Wartorn: Resurrection (6 page)

Ah ...
and it was fine stuff, she thought, still chewing the blue leaf. Clarity, clarity. The
sense
of things, unfolding all around her now.

As she walked, she didn't examine that thought that surfaced, that nagging one ... the one that said she only came north to the Isthmus because only here could she find leaves of this quality. After all, the
mansid
that the narcotic traders brought back to the Southsoil at the end of every summer were dry, stale, their potency gone.
Mansid
leaves did not grow anywhere but on the Isthmus.

The thought didn't last long. She turned off the street, into a pub. She ordered tea and took a table. Spirits were for weak people looking to be strong by killing those perceptions in themselves that proved, day after repetitive day, that they were powerless. She did not drink. Wine and the like provided an illusion of clarity, when in truth clarity receded with every sip, until everything became a false comforting lullaby.

The pub was fairly crowded, and that crowd was talkative. Radstac listened.

The landlord apparently didn't care for her taking up a valuable seat while drinking only her single cup of tea, which she nursed nearly an entire watch. When she finally grew tired of his malevolent glares, she crooked her finger at him, put her head close to his, and told him that blood that spurted from a suddenly opened heart was much darker than what one saw when, say, a face was sliced

wide. Then she smiled, which she knew was her most unnerving expression. The man hadn't come near her since.

In the meantime the effects of the small bite of the
mansid
leaf had mostly worn off. As with everything else about the narcotic, she handled the comedown ably.

"U'delph is a story. Something to frighten children. It makes no
sense."
The overdressed merchant sported ridiculous, elaborate facial hair—shaved here, waxed to points there. Must have taken him the better part of his morning to put his face together, and he was still old and ugly, despite the fine clothes.

Actually, Radstac thought, most of this pub's clientele looked to be on the affluent side.

Radstac had listened to the talk. It was dismaying. It was intentional blindness, not to see what was so surely coming. Sook was doubtlessly the next target for the Felk. It would put them one more city-state closer to Petgrad, though still some distance away.

"It's reliable news," said a man in a grey cowl. His voice was strong but neutral. Radstac hadn't been able to get a good look at his face, but his body was firm, and he moved in a way that spoke of sword training.

"Reliable."
The merchant made it a contemptible word. "What does that mean?"

"It means credible, believable, trustworthy." His tone was as flat as before. The effect was droll, and a few titters rose among the assembled drinkers. A pair planted in one corner was playing a round of Dashes—one of those juvenile Isthmuser games of chance—as if to emphasize then-blasé attitudes.

The merchant's face moved in a way that caused the points of his mustache to sneer. "I know the definition, lad." Half to himself he muttered, "By the sanity of the gods, when I was a youth, we didn't handle our elders so." He took a swallow of beer, fixed the younger man again with scornful eyes. "What I question is the degree of credibility, believability ... and trustworthiness."

It hung there for a heartbeat, like a challenge.

"I don't bring the news personally," the hooded man said, utterly unruffled. "I comment on news we've all heard. Everyone, here in the city."

"To hear rumor and tradespeople's gossip is not to hear truth." The merchant pronounced this like he was quoting a verse of sacred wisdom.

Something flared red in Radstac's almost colorless eyes.

"And to spew shit like that," she said, a low growl that carried into every corner of the place, "is to say
nothing."

She had sat still and quiet for quite some time now. She had come into this reasonably posh pub specifically to take the pulse of these merchants—these people who had much to lose if Petgrad were invaded and captured by the Felk. And now had heard enough.

Every head turned, including the one under the cowl.

Radstac pushed off her seat, standing, finally allowing her pent-up contempt to show on her scarred features.

"I can't make up my mind if you're all ignorant, out-right stupid, or just cowards."

"Now that's—" It was the landlord, lumbering over, not about to let her go on insulting his spending customers.

She whirled, reached out over the bartop, clamped his knobby pink nose between her thumb and a knuckle of her forefinger and
twisted.
He yelped, then disappeared below the level of the serving counter. If he rose with a weapon, she would know it before the top of his head came back into view.

She wasn't done addressing the assembly, and they were all still staring. Some had the good sense to look scared.

"The war news comes. You all hear it. It washes down from the north, no different than news of crop failures in other cities—stories you place great faith in, seeing how there's a potential for profit there for some of you. You know what you hear of the Felk is true. You know this war is categorically different from those you've known in the past. Different from those your grandmothers and grandfathers knew. This is a war beyond the scope of you childish Isthmusers. And yet it's real. And it's coming this way. Frightens you, doesn't it? Petrifies you. Because by the time the Felk reach here, they'll have absorbed the man-power and resources of gods know how many city-states. You'll be calling it the Felk
Empire
by then. And they've got magic on their side, and that's maybe most terrifying of all to you. They'll be unstoppable. Certainly more than a match for your army as it now stands. And you—you people of some wealth, maybe of some rank and power— what do you do? Sit on your asses, swill beer, and reassure yourselves that the danger doesn't exist. Stories for children you said, you pathetic fop?"

She might have spat then, might have hurled her cup into the faces turned her way. But her tirade had done nothing but make her disgust rise to a boil. They were still staring, still in shock. It was a fair guess that these merchants and landowners weren't often spoken to in this manner.

The landlord with the tweaked nose stayed out of sight as she marched out of the pub, using the exit that led to the latrine.

Evening had settled over Petgrad while she'd wasted time in the pub. Late summer light grew paler. High clouds were discussing the possibility of rain. Still, autumn was very near, maybe already here. It might be a winter war, depending on how long it lasted.

Insects buzzed out of her way as she emerged from the latrine stall.

She heard footsteps—someone not trying to move stealthily, someone waiting to use the pisser... or waiting for her.

He was turned from the spray of waning sunlight that spattered down into this unroofed nook alongside the pub. The grey hood showed only a solid jaw, the suggestion of lips twisted into something resembling a smile. He stood well, balanced so as to move in any direction, though the stance would appear entirely casual to a citizen's glance.

"The barkeeper asked me to see if you would give him his nose back."

"I dropped it in there. There's a hole in the floor, and it doesn't smell good down there."

"Well, Noseless Solly isn't such a bad moniker."

"Are we going to fight, fuck, or are you going to show me that face, you've been hiding and explain what you want from me?"

She smiled, that same disquieting expression.

He raised his hands, rolled the cowl off his face, and returned the smile. His was quite disarming. His face was what women would call rugged, not handsome. They stared a moment.

The moment lingered.

THE RUGGEDNESS OF his features, which offered soft bewitching blue eyes among hard planes and heavy bones, extended to his body as well. A solid physique, lean but wiry. Snaky muscles that coiled. Dueler's scars on the upper arms. Roughened hands.

Radstac liked how those rough hands handled her. She liked that Deo—so he gave her for his name—enjoyed being handled back. Males who imagined they were the unquestioned orchestrators of sex were the most tedious of partners ... unless they changed their attitudes under her not especially gentle ministrations.

Deo had brought her to this opulent room. Carpeted floors, frivolous and costly looking art on the walls. A monstrously big bed. They had made use of its entire surface.

He wasn't, evidently, a postcoital cuddler. She was glad of that. Being nuzzled and having useless declarations murmured at her once the event had... uncorked—so the

expression went—was irritating enough sometimes to cancel out the pleasure of the whole incident.

Neither, though, was Deo one of those that fled the scene immediately afterward—or, in this case, one that would evict her without delay. Instead, he climbed from the bed, stretched his naked body, pulling taut muscles even tighter, and padded over pale carpeting to a circular stone table where several colored bottles stood.

"What would make you happy?" His fingers lifted a varnished wood cup.

"Water."

He didn't give her a look, poured it, poured something dark purple for himself, and returned to the bed.

She took the cup and swallowed. She guessed him to be about her age, just at the start of his fourth tenwinter. His years hadn't been pampered; so his body attested. This room pointed to wealth, but he wasn't swollen and lazy. Wasn't like those wretched merchants in the pub, too afraid to even consider the possibility that their comfortable positions might be in jeopardy.

Deo had spoken against that one merchant, the one with the face hair. Well, maybe hadn't spoken
against;
more, he had acknowledged the legitimacy of the war news from the north. She had learned in that pub that Petgrad's military, despite the threat of the Felk, hadn't even been mobilized. Apparently this whole city was under a spell of obliviousness. It was infuriating, not the least because it was going to make it hard for her to find work here. She might have to push on farther north.

"Do you object to the word
mercenary
... or should I find another?" Deo asked.

"It's a perfectly fine word. I can never get
sell-sword
past my lips without lisping it."

He drank. She could smell it. Something alcoholic, but it didn't reek; an undertone of berries to it.

"You've seen more than one campaign."

"And you've outlived a duel or two."

He looked at her scars; some were more dramatic than others. She looked at his, tiny white stripes across his sleek, hard arms. She never minded anyone looking. Some got terribly aroused by the sight of her mistreated flesh. Once one of this particular ilk had turned dangerous. He would never be so again.

Her clothes—everything, armor, boots, her leather glove and its hooks—were scattered from the doorway to the foot of the bed, along with Deo's cowl and underclothing. No weapons in reach. This didn't bother her.

Staying here in the city would be the safe thing to do. That was an article of her personal code, the rules she had devised, the rules that her particular life had taught her. They wouldn't work for others. Most people didn't pay enough attention to their lives, didn't try to understand the
sense;
they just muddled along, not even aware enough to see how easily it could end. How quickly. How simply.

She sipped more water. It was purer even than the relatively clean supply in the public cisterns. She stretched her supine body on the immensely soft bed, hearing a vertebra pop.

"I like that. The smile. The real one."

She floated her eyes toward him. Do the safe thing. The safe thing was to stay in Petgrad and wait until someone purchased her services. Striking north now was risky. So was crossing over to the Felk side to sell her sword. The Felk didn't need mercenaries, not at this point, not after they'd absorbed substantial troop numbers from their earlier conquests.

"I wasn't aware I was smiling," she said.

"Exactly. I also like your accent."

"We don't have accents. You do."

"Fair enough. It's very subtle. I've met Southsoilers, a lot of them. I've always wanted to hire one as a storyteller, just to hear that enunciation. Wouldn't matter in the least what the story was."

"Must be amusing to be able to afford a ... storyteller."

"Said I wanted to hire one. Didn't say I had the money."

This wordplay was, she thought, almost as enjoyable as the sex. How odd that was. And how fantastically rare. Good lovers almost never made good conversationalists. Deo drank more of his purple drink, lounging back on a few of the bed's abundant pillows.

"What
is
the matter with these people?" she asked, as if picking up a thread of conversation from earlier. "Those merchants in that pub... don't they realize a Felk onslaught is inevitable?"

"Do you actually think resistance could be successful?"

"I don't know. I don't make it my business to know. I don't hire myself out as an officer or a strategist. I'm a fighter. Personally, I'm quite successful."

"Always pick the winning side?"

Her barking laugh was, she knew, something like her normal smile—disconcerting.

"Hardly," she said. "But wars don't go on until every last soldier is slain. One head of state or the other surrenders or capitulates to terms, usually well before the slaughter gets irreversibly messy. I fight for whichever side hires me. I fight well. I fight till someone says stop. I don't win the wars or lose them. I participate."

His laugh was much warmer than hers. His blue eyes moved over her body again, not lingering on the scars.

"Everyone's afraid," Deo said. "Yes. Everyone. It's war, but it's not war that we recognize. You pointed that out yourself, rather articulately I thought."

"I thought so as well."

"I was in disguise at that pub for the same reason you were there—to sound out the views of the people. I've been doing it a lot lately and keep encountering the same thing."