Wartorn Obliteration

She said, coldly, 'Treason.'

Then she led Kumbat away to specially prepared quarters. Kumbat was no Far Movement mage. He wouldn't be able to just conjure up a portal and step through and escape.

Alone in the pavilion now, Dardas yawned. The episode had been rather draining and this body had to rest sometime. He lay down on his bed, vaguely disappointed that Raven wasn't joining him. In a short while, Matokin would contact him, demanding to know what had happened to Kumbat. Dardas would express bafflement and then later on regret for the apparent tragedy that had occurred.

Matokin might or might not believe the ruse. Almost certainly, however, he would send someone to investigate. Maybe Abraxis, chief of the Internal Security Corps. The few times Dardas had met Abraxis, he had been struck by the canniness and wiliness of the man.

It would be interesting to see what would happen when the chief of Internal Security met the chief of Military Security, especially since it would be on Raven's ground.

Now Dardas did allow himself a chuckle. He was enjoying himself. As complex and perilous as things had become he was still participating in life. Two and a half centuries after his own death, and he was living his new life to its fullest! It was worth savoring every moment of it.

He was still Dardas the Invincible.

Soon, he would add the city-state of Ompellus Prime to his roster of conquests. After that, Grat would fall. This army would work farther and farther south, swallowing its enemies. But before it reached the southward extremity of the Isthmus, a worthy foe would surely rise to challenge him.

It had to happen. His instincts told him so. Wars were not fought like this, without any notable resistance. The laws of existence wouldn't allow it.

Dardas only hoped he wasn't mistaking his instincts for desperate, irrational hope.

Yes, Dardas the Invincible. He laughed a bit harder. With Kumbat as his captive, and with the mage's rejuvenating powers at his beck and call, invincible was precisely what he was.

BRYCK (3)

'He was an innocent,' Bryck said, cutting through the contesting voices.

He did not speak loudly, but this group still showed him deference. They quieted. They turned. They listened for what he had to say.

'They grabbed up some poor wretch,' he continued. 'And they declared him guilty of the crime. And they took him into the plaza and hacked his head off.'

'But I heard him,' Gelshiri said in that insistent adolescent tone. 'I heard him say he was a part of the Broken Circle.'

Tyber, leaning against the wall nearby where Bryck was sitting, shrugged. 'The soldiers must've coerced him into saying it.'

'How would they do that?' Ondak countered. 'How do you compel someone condemned to death to do anything? What's left to threaten him with?'

'A less comfortable death,' Tyber offered.

A valid point, Bryck noted silently.

'So...' one of the new recruits to the Circle said, somewhat timidly, 'he wasn't, uh, one of us?'

'Definitely not,' said Tyber.

'So he died,' said the same recruit, a sinewy middle-yeared female named Scaullit, 'for a crime, uh, that —'

'That he didn't commit,' Tyber impatiently finished for her.

She lowered her eyes. 'I was going to say, for a crime that... that Minst and I committed.'

They were all gathered in the most spacious of the Circle's rooms, the full complement, including the four fresh faces, two of whom—Scaullit and Minst—had painted the sigil on the wall of the Registry during the night's darkest watches. Bryck hadn't entirely expected the brazen scheme to succeed, but the two eager new members of the Broken Circle had carried it off fearlessly, scaling their way stealthily up onto the Registry's roof, lowering themselves on ropes with buckets of paint in hand. They had been gloriously successful. The giant sigil was a thing of beauty.

They all fell into an uncomfortable silence. The plan had indeed succeeded. And some poor innocent had indeed paid the price.

Bryck could sense the others waiting for him to speak. It was a slow pressure, and he had gradually become aware that it was always present. This group relied on him. That amounted to more than the courtesy and respect they showed him; it meant he had to be the foundation for them, the voice of wisdom and reason. He was their leader.

'The innocent died,' Bryck said. 'But would anyone here rather it was one of you?'

'I'd rather it hadn't happened at all,' Scaullit said softly. 'Whoever he was, he was a fellow Callahan.'

Bryck looked directly at her. 'Then you wish you hadn't painted the sigil? That's what led to all the rest, after all. The activities of this Broken Circle will contribute to the miseries of the people of this city. We strike against the Felk, and they, unable to find any of us, make reprisals against ordinary citizens who have nothing to do with any of our operations. And yet, they are the very people we are fighting for. Didn't you realize all that, Scaullit? Hadn't any of you new people thought this through before you agreed to join us?' He looked around at the others. 'Take the time. Right now. Think about it. Understand what it means to go against the Felk. Not just to yourselves, but to everyone else it will affect.'

Bryck sat back. It was a performance of sorts. He had never acted in one of his own theatricals. While he had been quite skilled at creating words to fit into actors' mouths, he had never had any desire to speak them himself before an audience. Yet here he was, performing his part as the leader of the Broken Circle. He only hoped he was convincing in the role.

While he let the dramatic pause settle over the group, he furtively eyed Quentis sitting on a chair at the far side of the room. He hadn't forgotten the night she had visited him as he lay on his bunk, the night she had more or less offered herself to him. Bryck had relived the incident quite a number of times in his mind, redirecting the action, changing the words she said, changing the words he said. He had followed each altered scene to its conclusion, and though he was somewhat ashamed of himself for it, he had by now imagined in detail making love to Quentis more often than he would ever care to admit.

She gazed back now with her amber eyes. He could read nothing there, and it irked him. Did she still have feelings for him? Or had his one rejection spoiled everything? The puzzlement made a small agitation in his stomach.

Once, before he had married Aaysue, Bryck had enjoyed a reasonably libidinous young adulthood, one bolstered by the status and privilege of his noble bloodline and the wealth that accompanied it. In those long bygone days he had given little thought to specific matters of romance or carnal recreation. If one potential bed partner fell through, he glibly sought out the next. He couldn't recall ever seriously brooding over any individual female, no matter how alluring he might have found her at any given time. Not until he'd met Aaysue, in fact, had he given the possibility of love and true emotional depth any credence.

So why was it that now, when he was twice the age of that promiscuous lad, he should be experiencing such classically adolescent feelings as he was having toward Quentis?

Bryck blinked. He still had the full silent attention of the room, and he had been holding it until that silence had grown distinctly awkward.

He rallied. 'If any of you new people can't accept the consequences of what we do,' he said before his point was lost, 'then now is the time to quit.'

Again he looked over the new faces. He and Tyber had recruited them, picking ones that appeared able- bodied, intelligent, and committed.

'I will not quit,' said Scaullit, tone firm now.

'Neither will I,' Minst said. He was a thick-limbed male, with a hunched posture, but was evidently nimble enough to have scaled the Registry with Scaullit.