Free Wartorn: Resurrection by Robert Asprin, Eric Del Carlo

life had taught her. They wouldn't work for others. Most people didn't pay enough attention to their lives, didn't try to understand the
sense;
they just muddled along, not even aware enough to see how easily it could end. How quickly. How simply.
    She sipped more water. It was purer even than the relatively clean supply in the public cisterns. She stretched her supine body on the immensely soft bed, hearing a vertebra pop.
    "I like that. The smile. The real one."
    She floated her eyes toward him. Do the safe thing. The safe thing was to stay in Petgrad and wait until someone purchased her services. Striking north now was risky. So was crossing over to the Felk side to sell her 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