Wartorn Obliteration

Raven held her cup numbly a moment, then hurriedly drank. Dardas gulped his heroically and tossed away the cup. Raven found herself looking down at the maps, at the confusing scrawls of troop movements. She saw the enemy flanks, to the east and west, moving to surround the Felk army.

Suddenly, she looked up. A terrible thought had occurred to her.

It was sharp enough that Vadya perceived it. No, she said, horrified. You don't think...?

It's certainly possible, Raven said.

But you can't tell him, not without revealing that you know Weisel is the host body for Dardas.

Raven prepared herself grimly. Then that's what I'll have to do. This is too important.

Vadya raised more objections, but Raven deliberately shut them out.

'General Dardas,' Raven said, clearly and levelly.

It took a moment for it to sink in, then the general froze. He turned and looked at her fully. The grin died on his face, replaced by a cold, penetrating stare.

'What?' he asked, too softly to be heard by anyone but her. 'What did you call me?'

Raven drew a steadying breath. 'I spoke to Mage Kumbat,' she said, not hesitating now, but also speaking quietly, privately. No one else needed to hear this. 'He told me. We are alike in this way, General. I am Raven, and yet I'm not. You are Dardas, yet you appear as Weisel.'

He seemed to absorb the shock with admirable speed. He regarded her closely, shrewdly.

'Why are you saying this to me now?' he asked.

Without a waver, Raven said, 'Because I believe I see a flaw in all this.' She indicated the maps on the table.

Dardas's brows lifted. 'Do you imagine you know something of military strategy that I don't?' He sounded incredulous, but there was a first hint of anger in his voice.

Raven trembled. She didn't want to invoke this man's ire.

'Tell me, General, is this similar to some battle you fought in your... your original lifetime?'

It felt to her as if she were asking a most intimate, most inappropriate question, and perhaps she was. But she stood her ground.

Dardas didn't answer. He frowned, looked puzzled, then annoyed, then seemed to coolly consider her question.

'As a matter of fact,' he finally said, 'it does.'

Raven was biting her lip again. She forced herself to stop. 'It is possible, General,' she said, 'that this particular battle—whatever it is—has been studied by the enemy. Dardas's exploits are quite famous, I understand. They're a matter of history. It is further possible that this enemy has recognized your style from previous actions during this war. They may believe you are copying Dardas's techniques of warfare, and so they might have, conceivably, restaged this battle, believing that you will react as you did in its original incarnation.'

It drained her. She felt suddenly lightheaded.

Dardas's jaw had slowly unhinged. He gazed at her, stupefied now.

'You believe this is a trap within a trap?' he asked in a whisper. He waved a stiff hand at the maps.

Raven swallowed. 'I strongly believe you must consider the possibility, sir.' Inside her head, Vadya was utterly silent now.

Dardas shook his head, but not to negate what she had proposed. 'If it's true, then I face an enemy far more worthy than I suspected.' A soft, pleased smile played briefly on his lips. This time, the expression wasn't strained.

He took a step closer to her and brushed a finger along her sublime jawline, apparently not caring who saw this.

'This is excellent, Raven. You've proven invaluable to me. And of course you are correct, I am Dardas. In fact, I'm more Dardas than I was just half a watch ago. An internal shift has occurred. I believe that my host doesn't have the stomach for battle, in the end. He has... withdrawn. I am in command of this body. Do you understand?'

'I do, General,' she said, firmly.

'That I can truly believe,' he said. 'But for the moment, you'll have to excuse me. I must call my senior staff back. If the Battle of Torran Flats can't be won one way, it can be won another.'

* * *

Raven wandered a little distance off. She glanced back now and then at Dardas, watching him issuing new orders, his movements assured and natural now. Apparently his distress of earlier had been due to some sort of struggle or adjustment between himself and his host. Raven hadn't known such a thing could happen between people sharing a bodily vessel. She had certainly felt no such contention between herself and Vadya. She remarked on this silently to her own host.

I think we are unusually compatible, Vadya said.

Raven agreed. She was pleased with herself right now. She had contributed something worthwhile. She had pointed out a possibility for disaster that Dardas himself had overlooked. It might not be too farfetched to say she had just saved the day.

Tell me something, Raven.

Yes? Despite the oncoming night's chill and the frenzy of activity around her, Raven felt a warm calm glow of satisfaction.

Do you love Matokin? Vadya asked. As the father you believe him to be—do you love him?

Raven blinked. She had never put it into such language. I think I must, she finally said. If he is my father, I must love him.

Vadya was silent a moment, then asked, Do you love Dardas?

As...? Raven asked, prompting her.

As Dardas, Vadya said simply.

Raven considered. She looked at him now, a short distance away. He was bold, confident, powerful, full of ancient shrewdness and a curiously fresh zest for life.

How could I not love him? she said, finally.

Very well, Vadya said. Then, for your sake, I hope that it never becomes necessary to kill either man. Or both.

RADSTAC (5)

It was nearly a whole leaf she'd chewed, but the occasion was special, the need poignant. Not the addict's craving; not so much, at least. More, the needs of the moment. Sharpened senses, an acute alertness. Clarity. These things she needed.

Radstac walked side by side with Aquint, their pace steady and parallel. The pain in her teeth had peaked and passed, and the clear solid sense of things was emerging. She understood, in a profound way, the inner meanings of the patterns of traffic in the streets leading up to the Registry. She saw and comprehended the code of the sky in the lowering grey of the clouds overhead.

Sidelong, her peripheral vision stimulated and intense, she saw that Aquint despised her. It wasn't that she had betrayed him; his fealty to the Felk was quite flimsy. It was that she, by cooperating with the Broken Circle, had set in motion the events that had resulted in Cat being shot by Deo's crossbow. That was something worthy of a grudge, in his mind.

She silently acknowledged the rightfulness of his enmity.

Cat, however, wasn't dead. Or at least probably wasn't. The Broken Circle's leader, the one called the Minstrel, had sent someone back to that lot to retrieve Cat's body, per Aquint's request. But the boy wasn't there.