Wartorn: Resurrection

sword. The Felk didn't need mercenaries, not at this point, not after they'd absorbed substantial troop numbers from their earlier conquests.

'I wasn't aware I was smiling,' she said.

'Exactly. I also like your accent.'

'We don't have accents. You do.'

'Fair enough. It's very subtle. I've met Southsoilers, a lot of them. I've always wanted to hire one as a storyteller, just to hear that enunciation. Wouldn't matter in the least what the story was.'

'Must be amusing to be able to afford a ... storyteller.'

'Said I wanted to hire one. Didn't say I had the money.'

This wordplay was, she thought, almost as enjoyable as the sex. How odd that was. And how fantastically rare. Good lovers almost never made good conversationalists. Deo drank more of his purple drink, lounging back on a few of the bed's abundant pillows.

'What is the matter with these people?' she asked, as if picking up a thread of conversation from earlier. 'Those merchants in that pub... don't they realize a Felk onslaught is inevitable?'

'Do you actually think resistance could be successful?'

'I don't know. I don't make it my business to know. I don't hire myself out as an officer or a strategist. I'm a fighter. Personally, I'm quite successful.'

'Always pick the winning side?'

Her barking laugh was, she knew, something like her normal smile—disconcerting.

'Hardly,' she said. 'But wars don't go on until every last soldier is slain. One head of state or the other surrenders or capitulates to terms, usually well before the slaughter gets irreversibly messy. I fight for whichever side hires me. I fight well. I fight till someone says stop. I don't win the wars or lose them. I participate.'

His laugh was much warmer than hers. His blue eyes moved over her body again, not lingering on the scars.

'Everyone's afraid,' Deo said. 'Yes. Everyone. It's war, but it's not war that we recognize. You pointed that out yourself, rather articulately I thought.'

'I thought so as well.'

'I was in disguise at that pub for the same reason you were there—to sound out the views of the people. I've been doing it a lot lately and keep encountering the same thing.'

'How can that be?'

'The people have good Uves here in Petgrad. We've had generations of reasonable prosperity. We like things stable, grounded. Why upset a good thing? This war, these Felk... they'll upset it. Most certainly. But the people won't face it.'

'So'—her hand glided out, her finger tracing a vein along his firm shoulder—'I've wasted a journey here.'

'Wasted?' He gave her a wry, mock-injured look.

'An unhired mercenary is somebody walking about with a sword and nowhere to stick it.'

'Where is your sword?'

'Public Armory.' She felt a yawn overtake her. The bed was ethereally soft and comfortable.

'You'd better go retrieve it, then.' Deo's gaze pulled her drifting eyes back open. 'I wish to hire you. I should also tell you who I am.'

'Someone with the money to afford a mercenary, I hope.'

'Yes. That. I am also Na Niroki Deo.' He hadn't expected her to recognize the full title. 'I'm the nephew of the premier of Petgrad.'

RAVEN (1)

'WELL, GO ON. Walk through it.'

Raven recognized the bullying tone even before she identified the voice's owner. This wasn't the first time she'd been harassed.

The mocking command was followed immediately and inevitably by a firm hand backed by a strong arm that shoved her face-first into the corridor's stone wall. The stone was cold. It was always cold, even in summer. This was Felk, after all, the Isthmus's northernmost city, and its climate wasn't as gentle as it was rumored to be in the south.

There was nothing gentle about this place in particular. This was the Academy.

Raven didn't try to turn her head. She heard laughter and counted at least three among her assailants.

'I can't,' Raven said, slowly and deliberately. She knew it did no good to show either fear or defiance.

'Of course you can,' said the girl who now had her tightly pinned. The girl was called Hert, and she certainly lived up to her name. 'You're a wizard, aren't you?'

'She sure thinks she is,' said one of the others. More laughter followed.

'I'm not,' Raven said, as steadily as before, keeping control over her fear. Discipline was key to everything. 'I'm in training. Just like you.'

'Oh, but you're so smart,' said Hert. 'So talented. You're the one who always wants the toughest exercises. If it was up to you, we'd all spend every watch studying and practicing. No sleep, no food. Not even a piss break.'

It wasn't true. But Raven didn't expect the others to share her zeal. Many of the Academy's students behaved like undisciplined children. She behaved like a student who meant to graduate to greater things. Much greater things.

The hand pressed her harder. Raven's forehead and nose were now being mashed against the wall.

'I said, walk through the wall.'

'I can't.' Raven could barely get the words out. She tasted the wall's stone on her lips.

'Oh, come on,' Hert said. 'It's just a transport spell. You can do it. And we want to see.' The

laughter that followed was louder and crueler.

Raven sighed. She didn't have time for this. The long day's lessons were done, but she had studying to do in her room.

Just a transport spell. That was laughable, though Raven certainly didn't join in the laughter. The Far Movement magic that opened the portals through which people and even military equipment (so the gossip went) could be moved was very powerful. Only highly skilled and specialized mages could work it, and it required more than one wizard to do it. A mage had to be present at both ends of the transport corridor; the two had to be working in perfect harmony; they had to call upon powers far beyond Raven's present abilities. And even with all these efforts, they could only open portals that were very narrow—just enough, say, for a wagon to get through—and those portals could only be sustained for a limited time.

There was no point in mentioning any of this to Hert, however.

'Do it,' Hert was saying, and now her tone turned darker with the promise of impending violence. 'Do it!'

There were monitors who patrolled the corridors, but none were nearby at the moment. Of course.

Raven was going to have to do something.

She sighed again, then started gathering herself. She focused her mind and reached for those forces that aided in the acts of magic. Those forces, she'd been taught, were natural and always present. It was just a matter of tapping them, though it required a certain inherent talent and a great deal of discipline. Raven possessed both those ingredients.

She felt the power move through her in a kind of giddy rush.

Suddenly a discharge of sparks burst around her head. Her unbecoming dark hair rose up on end.

The hand left her back. Someone gasped sharply.

Raven let the minor spell dissipate. At last she turned, being careful to wear an apologetic look on her somewhat homely face.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I tried but I couldn't get through the wall.'