The Philosopher in Arms

340 - Everyone has their protections

29 Epir | Osijitz, Arko

Dear Mamin:

I think I am starting to get what they called in Emotional Healing class, depression. It often seems to me that the world has turned evil, and I hate my life. I try not to think of it, I try just to do my work, think of the patients and the medicines, see the beauty of the sky and of nature, remember the good things. But the bad things flood in and the good things turn distant. That description of the feeling of everything being dark or black is very accurate.

339 - A touch of help being Imperious

The room they went into, along with two or three aides each, held sound in enough that I couldn’t hear words, but I heard their voices rising once or twice. Oh, to be a fly on the wall. Most likely they were arguing over their chances of holding us off long enough for reinforcements to arrive. I would have liked to be part of that argument, but of course they were inclined to disbelieve all I said.

338 - Something to really put fear into them

“It’s just a matter of making the threat severe enough,” said Arzaktaj. “You go under the ivy branch, all polished and civil, and tell them that if they surrender you’ll let them go about business as usual and perhaps even make some civic improvements, and if they don’t, you’ll kill all the men, sell all the women and children into slavery and raze the place flat.”

337 - We must change how we did everything

I woke, panting. Niku was up on one elbow, looking down at me. “Were you making love to Kallijas in your dreams?” she asked me. It was before dawn, only half-light, and the night-candle was behind her, so I could not read her face.

“N…no,” I whispered.

“Skorsas? You were very obviously making love, and when you spoke it was in Arkan.”

“No, no… it was… it was this woman…”

She seemed to flinch all over. “An Arkan woman? Purified?”

336 - A glove on the hand of her will

The country looks the same; the same trees grow, the same birds sing. The villages are built Arkan-style, with sun-slits in the red-tiled roofs and a small All-Gods temple with a small sun-disc. We’d find them empty down to the house-mice, or else everyone hiding in the temple on their knees, weeping in terror.

335 - Expectations of the _semanakraseye_

There was a moment of silence—perhaps of we-are-really-going-to-do-it shock—then a din that shook the building, of mixed cheers and cries of anguish. In the gallery, those who had argued chalk threw their arms around each other in tears, and those who had argued charcoal did the same. Flower petals rained down on us.

Sinimas Menden shot out of his seat like an arrow from the bow and scrambled out of the gallery as if the minions of Hayel itself were chasing him. Some hands reached out to grab him; others held them back.

334 - What kind of conqueror I will be

For the next half-moon, while we waited for the count, Mirko and I sent out Roskati and alliance-mixed divisions to liberate Roskat entirely. The wing-scouts reported that the Arkans from Moghiur were taking the northern route towards Osijitz, giving up on Roskat City and hoping to keep us from entering Arko proper.

333 - As well as a carefully-wrought battle-plan

Who should preside here, I wasn’t sure, and Mirko wasn’t seizing it, so I decided I would if no one else did, once we’d small-talked enough. Niku, who is always more voluble for being nervous, praised Mirko’s fighting at Sonokat, and got Vaneesh talking a little about her Priestesshood. “Chevenga told me a great deal about you,” she said.

332 - A rare man

Mirko laughed. “Look, the Invincible’s blushing,” he said. “Oh—I am reminded of a pressing matter I must deal with, elsewhere.” He got up deftly, as did Fuun, saying, “I am reminded of a similarly pressing matter.” They both darted out the tent-door.

331 - Freedom of choice

As I watched the solas stack their arms grudgingly slowly in the growing warmth of the spring morning sun, and unfasten their red-lacquered armour, looking wretched as Arkans always do when they strip, the thoughts came like one stone setting another into motion in a rockslide. If I change what I do after a battle I must change what I do going into it. I must change the way I do everything.

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