Wartorn Obliteration

PRAULTH (3)

There was no waiting this time, no lapse while she brooded over her place in the greater scheme of this war and this turning point in history. She heard the solid decisive footfalls, turned, and there was Cultat's broad frame—broader still in armor—blocking the chamber's doorway.

'Thinker Praulth,' he rumbled, red-and-gold-maned head in silhouette, 'I wished to make our farewell a private one. Thank you for meeting me.'

Praulth bowed; it was almost an involuntary action. It was an artifice on the premier's part. The man had a great control of language, of etiquette. By taking the humbler stance of thanking her, he was contrarily reaffirming his already more powerful position. A manipulator, this one. Surely a prerequisite for someone holding such a high political office.

It never occurred to Praulth that Cultat might be sincerely thankful.

'We have very little time,' Cultat said, striding inside, swinging shut the door behind him, 'but enough, I think, to say what we will say.'

'And what are we to say, Premier?' Praulth asked, her voice slightly edged. It was important she assert herself here.

The chamber was a small lounge in the same building where the Alliance conference had been held. It was expensively if indifferently furnished, and it smelled of disuse. Praulth was standing.

Cultat halted, rested his hand atop the sword at his belt; then began a slow circuit of the room, around the backs of the lush dusty furniture. A lone lamp burned. There was a painting on one wall of a nude woman sprawling on a leafy riverbank. Praulth hadn't noticed it until the premier passed before it.

'I would imagine,' Cultat finally said, his tone now thoughtful, 'that you will say your position in all these matters of war is unappreciated. Or underappreciated.' The crags of his face shadowed his severe blue eyes.

Praulth gazed back at him, willing herself not to blink.

Cultat continued, 'And I will say in reply that you are appreciated. Of course you are. When all this is done, I'll bestow some tawdry bauble on you and shower you with all the gaudy honors the Noble State of Petgrad has to offer, which won't mean much to you. As to what you'll say to that, I can't quite guess, since this grows increasingly speculative and abstract.' He halted again. A wry smile moved under his beard. 'But I'll wager I'm fairly accurate so far, yes?'

Praulth felt a tightness in her throat. She swallowed deliberately. 'Without me you'd have nothing.' It came hoarse and pained, but also audible and steady.

'We wouldn't have the Battle of Torran Flats.'

'You wouldn't have my predictions about the Felk movements.'

'True. We've had others—Petgradites, some who've studied wars with perhaps the same fervor you have, but not with the same total understanding. They've made their guesses, pored over the same maps you were receiving through Master Honnis in Febretree. They could not forecast with your success.'

'No one can,' Praulth said with a dire firmness.

'Again, true.' Cultat didn't qualify the statement.

Her heart filled with pride, beating giddily. This was recognition. This was acknowledgment.

'But,' Cultat added, 'what do my words matter? Your place is in the chronicles that will make this war a history to be remembered above all others.'

The Petgrad premier was still at the fringe of the chamber. Now he came toward the center, where Praulth stood beneath the lamp. His face, aged and robust all at once, came into glaring view. He came to a halt, looking down on her. Something had diluted the ruthlessness of his eyes. Perhaps fatigue. Perhaps wariness of the battle to come.

'Praulth,' he said quite softly, 'you are appreciated. You are necessary. You are crucial. I have sensed your discontent, and I respect it. How can I address it?'

Now she did blink. Repeatedly. She was taken aback. She turned her head. She hadn't expected this man —this man, this powerful man—to express such a keen awareness of her inner turmoils. How had he known? He was canny. That was how he'd sensed her thoughts. He needed her to be at her cooperative best before he took the assembling forces of the Alliance off to engage Dardas/Weisel on the Pegwithe Plains south of the city of Trael, which had of course fallen to the Felk.

His interest in her was self-serving. Yet his manner, the cast of his rugged features, made it seem sincere. He wanted from her what he wanted. It was nearly irrelevant that it was for a greater good, a much greater good. The defeat of the Felk. He was still manipulating her.

'I've been manipulated before, Premier,' she said.

He wasn't fazed. He heaved a small weary chuckle. 'Manipulated? Well, so have I, young Thinker. By my family, by the Noble Ministry, by the people of this state. Not once. Many times. It comes with the rank and the responsibility. Manipulation is a guiding force, if you're aware of it. And if you keep ahead of it. Can you keep ahead, Praulth?'

She thought of Xink. She thought of Honnis. She thought also of this premier. What exactly did she want from him anyway? What acknowledgment could he make that would satisfy her?

Praulth knew Cultat was departing this evening, a night ride with the Petgrad contingent. They would start making their way to the rendezvous site. The delegates who'd come to Petgrad had all returned or sent word to their home states and cities and villages for their forces to make for the gathering as well. There was no sure way to know precisely what numbers would finally assemble. Praulth of course would be kept scrupulously informed.

Using the intelligence provided by the Petgradite Far Speak scouts, she would oversee the first clash between the Alliance and the Felk. And if it went correctly, it would mean the end of this war.

Praulth lifted her chin. She met those blue eyes squarely.

'I want the rank of general,' she said.

No flicker in the eyes. Nothing whatever to read on that astute intelligent face. What she was asking for could be considered a trifle or an outrageous demand. What, after all, did a title denote? But there was a sacredness about military conventions. They were almost fanatical, almost religious.

'Thinker Praulth' might not be remembered. But 'General Praulth' stood a better chance, particularly since she intended to write this war's most definitive accounting.

Beneath a segmented breastplate Premier Cultat's hardy chest rose as he drew a deep breath. 'I will see that the proper documents receive my approval before I leave,' he said. Then he stepped past her, giving her his back as he strode from the chamber.

* * *

She was breathless and restless. Her and Xink's rooms were only a short distance away, but she turned in a random direction, following a wide street beneath the clouded night sky. It was cooler than when she'd arrived in Petgrad. It was coming into the heart of autumn, the season of fading, of dwindling. But this was her time of renewal. So it very much seemed.

Praulth hadn't dreamt of glories, not during her childhood in Dral Blidst. Her ambitions had involved only a deepening of her education, and those had led her directly to the University. Febretree was her refuge, a staunch fortress of learning, where intellect was celebrated above all else, where she could achieve and succeed and surpass. Where the very inclinations that had made her life so uncomfortable among her timber trade family here made her a fourth-phase student of first ranking, one with a very promising future.

She would have been content. She would have kept to her course and climbed from Thinker to Attache. She would have striven, and one day she would have taken her rightful place as head of the University's historical war studies.

If Master Honnis hadn't chosen her to study the Felk war, if Xink had never appeared in her life, if Cultat hadn't brought her here to Petgrad...

How different her life would have been, how normal, how predictable. And what a waste if she had never achieved this new, more exciting identity.

General Praulth, chief strategist of the Alliance. It was a worthy title. Now she had to make certain that the Alliance defeated the Felk. History remembered the victors.