She thought of Xink. She thought of Honnis. She thought also of this premier. What exactly did she want from him anyway? What acknowledgment could he make that would satisfy her?
Praulth knew Cultat was departing this evening, a night ride with the Petgrad contingent. They would start making their way to the rendezvous site. The delegates who'd come to Petgrad had all returned or sent word to their home states and cities and villages for their forces to make for the gathering as well. There was no sure way to know precisely what numbers would finally assemble. Praulth of course would be kept scrupulously informed.
Using the intelligence provided by the Petgradite Far Speak scouts, she would oversee the first clash between the Alliance and the Felk. And if it went correctly, it would mean the end of this war.
Praulth lifted her chin. She met those blue eyes squarely.
"I want the rank of general," she said.
No flicker in the eyes. Nothing whatever to read on that astute intelligent face. What she was asking for could be considered a trifle or an outrageous demand. What, after all, did a title denote? But there was a sacredness about military conventions. They were almost fanatical, almost religious.
"Thinker Praulth" might not be remembered. But "General Praulth" stood a better chance, particularly since she intended to write this war's most definitive accounting.
Beneath a segmented breastplate Premier Cultat's hardy chest rose as he drew a deep breath. "I will see that the proper documents receive my approval before I leave," he said. Then he stepped past her, giving her his back as he strode from the chamber.
She was breathless and restless. Her and Xink's rooms were only a short distance away, but she turned in a random direction, following a wide street beneath the clouded night sky. It was cooler than when she'd arrived in Petgrad. It was coming into the heart of autumn, the season of fading, of dwindling. But this was her time of renewal. So it very much seemed.
Praulth hadn't dreamt of glories, not during her childhood in Dral Blidst. Her ambitions had involved only a deepening of her education, and those had led her directly to the University. Febretree was her refuge, a staunch fortress of learning, where intellect was celebrated above all else, where she could achieve and succeed and surpass. Where the very inclinations that had made her life so uncomfortable among her timber trade family here made her a fourth-phase student of first ranking, one with a very promising future.
She would have been content. She would have kept to her course and climbed from Thinker to Attache. She would have striven, and one day she would have taken her rightful place as head of the University's historical war studies.
If Master Honnis hadn't chosen her to study the Felk war, if Xink had never appeared in her life, if Cultat hadn't brought her here to Petgrad...
How different her life would have been, how normal, how predictable. And what a waste if she had never achieved this new, more exciting identity.
General Praulth, chief strategist of the Alliance. It was a worthy title. Now she had to make certain that the Alliance defeated the Felk. History remembered the victors.
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.