As he was about to enter, Angved glanced back. In the centre of the square fronting the Scriptora was a truncated pyramid topped with an uneven ring of statues that resembled no Khanaphir he had ever seen. In the torchlight, their white stone took on a ruddy glow, and they seemed to dance a little, and even watch him, the flickering flames lending life to both limbs and eyes. Angved shuddered, obscurely unsettled, and hurried inside.

Bald, stern Colonel Lien was waiting for them, staring at the pair as though they were some faulty mechanism that might or might not be worth the fixing.

'Stay behind me,' he instructed. 'Watch and learn.'

Angved was already watching. There were a half-dozen soldiers inside the Scriptora's grand hall, but it was plain to his eyes that they were not simply the Light Airborne that their armour denoted. The way they stood, the nuances of their physiques, their ages: these were Engineers, and most likely men who had outranked Angved even when he had still been a lieutenant. Whatever's here, it's not to be known outside the Corps, he thought, and in that he was at once quite correct, and quite wrong.

There was the sc.r.a.pe of armour, and a handful of newcomers came striding into the Scriptora as though they owned it. Not the Khanaphir Ministers, though, but four men and a woman wearing a badge that made Angved twitch. The last time he had seen that open gauntlet, grey on grey, these people had been his enemies.

Lien must have expected some reaction from him, because he cast a warning glance over his shoulder. Angved was calm, though. Artificers were a practical, pragmatic breed, and he had not been deaf to the Corps rumour mill, even after being stripped of his rank. A look from Va.r.s.ec suggested that Angved's fellow prisoner was thinking just the same thing. The Iron Glove cartel had been working some remarkable miracles of artifice down on the Exalsee's southern sh.o.r.es. Who they were, who led them, was a matter of some debate and of considerably more lurid speculation, but their credentials as artificers could not be denied, for all the Corps might wish otherwise. The Empire had never been shy of borrowing the inventions of other states and kinden for its artificers and, whilst this process usually resulted from armed conquest, trade was also an option wherever force would not yield results.

Still, what was this? The Glove and the Empire had been doing tentative business for a while now, but this piece of cloak-and-dagger promised rather more.

Four of the Iron Glove wore dark leathers, with blackened breastplates showing under their tabards, more like mercenaries than merchants. The woman and two of the men were Solarnese, the last man a thuggish-looking Bee-kinden. They were plainly no more than an honour guard, however, for the man in their midst was armoured head to foot in elegant, fluted plates a perfectly machined carapace that looked as though it could withstand anything up to and including artillery. Angved held himself perfectly still, for he had witnessed just such armour in use, through a telescope, while he had watched the fighting on the bridge last time. It had been worn by the handful who had turned back the ambitions of the Many of Nem.

The armoured man took off his helm, and an uneasy ripple pa.s.sed through the Wasp-kinden, for here was an insult, a slap in the face to Imperial doctrine the Glove were being led by a halfbreed, a close-faced man who looked to be some mongrel of Ant and Beetle stock.

'Colonel Lien, I take it?' the halfbreed nodded to the lean, bald Wasp. 'Here we are, as ordered.'

The chief of the Engineering Corps visibly steeled himself, before stepping forward to face the Iron Glove's spokesman. 'You have authority to negotiate for your cartel's leader?'

'You have the same for the Empire?' the halfbreed shot back.

'Believe me, what's said here will bind the Empire. Of that you can be sure,' replied Lien, with a heavy emphasis that caught both Angved and the Iron Glove man off guard.

What don't I know? Angved asked himself and then, quickly after that, Who else is with us?

The halfbreed glanced about the hall, the same thoughts clearly on his mind, but then shrugged his armoured shoulders. 'Then let's get to it. Let us be blunt. We have what you want. We had a delegation from your Consortium guesting with us last month, and they made plenty of notes on what they saw. The Empire has completed its reunification, and you're casting your eyes towards your neighbours again.' He held up a hand even as Colonel Lien opened his mouth. 'I'll say no more. Feel free to pretend that I mean you're concerned about their territorial ambitions. Maybe Myna's going to make a strike for Capitas? Who knows? However, the sort of thing that your buyers want isn't our normal stock in trade. We save that for special customers so special, in fact, that we've yet to sell them to anyone. And then the Empire pays us a visit.'

'And you start thinking of a price,' Lien interrupted. 'And you agree to meet us here, not quite Empire yet, and therefore safer for you, because you mistrust us. So tell me your price.' The current of dislike in his voice could not be hidden, but both he and the halfbreed plainly understood that personal feelings or even the prejudices of whole kinden could not be allowed to get in the way of business.

'Oh, money lots of money,' the halfbreed agreed. 'You've seen the greatshotters in action, and your Consortium men took away with them the cost of those per unit. More, the artificers in that delegation were asking a lot of questions about improved war automotives and, after we're friends again I've some plans to show you that will have you sending to the treasury all over again. But we have a few additional concerns and that part about being friends again is one of them.'

'You're merchants,' said Lien carefully, 'isn't that so?'

'We're being honest with each other. We're artificers, we deal with realities. Let's leave the pretences and the lies to the Inapt, Colonel.'

For a moment it seemed that Lien was going to press on with his prepared position, but then his narrow shoulders rose and fell. 'Well, then . . . is it true?' In that last word there was almost a note of pleading, although it was not clear whether he was seeking the halfbreed's confirmation or denial.

'Our first condition is a pardon,' the halfbreed announced, 'for the Colonel-Auxillian.'

Angved choked, loud enough to draw all eyes towards him. But he's dead! he wanted to shout. The Colonel-Auxillian was the only man to bear a rank that they had invented specifically for him, for he was the genius halfbreed who had captured cities for the Empire in a dozen ingenious ways before falling victim to his own devices at Szar. The master artificer, Colonel-Auxillian Dariandrephos, was most certainly dead except that his name was revived by Engineering Corps rumour-mongers almost every tenday, and recently more and more of those murmurings had also mentioned the Iron Glove. Angved would rather that creature was dead, but he sensed relief in the way that Lien stood.

So the genius outweighs the man's tainted blood, the arrogance, the apparent desertion and betrayal? Angved considered. Those Consortium artificers guesting with the Glove must have been extremely impressed.

Colonel Lien glanced aside, seeking guidance from the shadows. 'Dariandrephos wishes to return to the Empire?'

'He wants the air cleared, no more than that. We're happy there in our workshops in Chasme, thank you,' the halfbreed stated flatly. 'A public pardon, retirement with honours, and no reason for any Rekef man or ambitious Slave Corps officer to get ideas about him. Unambiguous and exact, just as we artificers like it.'

'It may not be out of the question,' Lien hedged, before another voice took the initiative.

'Of course, a pardon. The Empire can hardly reach agreements with those still considered deserters and criminals, after all.' The new voice was a woman's, and it echoed with peculiar impact between the carved walls of the Scriptora. There was the softest shuffle of footsteps and the speaker stepped into view, although later Angved was never sure quite where she had emerged from. The same went for her escort, a pair of armoured Mantis-kinden with the steel claws of their killing gauntlets very much in evidence. Everyone went absolutely still and silent, as she stepped into their midst even Lien, who had plainly known she was watching.

It's her! Angved had never seen the Empress before, yet he had no doubt whatsoever that this was really the mistress of the Wasp-kinden, the last scion of her Imperial bloodline. Where her youth and beauty had once made her seem vulnerable, she seemed to be gathering some invisible strength from the stone walls and endless hieroglyphs, growing in stature without ever growing taller, each footfall resounding with a thunder just outside hearing. Here, in this ancient, torchlit hall, even the shadows seemed to throng at her beck and call, and Angved felt her physical presence almost like a blow. In that moment he would have done anything for her, obey any command, fall on a blade for love of her. The next morning, such memories of this meeting would horrify and shame him, and all the more so because the chains forged this night would bind him also in sunlight. The thought of turning against this woman would be like a knife point p.r.i.c.king at his eye, making him wince away at the very notion.

For now, though, her attention was focused on the halfbreed, who swallowed convulsively, staring back. She gave a small, cruel smile as she advanced toward him.

'Yes, a pardon for the Colonel-Auxillian, but more than that surely? What about a pardon for those of his followers who went with him into exile? Surely you are not throwing yourself on my mercy, Sergeant-Auxillian Totho?'

The halfbreed jerked as she spoke his name, and then she was abruptly very close to him, taking his chin in one hand before he could pull away, and studying his face. The Iron Glove people remained tense, confused, and her Mantis bodyguards were plainly ready for any kind of casual violence at any moment but then Mantis-kinden were always like that. The situation was suddenly unreadable.

'I am told by my artificers that the Iron Glove has great plans for machines and devices that they l.u.s.t after,' the Empress declared. For a moment she studied Totho's expression, and he kept as still as if she had a sword to his throat, but then she let him go. 'I am told that my own inventors would match them, in time, but history is pressing on us. The Empire has a destiny, and we cannot wait. I am no artificer, but I know sincerity when I hear it. So we are here. You shall have your pardon, and so shall your master and such other deserters as walk in his shadow. Any other Imperial subjects that might find their way to you subsequently are to be returned, however, or purchased for full value. Remember that you are merchants, and not some band of idealists like the Broken Sword.' She had looked away, her keen gaze sweeping across Lien, Angved, Va.r.s.ec, all the other artificers dressed as soldiers.

Now her eyes pinioned Totho again. 'You shall have your money, but I leave the tawdry details to the Consortium. We shall have your machines, and moreover, we shall even let your master come and see them put to use.' She grinned at Totho's start of surprise, for a brief moment seeming her true age. 'But that was your request to make, was it not, and I have answered it too early.' And the steel was back in her gaze. 'Tell your master that we understand him, even if we do not understand his machines. People are transparent to us, and he is no exception. He needs us more than we need him, because what point is there to his machines if they are never used, and who would ever use them properly if not the Empire? So when the armies march again, you shall march with us, not sporting your old ranks and t.i.tles, but doing the Empire's work nonetheless. That was all your master sent you to ask for, was it not?'

Totho stammered, then nodded, words failing him, but she had not finished yet, had not dismissed him.

'It is not all,' the Empress continued. 'There is one thing we will have of you. Khanaphir and the Nem belongs to the Empire now, whatever face we put on that fact for the rest of the world. From dusk tomorrow, the Glove is forbidden and any other foreign influence will disappear into the sands, never to be heard from again. You shall remove your people from these walls. You shall retrieve all your expeditions and agents from the Nem, all those diggers and robbers that you think we do not know of. This is non-negotiable, and no pardon shall save any of you from retribution if you disobey. We shall wipe the whole of your Chasme off the map if we must, and you know how the rest of the Exalsee shall cheer us on. Do you understand?'

Totho was silent for several foot-dragging seconds, no doubt weighing the odds in his mind: what could be gained where, and what were the percentages in trying to play both ends. The eyes of the Empress brooked no equivocation, however, fixing him like a specimen skewered on a pin until he finally nodded.

'Of course,' he got out. 'It shall be as you say.'

'It always is,' she said sweetly. 'And now I shall not keep you further. I will let my artificers and Consortium factors manage the details, but you may tell your master he shall have the pardons signed by my own hand. He cannot ask for any greater surety than that.'

After the Iron Glove people had departed, the Empress turned to Lien.

'They will be gone by dusk tomorrow. The day after, you shall commence your work.'

'If they keep their word, Majesty,' Lien muttered darkly.

'Do you doubt me, Colonel?' The words were said quite pleasantly, but a deadly silence descended instantly upon the Scriptora's echoing hall.

Lien shook his head convulsively. 'Majesty, of course not.'

She nodded, easily satisfied, it seemed. 'These are the men you spoke of?' And to Angved's alarm she was looking in his direction. He missed Lien's confirmation, his heart hammering, as she stared at him. He found himself terrified, out of all proportion even to the temporal power she wielded, and yet at the same time a shock of attraction surged through him as their eyes met, a physical desire such as he had not felt in a decade.

'This man is Va.r.s.ec, from the Solarnese expedition,' Lien explained distantly. 'While in prison pending trial, he wrote the book you saw, about a new model air force, and how it might be accomplished, the adjustments, the Art . . .'

The Empress waved a hand. 'The technical details I leave to you, Colonel. It is enough that you have confidence in it. That is, after all, your role. I understand that this Va.r.s.ec's proposals are drastic, and I approve the measures required. The Empire must move forward. We cannot cling to the past.'

'And this is Angved, of the . . .' Lien paused awkwardly, because of course the Empress had publicly denied any responsibility for the mission that had sent Angved to Khanaphes the last time. 'Who was in the Nem recently,' the colonel finished lamely. 'You recall his reports on the Nemean rock oil and its properties.'

She nodded, it being clearly another matter she was happy to rely on her artificers for. 'Proceed in all things as you have described to me,' the Empress instructed. 'The work in the desert and the adjustments back home. The Empire will make use of every tool to hand, whether it be the discoveries of these men or the inventions of the Iron Glove. We will be strong and we will break down the walls my brother balked at. We have a future to claim, Major Angved, Major Va.r.s.ec.'

There was a moment of silence before the two men realized what she had just said, and after that Angved could have wept: not a prisoner now, not even an over-age lieutenant. I've done it. I'm made. He saluted, catching sight of Va.r.s.ec copying the gesture from the corner of his eye.

'There will be an expedition heading into the Nem. You have seen the machinery we have brought here. You know the operation you must begin. Before you return from the desert, matters must be well in hand,' Colonel Lien reminded him. 'You have seen the trust the Empress has personally placed in you and you can imagine your fate if you get this wrong, Angved.' It was plain that Lien would rather see him rot than profit like this, but the man was an artificer, as pragmatic as that trade demanded. He would use what tools he had. 'Va.r.s.ec, you'll accompany him while measures are put into place back home factories converted, the recruiting sergeants briefed. You'll be sent for when they're ready for you. Expect to see Capitas in two months, at the latest, but until then I'll leave you with Angved. You've witnessed, how his oil will solve some of your problems.'

Va.r.s.ec nodded thoughtfully. 'I have that, Colonel. I've a new sheaf of notes to send on to Capitas already, for the attention of the factory foremen.'

Lien turned away from them and saluted the Empress. 'Your Majesty, you have shown a faith in the Engineering Corps that your brother, whose loss we mourn, did not. With your support, we shall build for you the future that you have envisaged. I am only glad that you understand our craft so well.'

In response to that, something about the Empress's face struck a momentary wrong note, revealing some bitterness that Angved could not account for, but then she was smiling again. 'I shall hold you to your promises,' she told Lien. 'The dreams of my grandfather and my father and my brother are relying on you, General Lien. It is time that the Engineers took their proper place within our Empire.'

Fourteen.

As the weather grew colder and the snow began to flurry, Varmen earned his keep, guiding them safely to empty little crofter's huts or searching out tiny hamlets, no more than three or four shabby hovels occupied by the most dismal-looking peasants Che had ever seen. These people were terrified enough at the sight of Wasps to abandon entire dwellings to give them shelter, and Che would never know if that was because of the past war or the current regime.

When there was no village or hut available, Thalric and Varmen showed her an old soldier's trick by heading for the nearest copse of trees. There would almost always be a hollow somewhere amongst the roots, which they would curtain off with a cloak to create a little pocket of body-heat against the cold outside. Che was uncomfortably aware that she was surviving through the skills of the Imperial army, learned through bitter trial and error during the first few winters of the Twelve-year War.

Some time later, they had stopped in a town that Thalric remembered: it had been marked as Lans Stowe on the Imperial maps during the war. He had not seen its capture personally, for there had been a great deal of ground to cover for an agent of the Rekef Outlander. The defenders here had held off the Empire for a long time long after the land on all sides had fallen under the black and gold flag. The town was large, and built into the steepest side of a high hill, topped by one of the Commonweal's most defensible castles. It had been a low, solidly built, crown-like affair and, uniquely, the castle walls themselves had extended to encircle the entire town, sloping inwards to a height of twenty-five feet, then shelving outwards, at a sharp angle, to support roofed walkways, nests of arrowslits and a barrier of wooden spikes. Many of the buildings in the town had been similarly fortified, and Lans Stowe had boasted a great many archers and arrows. Had the place been more tactically essential at the time, it would have fallen far sooner, but a combination of its strength, the defenders' prudence in laying down supplies, and a lack of any pressing need to do anything about it had left Lans Stowe standing, besieged and surrounded, to within two years of the war's end.

They had brought in the artificers, Thalric recalled, and used this place as an experiment in new artillery, for the maverick halfbreed Dariandrephos had then been forging his reputation. Imperial soldiers had never needed to charge the strong walls of Lans Stowe. The Light Airborne had never risked themselves against the wings or arrows of its defenders. Instead, the artillery, far out of bowshot from the walls, had begun levelling the place systematically. The ingenious architecture, which had held off the Empire's desultory efforts for years, was as ancient as any other stonework in the Commonweal, the product of long-dead masons who had seemingly not pa.s.sed their skills on to any worthwhile apprentice.

After a tenday of ruinous bombardment that had given Drephos the opportunity to experiment with various solid, explosive and incendiary missiles, the surviving defenders had sallied forth: all the glorious chivalry of the old Dragonfly-kinden with their glittering n.o.bility and ma.s.sed spear-levy. The Wasps had been ready for that, indeed it would be safe to say that the besieging forces had been ready for several years. By all accounts there were few survivors, the Wasps working out their long-harboured frustration on the city to such a degree that the Slave Corps raised an official complaint at the meagre pickings.

And here the three of them were at Lans Stowe, where Thalric had expected anything but this. A Commonweal shanty town of their little stick buildings, perhaps. A deserted ruin, certainly. But this . . .

In the centre of the town there rose a ziggurat in the Wasp-kinden fashion. It was, in its own way, a triumph of design. The lower two tiers were formed from blocks of broken stone mashed together, caged in wire and wood and then mortared in place. Had the upper reaches been of the same construction, then the whole edifice would have crumbled under its own weight, but they had presumably run out of suitable stone around that point, so had continued their work in cane and wood, the Commonweal's traditional building materials. The shape, however, was wholly Imperial.

Of the rest of the town, perhaps half the buildings followed the local pattern: the slanting roofs and, presumably, twin-walled interior. The rest of it, which Thalric guessed was put up to replace structures Drephos had beaten down, was devised to the Imperial pattern: solid, low buildings, often with a second floor smaller than the first; flat roofs and little walled compounds. A surprising amount was constructed of the same salvaged stone, the rest of wood.

There were plenty of soldiers out on the streets, and Thalric felt instinctively at home. It had the feeling of any occupied town in the Empire, with a good garrison on hand in case of trouble. The soldiers wore black and gold, in varying degrees, through most of them were Dragonfly-kinden. Perhaps one in five was a Wasp, with a scattering of other Imperials, mostly Beetle-kinden and Flies.

There was clearly a stratification at work here amongst the townsfolk, and again one that was innately familiar to Thalric. There was a definite ruling cla.s.s composed of Dragonflies and Wasps, well dressed and armed, often with retinues of followers. Then there were the Gra.s.shopper-kinden making up the majority of the town's populace who, by contrast, were poorly clad, and they worked. Some were chained.

Their masters, especially the Dragonflies, made a point of naming their home Landstower, as the occupying Imperial forces had done before the Empire's borders had retreated so violently after the death of the Emperor and the liberation of the Alliance cities. Thalric and Varmen were nodded to on the street, as though they had become people of consequence here purely because of their kinden.

'This is insane,' murmured Che. 'It's like they're putting on a play, or we're in . . . some kind of hallucination. A warped reflection.'

'What are we doing here, Varmen?' Thalric asked of their guide.

'Taking another sounding,' the big Wasp explained. 'Believe it or not, the Princ.i.p.alities aren't exactly the most stable of places. If there's fighting westwards of here, I want to know about it. Also, we need supplies, and personally I could use a proper bed for just one night.'

Che caught Thalric's gaze and her expression said clearly, I don't want to stay here, but she voiced no actual objection.

'So there's an inn?'

'Wayhouse,' Varmen explained. 'I like Wayhouses. Best thing the Lowlands ever exported.'

'What on earth are the Way Brothers doing out here?' demanded Che, still staring about them at this Empire in miniature.

'Keeping a Wayhouse,' Varmen replied, and then grinned at her exasperated expression. 'I'm not saying the Empire was ever full of the little fellows, but they were always there. Beetles mostly, but a few of them were offshoots of decent family, enough clout to stop the places getting burned down. And the soldiers liked them 'cos, when you got to stop at a Wayhouse, you knew they wouldn't rob you blind. 'Course, some of them got burned, all the same. You know how the army always is with cults and the like.'

Thalric nodded, remembering.

'But they were like the Daughters you know, those healer bints that always went trailing the pike. The men liked them and so the high-ups tended not to notice them so much, you see?'

The Wayhouse itself was one of the flimsy-looking Commonweal structures, to their surprise, and quite a sprawling one, clearly having been extended recently. The four Beetle-kinden men running the place wore the comfortingly familiar brown habits of the Way Brothers. That they had a staff of a dozen slaves was jarring to Che, but she decided, unhappily, that being a slave to the Way Brothers was probably doing relatively well, as a slave's lot went.

The common room was already busy with travellers, and all of them sitting on the floor or on cushions none of the tables and chairs that a Lowlander or a Wasp would have set out. Aside from a family of white-haired Roach-kinden bundled close together in one corner, the rest all seemed relatively well-to-do. There were several merchants a Beetle, a Wasp and three Dragonfly-kinden and one striking Dragonfly woman with a guard of four Mantis warriors. Then there were two important-looking Wasp-kinden with an entourage of a dozen men apiece, taking opposite ends of the room and pointedly keeping a no-man's-land of strangers between their respective followers. In the Lowlands a Wayhouse catered to all travellers, down to the very poorest, but Che guessed that the truly poor in these parts did not get to travel very often.

'Let me go and ask some questions,' Varmen suggested. 'Someone's bound to have come from the west.' He paused, considering. 'Or else, you know, if n.o.body has, then we can probably guess it won't be an easy road.'

Left to their own devices, Thalric and Che studied the varied throng.

'We should do a little information-gathering of our own while we're here,' the former Rekef man decided. 'No real news of this place was reaching Capitas when I was still there. The Princ.i.p.alities must be changing every day, and I want to know how this place has turned out like it has.' Che could only nod.

He glanced from one to the other of the two influential-looking Wasps. The younger man looked like a merchant factor or quartermaster, the kind of Consortium type that Thalric had never much either liked or trusted. The older one still wore his Slave Corps tabard over his finery, as the badge of the Empire, no matter how debased, seemed to be a harder currency here than within the Wasps' own lands.

In the end he chose the merchant, as the lesser of two evils. The thin-faced man looked to be about thirty, with a great deal of locally crafted gold about him. His retinue included a few Wasp guards, but they were outnumbered by the Commonwealer servants or slaves attending on him, including a pair of well-favoured Dragonfly women taking turns at feeding him sweetmeats.

'May we join you, sir?' Thalric asked. As he had guessed, the Imperial term of respect carried disproportionate weight here. The merchant, who would have been far from a 'sir' to Thalric back in the Empire, smiled as broadly as his narrow face would permit.

'Well met, travellers on the road,' he announced, indicating that Thalric should find a s.p.a.ce of floor close by. 'We have business together?'

'We might, sir.' Thalric was already fleshing out the details of his lie even as he spoke. 'I'm but recently arrived here from Capitas, scouting for markets.'

The merchant raised his eyebrows. 'A factor, then? Who for?'

'Consortium,' Thalric confirmed, but allowed the man's sly smile to prompt an addition, 'Horatio Malvern.' The Malverns were well known as a powerful family in the Consortium, and Horatio as one of their aspiring sons. Thalric's grasp of the intricate politics of the Imperial merchant clans did not run deep, but it was broad enough to fake a first meeting like this.

The Wasp merchant's smile in response was knowing, and told Thalric a lot. 'Well, the Malverns must know that we have all marked out our territories already, those of us Left Behind.' He put a formal stress on the words. 'If the Consortium wishes to run things here, then we may have difficulties . . .'

'On the other hand, if my masters were simply looking for someone to deal with, for Commonweal goods . . .' Thalric ventured. He was aware of Che, at his elbow, watching him with mixed amus.e.m.e.nt and fascination.

'Then we will no doubt get on extraordinarily well,' the merchant announced. 'I am Merchant-Colonel Aarth, and we are clearly well met.'

Thalric was at pains to nod solemnly at the absurd rank. Clearly those 'Left Behind' by the Empire's formal withdrawal from the Princ.i.p.alities had wasted no time in handing out the promotions. He guessed that, when the world around here had still been sane, Aarth had been no more than Thalric was currently pretending to be: a merchant family's roaming factor, lacking in either power or respect.

'Aulric, Consortium sergeant,' Thalric replied humbly. For impromptu ident.i.ties, best practice recommended a name close enough to the truth for him to respond to it without hesitation. 'Tell me, Colonel . . . My masters told me that there were Wasps still in the conquered princ.i.p.alities, but I had expected to find . . .'

'War?' Aarth completed for him. 'All of us holed up in castles and forts, surrounded by a besieging horde? Not at all. Oh, there were some that were worried. The top people, the magnates and generals and governors, they all got out as soon as the news came and left us to our fate. They'd been keeping well apart from the locals, see? They were expecting this to become another Myna.' He smiled, not without a touch of self-mockery that made Thalric like him more. 'I won't deny that we were worried, but then we realized we weren't the only ones. Everyone left alive here was looking at each other and seeing that the n.o.bles are dead, the generals are gone . . . You might not credit it, but a lot of locals here were just as concerned about the Commonweal coming back and lumbering them with another pack of princes.' A broad grin, from a man who plainly thought he had made the right choice back then. 'So most of the enterprising Dragonfly-kinden, those who had been something better than dirt farmers, started to look for someone to lead them. Sometimes they chose locals, more often they picked us. We were used to leading them, see? The main thing they remember about us is that we won, that we're stronger than they are. We'd won the battles and we still held most of the castles and defensible positions, even if we were short on men.'

For a moment he paused, as if to savour his petty victories. 'Pretty soon everyone was taking on any locals who wanted in just to protect us from all the others. Then we started talking to each other sorted out a new hierarchy based on how many swords, how much land, all the basics. Those Dragonflies willing to deal with us, we accepted them as our near-equals, gave them ranks like proper civilized people. The others got to go to the bottom of the pile and, with our new allies, we had strength enough to keep 'em there. For about half a year it was . . . well, you know the North-Empire at all? The hill tribes? It was like that, every village and town for itself. But you know how we are, Aulric: we're better than that. We sorted it out. And those locals we've taken in and taught, they're proving good students. One of the governor-generals is a reformed brigand chief of theirs. I've met him he's mad for all things Imperial, splendid fellow.' A shadow crossed the merchant's expression. 'Of course we hear things have calmed down back home, with herself in charge at last.'

Thalric made a quick judgement. 'I've seen no sign of armies pointed your way, Colonel. The Alliance cities are a problem, but . . .' He glanced briefly at Che. 'Seems to me the Lowlands are likely to be foremost in people's minds.'

'That's fine, because we'd value good relations with the Empire,' Aarth explained carefully, and Thalric understood him perfectly well. They wanted trade and the chance to visit home, but not to return to the bosom of the Empress. They were on to a good thing here, as lords of their own little backwoods empire.