She sat on the hood of her car, on a bluff overlooking one of the agricultural roads into town. She wasn’t hidden from view – she didn’t need to be. She didn’t want to be. It mattered that they could see her up there.
So much of being a warlord was mind games.
The war itself had been over for twenty years, but she wasn’t going to give up her position that quickly. She was in her early sixties, with good genes; she planned to still be sitting on car hoods at 80.
By then the war orphans would be middle-aged and tedious. It would be a good time to bid them all a warm “fuck you lot” and drive off into the sunset.
But that was in the far off future. In the near future, she’d need to maintain her stranglehold of the local gun runners. And that meant, from time to time, making sure they knew she knew who they were and where to find them, and that she’d be waiting there for them.
She lit a cigarette as she saw the two cars approach from opposite directions. She wasn’t going to smoke it, but it completed the look: having something in her hand that wasn’t a weapon was a great way to show how little she feared them.
The cars pulled over and men stepped out. They looked around, but were very careful not to look up the slope toward her. Don’t make eye contact; that was a good rule.
She allowed the deal to proceed, allowed them to drive off, money and weapons exchanged. She sat there for a while longer, enjoying the sunshine. The gun runners had been very busy lately, but a lot of what they brought in quickly found its way out. They’d become a way-station in the trade, rather than a destination. That was her doing; her not-yet-middle-aged war orphans had monopolised profitable violence to the point that smaller outfits were all in trade now. They’d almost be respectable, if they weren’t dealing with illegal weapons. A rising merchant class.
To replace the extinct merchant class of twenty years earlier. It was part of her job to make sure this new lot remembered what happened to people who thought wealth meant power. The old merchants had assumed that having the gold meant making the rules, and making the rules meant safety. But when war broke out, the only functional rule was “shoot first, ask questions later”, and no one was safe.
Safety was what she’d been after. Some of her friends thought that meant keeping their heads down so they wouldn’t get blown off. But she figured safety meant having people die for or because of her; keep Death busy elsewhere. It had worked. Slowly but surely, she’d killed her way to the top of a group, and that group killed its way to the top of the hierarchy.
She had no regrets. She had found herself in a set of circumstances where violence was called for, and she’d answered the call. She hadn’t started the war. In fact, she’d helped end it. She’d kept the peace for twenty years and would keep it for twenty more. She had no qualms about her ends or her means. Warlording was for people who understood which two and two made what sort of four, not for people who thought some things were always right or wrong.
She got in the car but didn’t move for a while. She wasn’t old, she wasn’t tired, but she wasn’t enjoying this anymore, either. She was more at peace with her bloody past than with visions of a cushy future where she didn’t need to do anything more than casually observe as people recalculated their trajectories to avoid her. Don’t make eye contact; that was a boring rule.
Why wait twenty years? What was in it for her? The fun part was over, and wasn’t coming back – she hadn’t left enough warlords standing for a second round. If she wanted excitement, she’d need to look for it elsewhere.
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. Her car was pointing out of town. She could just go. Disappear for a month, resurface with a new identity somewhere where the government was still in power; she was old enough for state pension. And she had contacts in all the big cities. People who could get her started on a new venture, many of whom were on top of pyramids that could do with a shake up. A young, exciting leader with new ideas.
She turned on the ignition and floored it, not bothering to check the mirror. She didn’t need to see what was behind her; she knew it well enough.
Arkin Prose 
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