Wartorn: Resurrection by Robert Asprin, Eric Del Carlo

stayed, their physical existences turning to shit while their souls soared in glorious narcotic realms.
    It ended in death, sure. What didn't?
    Radstac didn't hide her leather armor and scarred bracers beneath a cloak. The accoutrements of her trade she displayed—not proudly, practically. Being a mercenary didn't begin and end with the talent and willingness to fight. Hardly. You had to hustle yourself. Someone had to
hire
you. For that they had to know you existed.
    The durable leather about her upper body was marked by past blows that had landed on her. That she was still walking around inside the armor was something she wanted to advertise. She also wore dark leggings and kid-skin boots, a small, wickedly honed blade nestled in each, inside oiled sheaths, hidden from view. On her left hand she wore a black glove, more leather. It was a snug fit, customized by a superb Southsoil specialist. It had cost her more than a few coppers, but for the use she'd gotten out of it, it had proven to be a bargain. It weighed heavily, but she was very used to its heft. Used to the feel of the small gears and sockets beneath the leather surface.
    On her belt she carried no weapon. Petgrad, this Isthmus city she'd come to, didn't forbid its citizens or visitors to carry arms, but the local police made a point of harassing those who did, particularly something like the heavy combat sword she favored. She had checked the sword at the Public Armory, a
    civilized amenity only a city-state the size of Petgrad could offer.
    Radstac had to admit the city was fairly sophisticated. It was large, well-maintained, its economy stable. It provided a health service for its citizenry, had a respectable standing military. The people weren't especially oppressed. A typical worker could live a decent life of reasonable years. By Isthmus standards, then, this was the pinnacle of culture.
    Cities, of course, were bigger and better back home. Radstac's home, specifically, was the Republic of Dilloqi, located in the northern part of Southsoil. Dilloqi, a
real
nation, and the city of her birth, Hynсsy ... beautiful. Proud. Important. With an eminent history to back up its boasts.
    That Dilloqi was in truth a splintered relic of the erstwhile Southsoil empire wasn't anything that needed to be dwelt upon. Dilloqi had resurrected itself from the ruins of the Great Upheavals, as had other lands of the Southern Continent. They abided now independently of each other. This wasn't the first time Radstac had journeyed northward to the Isthmus to sell her sword. The Isthmus was a fairly reliable source of petty hostilities between individual city-states. They bickered about farmland; they wrangled about the use of roads. They blustered and fussed and made ultimatums, and eventually they provided the wars that Radstac lived on—at least for a while. Conflicts played themselves out in rather short order here. No Isthmus state had the resources to wage sustained warfare.
    That, it seemed, had changed.
    The prepubescent boy, who had the overused look of a rental about him, led her deeper into the waste-smelling lair. He had appeared from the air when she stepped into the doorway of this establishment, the barest glint of silver showing in her palm.
    She had surrendered one silver to the boy, who made the coin disappear the instant it touched his tiny fingers. She still held another in her palm and had more money in pouches no pickpocket would ever find.
    Her eyes had virtually no color, just a tint of pale yellow to the irises. Those eyes, small in a twice-scarred face, roved her surroundings without appearing to move. Her bronze-colored features were what men would call handsome, rather than pretty. Not that she lost sleep wondering what men thought of her looks. Her hair was the red of rotting berries and hacked short. Another scar was visible across the rear of her skull, a line of white in the red.
    It had cut through her helmet, a blow from a hulking swordsman, a death