Wartorn: Resurrection

RADSTAC (3)

SHE ROCKED UP and forward, standing on the stirrups, and took the arrow just above her right breast.

Do the thing that'll most confuse your enemies.

It had carried over a substantial distance. She'd seen the startled bird wing and squawk into the sky, far back in the brush—the creature's movement too sudden, its cry too alarmed. Whoever was back there was a terrifically skilled—or lucky—archer.

The arrow had lost some of its momentum. Still, it hit more than hard enough to punch her off the saddle. She went with the movement, rolling her body at the hips, reaching out and seizing Deo's heavy buckled belt as she tumbled toward the ground. He came off his saddle with a half-yelp of surprise. She managed not to pull his full weight down on top of herself.

The shaft had bit into her weathered leather armor, the flanged head lodged there. If it had gone past her, struck her employer, her charge ... well, she would have failed in this her first job as a bodyguard/escort. That wouldn't have sat well with her. Actually it was possible the arrow had been meant to go past their noses, a warning, but the archer was either off the mark or so talented he or she could cut it just that finely; either way, Radstac hadn't felt inclined to risk it.

Their horses fussed, but neither reared. They had landed between the beasts, just a few paces from the riverbank where they'd been heading. Water the horses, fill the waterskins. A brief rest. Deo talking, telling one of an apparently limitless store of anecdotes about the topsy-turvy travails of growing up as a noble in Petgrad. Then she'd seen the bird. Instinct sprang like a coiled trap.

He was scrambling for his feet. Radstac, still gripping his belt, kept him on the ground. She rolled, stayed low, getting her scabbard out from under her but not yet drawing the combat sword. Her head swiveled. She checked every bearing. They were on a northward road, a minor one. Brush on one side, thick; trees over there. There the river.

They weren't alone. More than just the archer. She saw the telltales—the bushes stirring in the breezeless midday, the small swirls of dust. There—and there. She heard, over the river's disinterested gurgle, the crackle of the brush. Closing from three different points. It was a good ambush.

She turned, still on her elbows, and had a throwing knife in her right hand. Deo had loosed his sword. He remained on the ground. Rugged face set—primed, not panicky. His eyes were picking out the more obvious signs of their waylayers.

"Stay," she said and, in a ball, rolled herself under the strong black-bodied horse she'd been allocated. She came out, up onto her feet, the sword flashing into her left hand—the hand that wore the weighted leather glove, its hooks still retracted.

The startled face looked up at her, a body prowling through the tall yellow grass on its belly. Her metal-toed boot struck the brow above the shock-wide left eye. Then she performed another pivot, hearing the arrow's whistle going through the air she no longer occupied. Not as good a shot. Different archer, this one.

Back to the horses. Deo up on one knee but holding there, sword in a two-fisted grip at the ready. She went past. Three figures were racing up the road, charging. They wore mismatched bits of armor. One carried a shield, also a cudgel. The other two, swords.

She flung the throwing knife—hard, accurate trajectory, into the shield with a resounding thump. Her heavy sword came up for the other two assailants, both of whom were chopping their swords for her, downward strokes, side by side. She caught both blades against her sword, her sinewy left shoulder absorbing the impacts. Neither of their weapons was going to break her blade.

The one with the club had had his shield jammed violently back against his body by the force of the throwing knife, whose tip had spiked through the shield's metal mantle and into the wood beneath. He was still blundering forward.

Radstac reached, tore the knife free, kicked the clubber's knee out from under him; down he went.

The scarred bracer on her right wrist caught the blow as one of the swords tried another chop. She stepped out— seeing two more here, two more here, figures coming out of the trees and scrub.

The finely balanced throwing knife launched again. Her combat sword jumped nimbly from her left to her right hand. Out from her glove came the paired prongs, her left leathered fist a fighting weight. She swung, hearing and feeling hooks catch a too-slow limb as she turned the other way with her sword. Deo still behind her. Herself between him and these ambushers, quite a few of them. Another arrow now, this one picking off a bit of her left earlobe; she'd barely moved in time. Spinning, parrying, chopping, dancing just outside of the blows, but they were closing.

They were good, but she was better. But they had numbers. They weren't going to have an easy time of it, though. They—

"Stop it! Stop."

She hopped back, cut a hard slice out of the air to keep anyone from immediately following.

"Stop it! We lay down."

Deo's sword hit the ground. He had called the surrender.

She waited, stance firm, head swiveling once more, meeting the ambushers' eyes, seeing that the words were heard. Waited until all movement stopped. Then she let her sword fall to the ground—a step away, still in reach for her. She wiped her hooks on her black leggings, gave the hand a fast snap, and retracted the prongs into their glove. The pain from her ear was at once intense and remote. Blood was pouring warmly down her neck.

Twelve, she counted, including the initial archer who was now approaching from farthest away. She'd hurt a few; none were dead.

Bandits, obviously. Their interests, traditionally, were merchant caravans, the ones that moved in the high summer, on larger roads. No doubt, however, the Felk war had seriously disrupted trade. By now those caravans that had ventured forth had returned to the Southsoil or their home city-states.

One among the bandits strode forward, waving down everyone's weapons, an air of command about her. "Desist!" The group held their places. "That means you, too!" She threw this last back over her shoulder at the archer, tall and young, coming up the road.

Radstac slid a glance at Deo. He was watching the woman, measuring, studying. His posture was confident. A look of calm about him.

The woman was short and exaggeratedly muscled. She halted several paces off, her body seeming to plant itself.

"If you've killed any of my people, you die." She said it to Radstac like someone explaining a dice game's rules.

"She's in my employ," Deo said to the muscular woman. "If you intend to kill her, after we have laid down arms, she'll hear it through me. Not from you."

Radstac heard the resolute tone in his smooth, eloquent voice. Hard wood beneath attractive varnish.

"Then for your sake," the woman said, "I hope you've been worth the trouble of ambushing."

"Worth it? Monetarily?" Deo asked, tone becoming almost droll. He put a hand into his coat pocket. He wore traveler's clothes of purely functional cut; but of course he wore them particularly well. The man would look suave dressed in a sack. "I should think so." His hand came out smoothly, then shook, rattling the coins.

A very distinct sound, Radstac thought, the sound of money.

That focused everyone's attention, keenly. When Deo opened the hand and let the midday sun gleam lovingly all over that gold, the group was mesmerized.

At that Deo turned. His hand swept behind him, and the goldies went flashing into the river just a few steps away. A lively current, foam around the rock outcroppings. It wasn't a wide river—they hadn't been concerned about fording it—but it was no streamlet either.

No less than five of the bandits raced for the bank, including—incredibly—the one that Radstac had ripped with her hooks.

The short woman shouted, "Godsdamn you fools! Leave it!"

They hit the water anyway. Radstac's sword was still only a step away.

Deo put back his head and laughed. He had a laugh as fine as his smile, as sincere and rich. The archer who'd shot away a part of Radstac's ear was now standing behind the woman who was spitting more exasperated orders.

The archer had meant that second arrow to kill her. The head of his first arrow, which she'd put herself in the way of purposely, was still jammed into her armor above her right breast, though the shaft had snapped off when she hit the ground.

"You're laughing yourself toward a slit throat."

Deo's chuckling trailed off, but he only smiled back at the woman's glare.

"A demonstration." He slapped the same pocket, made the contents jingle. 'There is more. But everything I carry, every scrap of money, is a bent copper compared to what I can offer. To the wealth I can tap. I can make you rich. Every single one of you. I can write a promissory note, to be redeemed in the Noble State of Petgrad... if you will do what I say."

"Let you go?" sneered the woman.

Deo took an easy step forward, still showing no fear. "Take me north. To the Felk. To their army. I wish to intercept it. I will assassinate the individual who leads that army. Get me to him, and I'll glut you with more money than you'd want to spend in your lifetimes."

THEY WERE IN the bandits' tent for negotiations, though there was nothing to negotiate, really. Deo had made his offer, his very generous offer, and it had plainly already been accepted, despite the perfunctory dickering on the part of the bandit leader. She had introduced herself as Anzal.

They sat on the canvas floor, Radstac behind Deo. She was wearing her weapons once more. The bandit leader didn't like her, though none in the gang had died of the wounds she'd inflicted. Radstac herself had smeared a bit of plaster on her ear, using the small aid kit that she carried. The chunk that had been torn from her lobe was gone; she didn't give it any more thought than she did her body's scars.

Anzal named a staggering sum of money. Deo nodded. She doubled the sum. He nodded still.

He shook a page of paper from a sheaf he removed from his coat pocket. It bore a dark border and much official-looking print, stamped here and there.

"Promissory note," he said.

"To be filled in... ?" Anzal was trying to hide the hunger in her eyes.

"When you've gotten me to the Felk war commander, of course. Or"—he grunted a tiny chuckle—"just before, I suppose. Or," he said, a sober crease appearing between his red brows, "you could murder my bodyguard, hold a blade to my throat, and force me to sign now. And when you got to Petgrad and the Municipal Funds Office, they would read the name I had written. It would be a code word. You would never leave that city. You would never see daylight for the remainder of your lives, which wouldn't last long."

He had not given his name to these people, Radstac realized, her scarred face remaining bland.

Shortly after the negotations, she and Deo left the tent, picked through the small camp, past the campfire, and went to where their own tent was pitched. The archer who had nicked Radstac's ear was scowling at her. So were most of the others. A guard or guards would stand outside their tent through the night.

No one would come in, though. She laid her sword alongside their blankets, leaving the glove on her hand. The tent's interior was dark. She would probably chew a bit of mansid later.

They lay together, heads touching, blankets across their legs, breathing words at each other that nobody would overhear.

"What of your ambassadorial mission to Trael?" She had been waiting some while to ask. "Your uncle's plan to gather an alliance."

"It's too late for Trael. The Felk are already making for it. Cultat knows so."

"So why send you there?"

"I'm expendable." Deo's voice was steady. "I don't imply that Cultat wants me dead. I know he cares for me, for all of his family. But he cares—must care—for his people more. And so we of that family

must make the first sacrifices as Petgradites in this war, which is why I volunteered. He is right to have made the judgment."

"But you won't obey it?" Radstac's voice was equally level.

"The Felk are not stoppable. I don't believe that even the alliance my uncle is hoping for will stand against their strength. They are led by a man named Weisel. He is the key. Our field intelligence indicates that he is a master war commander. If I eliminate that one ..."

She heard the eagerness now. He wanted to do this. Badly.

"The Felk will still have their mighty army and their wizards and—"

"No one to lead."

She allowed him to cut her off. It was what she'd expected him to say.

"Cultat has sent emissaries to all the major states. To Q'ang, Ebzo, Grat, Ompellus Prime. To the smaller cities as well. Dral Blidst. Hingo. Places you've never heard of. Insane. Impossible. Petgrad has fought wars with just about every place I've mentioned. Well... not us. Not in our lifetime. But in generations past. And the rivalries persist, culturally embedded. If he waits until he's sealed an accord with all those disparate states ..." He grunted a laugh. "By that time the Felk will possess the Isthmus."

"Your war's hopeless, then." Not her war. No. She wasn't even borrowing this one. She hadn't been hired as a soldier to go against the Felk, which was what she envisioned when she'd come north from the Southsoil. Instead, she was serving a single client.

"Cultat has other means," Deo said. "He's in highly secret contact with someone at Febretree, at the University there."

"Highly secret. Are you your uncle's confidant?"

"Hardly." Something dark moved behind the word. "But his elder daughter is."

"A pretty child."

"Not a child," Deo said. "But attractive."

Radstac sniffed a laugh. They told jokes back home about the intimacies of Isthmuser cousins.

"It's purely a flirtation. I'm her confidant. She pities me because I was so thoroughly overlooked for the post of premier—but she keeps her sympathies private from her father. I tell her I'm glad I was overlooked. I tell Uncle the same. His daughter tells me secrets."

"Why is Cultat in contact with the University?"

"I don't know entirely. Some sort of... strategist there. He won't speak directly about it. But I suspect the intelligence he's receiving from his scouts is also going there. Maybe there's more to his plans than I know. Uncle likes decent odds."

"Most people do."

"Yes. Most."

She felt the warmth of him, lying alongside her. They remained clothed. She wondered when they might be lovers again; maybe never.

"But not you," Radstac breathed.

"Oh, I like favorable odds. That's why I've hired these bandits. They'll know this territory, know how to move through it quickly and stealthily. They're a tough bunch, I'd say."

"I agree." Though, she added silently, she would be surprised if any of them lived to redeem that priceless promissory note. Probably Deo'd had that in mind when he wrote it.

"I like the idea of winning," Deo said. "It's a fine abstract desire. Unluckily the odds have stood against me all my life. I wish to do something more than my circumstances would likely have ever allowed me to. Something worthwhile."

"Assassinate the head of the Felk military? You won't succeed." Hat words—not opinion; judgment. She was a mercenary of many years. She'd earned the right to judge. She would point this out if he argued.

He didn't. "My own life hasn't succeeded. My mother chose to exclude herself—and me—from the hardships of being premier. It went to Cultat. My uncle ... who, when he was a tenwinter younger than I am now, was utterly unfit for the post. I remember his ascendancy ceremony. I was young, but I understood what was happening. I knew what was out of my reach, forever."

Their heads were still together. She felt the tear—quite warm—sliding off his cheek onto her scarred one.

"I won't succeed. I won't manage to kill Weisel. I also won't waste any more of my life. But for this ... I think I may be remembered for trying. For making the effort, the sacrifice. If it's not a purely selfless or spotlessly noble act, it may at least seem so to those who hear of my deed. I would be satisfied with that."

She drew the blanket up from their legs, spread it farther onto their bodies.

"You'll stay with me?" It was a tone of voice she had never heard from him—small, nearly defenseless; speaking for someone deep inside.

"I'll stay." She kept it simple. "Until I am told to go."