Wartorn Obliteration

She had examined the recent reports of the conquest of Trael. The Felk had initially surrounded the city, like water in a rising river encircling a stone. But there was a delay before the actual invasion commenced. It was a curiosity. Cultat's scouts, however, attested to the lag, and Praulth trusted them for their accuracy.

She had puzzled over the anomaly. It vexed her. She could deduce no military advantage in the postponement, not unless General Weisel meant to provoke a surrender.

But it wasn't Weisel, she reminded herself unnecessarily. It was Dardas. And Dardas wouldn't have wasted time in this manner, wouldn't have allowed the people of Trael the courtesy of deliberating their surrender. Sook had successfully surrendered to the Felk, but only because they had done so preemptively, before the great enemy horde was at their borders.

Something else must have been afoot at Trael, Praulth had concluded. Some other military operation... perhaps some smaller action. And Dardas/Weisel had been awaiting the results before committing his forces to overrunning the city.

It barely made sense. At least, as far as it fit with Dardas's historical tactics. And there, of course, was the thought that was most disturbing. Perhaps it wasn't Dardas any longer. Maybe Cultat's godsdamned nephew had succeeded in assassinating Weisel, and thereby had killed off the brilliant war commander who was living a resurrected life within that body.

What that would mean, most catastrophically, was that Praulth's ingenious plan to reenact the Battle of Torran Flats would prove useless. A new Felk war leader wouldn't recognize the battle pattern. Wouldn't try to recreate one of Dardas's greatest Northland victories. Wouldn't fall into the trap that Praulth had devised, whereby the Alliance forces would move suddenly and decisively and hack the Felk army in two, which would almost certainly be a crippling blow.

Praulth had said nothing of this to Premier Cultat or anyone else, not even Xink. It meant, of course, that she was committing this newly formed Alliance to a strategy that might fail utterly. And if this Alliance was defeated, there would be no other force that could rise up against the Felk advance. This was the last desperate chance, before the Felk conquered their way southward, all the way to Febretree and Dral Blidst.

Then the Felk would possess all of the Isthmus.

She wouldn't allow it. Whatever her personal goals and her ambitions for her place in history, she had no desire to live under an invader's rule.

She had turned several corners, onto various streets, without giving her direction much thought. She paused now, looking over her surroundings, looking upward. The district's towers were still there, stark and looming and just a little bit sinister in the cloud-muted moonlight and the glow of the huge city.

But this particular street wasn't familiar. Around her were the monuments of municipal buildings, but at this late watch there was no activity within or among them. A wind sounded through the great gully of the street, whistling eerily. She had come to think of Petgrad as a place of constant bustle, but this patch of it at least was quite inert at the moment.

Praulth glanced all about. She saw no one.

Petgrad had changed over the past quarter-lune or so. She was peripherally aware of the disruptions and burdens the rash influx of refugees had caused. People were fleeing ahead of the Felk, streaming south. Petgrad, no doubt, looked like an obvious sanctuary, the greatest strongest city of the southern half of the Isthmus. Surely the Felk wouldn't dare go against it.

It was foolish thinking, but Praulth understood it. She also understood that Petgrad's food supplies weren't inexhaustible. Nor was its housing. Something on the order of thousands of war fugitives had crossed into the city in a disastrously short time. Native Petgradites were raising irate protests.

But that wasn't Praulth's concern. She was no desperate stray evading the war. She was in that war. Granted, she wasn't riding off with Cultat and the Petgrad contingent of the Alliance; she would never walk a battlefield or be put in physical harm's way. But her contribution was invaluable, and her sacrifice was noble. After all, she had foregone a promising academic career—

Praulth heard a ruckus, above the whistling of the night wind. The large buildings in this district weren't jammed together side by side. They were separated by alleyways, and along these refuse had accumulated, probably over a long time. More recent deposits of trash were evident, including slops and offal from whatever kitchens serviced these institutions.

She had halted nearby the mouth of one of these alleys. The commotion was coming from there. Sounds of somebody rooting among the rubbish. It was dark down there, and the noises abruptly set her heart speeding. Memories of being caught out late in Dral Blidst's woods, hurrying homeward, hearing unidentifiable animal sounds in the trees around her, scavengers tearing at wild meat, no doubt scenting her as well.

Praulth backed away. There was still no one else within sight. She looked skyward, trying to orient herself. She couldn't have wandered too far. She could get back to her rooms quickly enough. Surely she was no farther than a few streets away. Xink would be there waiting for her, and quite suddenly she wanted very much to see him.

But the ruckus from the dark alleyway increased, something heavy now being tumbled over on its side, and at last a voice, savage and unintelligible and enraged, rose in the darkness. It scarcely sounded human, and it put a terrible deep chill into Praulth that the night alone could not have managed. She felt eyes watching her from that alley.

Then she heard footfalls. Coming up that alleyway. And more of those furious gibbering cries.

Praulth turned and started to run; and before she'd made her first fleeing step, she knew that the thing in the alley was human, and that made it all the more frightening. She tried to draw breath to shout, but fear froze everything she needed to make the noise.

The creature from the alley smelled of the foul slops it had been scavenging. It overtook her and knocked her to the ground from behind and laid a terrible weight on her.

She heard and felt the fabric of her clothing being rent.

* * *

Dardas the Conqueror. Dardas the Fox. Dardas the Invincible. There was one other moniker that history had awarded the Northland war master. What was it?

Dardas the Butcher. Yes, that was right.

He had earned every one of those titles. Likely he had been known by many more, names whispered fearfully, conjuring up images of implacable bloodshed, a relentless army sweeping the cold bleak reaches of the Northern Continent... and Dardas commanding its every crushing move.

How many had been slain in his campaigns, in total? How many deaths was that one man responsible for? The number could never be counted. It could never be guessed. One might as readily number the drops of water necessary to fill a lake.

And that number was only growing. U'delph had been a slaughter. Surely other such atrocities awaited.

'Beauty?'

Dardas. Dardas. Undying Dardas. There, that was yet another name for him. But none would ever know him by it. Weisel would take the credit for Dardas's deeds in this modern age.

'What's happened?'

In Dardas's original life two hundred and fifty years ago, he had faced quite a few adversaries. He was hardly the only war commander the contentious Northern Continent had produced. He had contemporaries, some quite skilled. Some of those warlords raised armies and did battle and held off Dardas's advances... for a time. But none of those foes were remembered. They had all been pulverized by the legend that the Butcher had left indelibly behind.

'By the madness of the gods, Praulth, what's happened to you?'

To be remembered she had to defeat Dardas, even if he was only in the guise of General Weisel. Besides, when she wrote her history of this war, she could reveal the truth of things, fantastic though it was.

Xink was holding her, fussing over her torn clothes, making a useless nuisance of himself. Just draw me a bath, she told him. But he acted as if he hadn't heard.

Praulth was tired. She was cold. She hurt, here and there. She hurt within. But she had made it back to these rooms. When it had all finished, she had picked herself up from the street and come here.

Perhaps there was yet one more name for Dardas, she thought. Dardas the Rapist. For what was his