Wartorn: Resurrection

'Study this here. Now.' Cultat's deep voice brooked no protest.

Master Honnis was tugging his fingers once more. She looked first to him, then to the premier.

'I will wait here while you do this,' said Cultat. 'Tell me, how can we engage Weisel successfully in battle?'

TIME HAD LOST easy definition, but she was done. Had a watch passed or only a few moments? She stood rooted where she'd been standing. The others were still there— Honnis, the premier and his entourage. Xink? She didn't look behind to see if he was still in the domed chamber. She hoped vaguely he was.

Praulth felt herself swaying on her feet. The ground's earthy chill had bled upward to her knees. This was a new task. This wasn't analytical prophecy. She had been told to devise the countermeasures against the Felk. Against Weisel. Against Dardas. This new task was engrossing, challenging, thoroughly satisfying. Without her knowing it, she had been aching for just this sort of work.

She lifted her head, and Cultat was still there, waiting.

'Battle of Torran Rats,' she said; then she explained.

'WHAT HAVE YOU to do with it?'

She was sitting on the bed, at its foot, still robed, holding herself rigidly. Xink had put his hand gently to her shoulder after leading her back here; but she hadn't responded, and he'd withdrawn it.

He was standing now in a far corner of the chamber, eyes downcast. He had heard her question.

'I... don't know what it means. Beauty—' He cut himself off.

Petgrad. It was the largest and most powerful of the southern city-states, located not too far from Febretree. However, no single state of the Isthmus could, at this stage, muster a force to stand against the Felk. Cultat was trying to gather an alliance of the remaining free states. It was a formidable task. But he needed more than an army to meet Weisel and the Felk.

Cultat, Petgrad's premier, had visited her. Specifically. She had known some while now that Trael was the next logical step for the Felk. Devising a plan of counterattack, however... that had been a categorically different task for her—far more difficult, far more rewarding. But she had succeeded. She was certain. The Battle of Torran Flats. Use the tactics of Dardas against the Felk military leader; turn the tables.

Afterward Cultat, that great fierce man, had gone with his entourage. Obviously the entire meeting was meant to be secret. Honnis had directed Xink—who'd waited all the while inside one of the archways into the dome—to return her to their quarters.

Xink was doubtlessly a part of this ... though she still didn't know exactly what this was.

'You're working with Honnis, too,' she said. Her sandaled feet still felt cold from that old underground chamber.

'Working ... with ... ?'

She was staring directly at him now, but he was still watching the floor.

'How conveniently you appeared,' she said, a quiver tugging at her voice. 'And with you these comfortable quarters. And so I neglected my other studies. Honnis means for me to work exclusively on his war project— means to squeeze every possible effort from me. And so I am kept... k-k-kept happy. By you. You ...'

He was awash in blurs now, as if the lamplight overhead had turned to liquid. Through the haze, she saw him take a few steps toward her, hesitate.

'B— Praulth. Please. I beg you to believe. If it's a machination, I've only played the slightest role in it. Surely if you're being used, so am I.'

'You?' It was a sob.

'And I don't care. I'm grateful for the time we've had together ... the times I hope we'll still have. I don't care if—why—Honnis—'

'He put you on to me,' she said; then stopped and choked down the tears, fiercely. She would not whimper like a child. 'He ... what? Offered a reward, perhaps, to you? Payment?'

Wiping her eyes, she saw him clearer, his handsome face etched with pain, tears of his own in his limpid blue eyes, the flecks of gold in them sparkling.

'I have loved you, Praulth. I have. I wish to go on doing so.'

'What are you getting?'

'You're beautiful to me. When I first saw you, you were like a radiant child—'

'I'm not a child.'

It was the first sharp thing she'd ever said to him, the first she had dared to say. But now she dared. In among the churning confusion and fear, she most certainly felt anger.

He hastily licked his lips. 'I—I know you are not—'

'What reward are you getting from Honnis for... for being with me?' Hateful, so hateful to say the words, to even think the thoughts.

Xink drew a breath, drew himself erect. He shook his head once, as if to clear it. His features became composed. 'Master Honnis has promised me an eventual seat on the sociology council. He has the means to leverage it.'

It was a confession. Praulth stared at her lover, her beautiful lover, feeling the hotness in her throat, feeling emotions tearing and ripping.

But Xink wasn't done. 'I have also fallen genuinely in love with you during the course of this. My heart belongs to you—whether you choose to reject it or not, it's yours. Now and forever. In this ... I'm helpless.'

He spoke it in the same level divulging tone, even as the tears continued to ooze from his eyes.

Believe? Disbelieve? It seemed impossible. So much to sort through. Her very existence had been upended tonight; but perhaps it hadn't been utterly destroyed after all.

Xink remained where he was. Waiting. Waiting for her judgment, her pronouncement of sentence.

She gazed at him, and, yes, he was still beautiful, and, yes, her heart soared even as it desperately ached. Her mind whirled.

Evidently Cultat was in cahoots with Honnis—the war studies master using her, Praulth, to predict Weisel's movements ... and now Cultat using her to formulate the winning plan of battle.

It was overwhelming.

Praulth lifted a trembling hand toward Xink. A look of hope flowed over his face.

'Come to me,' she said. 'We must talk. We have ... so much to talk about.'

RADSTAC (3)

SHE ROCKED UP and forward, standing on the stirrups, and took the arrow just above her right breast.

Do the thing that'll most confuse your enemies.

It had carried over a substantial distance. She'd seen the startled bird wing and squawk into the sky, far back in the brush—the creature's movement too sudden, its cry too alarmed. Whoever was back there was a terrifically skilled—or lucky—archer.

The arrow had lost some of its momentum. Still, it hit more than hard enough to punch her off the saddle. She went with the movement, rolling her body at the hips, reaching out and seizing Deo's heavy buckled belt as she tumbled toward the ground. He came off his saddle with a half-yelp of surprise. She managed not to pull his full weight down on top of herself.

The shaft had bit into her weathered leather armor, the flanged head lodged there. If it had gone past her, struck her employer, her charge ... well, she would have failed in this her first job as a bodyguard/escort. That wouldn't have sat well with her. Actually it was possible the arrow had been meant to go past their noses, a warning, but the archer was either off the mark or so talented he or she could cut it just that finely; either way, Radstac hadn't felt inclined to risk it.

Their horses fussed, but neither reared. They had landed between the beasts, just a few paces from the riverbank where they'd been heading. Water the horses, fill the waterskins. A brief rest. Deo talking, telling one of an apparently limitless store of anecdotes about the topsy-turvy travails of growing up as a noble in Petgrad. Then