it differently. Knowing the condition of your troops is of primary importance when planning your strategies. You have to know how far you can tax them and what their morale is like. One of the surest ways to know that is to make a point of eating the same rations they are getting. If you find the food intolerable, then probably so do they. It's a simple, but effective, test.

There was a moment's pause.