The Stealers' War

by Stephen Hunt

Genres: Fantasy; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

Weyland has been at war. Invaded by a technologically advanced enemy, the cities sacked, and what fragile peace remained torn apart by a civil war. All anyone should want is a return to peace. But Jacob Carneham still wants his revenge; and if he can lure the invaders into the mountain he can have it. He can kill them all. If he does, there may never be peace again. If he doesn't, Weyland will never be free of the threat of invasion. The northern horse lords are planning an attack. A future Empress is fighting to save her daughter. Jacob's son is trying to restore peace and stability to Weyland, alongside the rightful King. And behind it all is a greater struggle, which may spell the end for them all . . .

Release date: March 17, 2016

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 416

Sample

ONE

AN AUDIENCE WITHTHE GREAT KRUL

Lady Cassandra Skar moaned with pain as the nomads dragged her from her horse towards the tent where the King of the Plains awaited her. Of course, the word tent was a bit of a misnomer. It was closer to a palace woven from colourful felt-lined fabric, staked toweringly high with wooden lattices and roof ribs. Multiple tents arranged together like a series of stretched foothills. In fact, as Cassandra gazed at the nomads’ faces – expressions ranging from the curious to the openly hostile – she realized that the term king might be a bit of a misnomer too. What would do instead, I wonder? Rag-tag hairy-arsed barbarian war chief lording it over a bunch of roaming savages? Best you keep such suggestions to yourself, lady. From the way the nomads manhandled her, they clearly didn’t see many Vandian noblewomen out here. She didn’t take it personally. They clearly hated the other two prisoners in her party even more than her. Sheplar Lesh was a pilot from Rodal, the clans’ mountainous neighbours to the south, and as close to an ancestral enemy as the plains people possessed. Although in fairness, they probably regarded everyone with the bad luck not to be born in a saddle among the clans as their ancestral enemy. Kerge was a forest dweller from the far side of the peaks, an oddity that only reminded the nomads that while they commanded the endless steppes, they’d always been beaten back from the rich, prosperous nations on the other side of the mountains.

Cassandra heard Alexamir’s shouts of protest ringing out behind her. The love-sick young nomad had promised her his protection. Swore that he would release her if and when she chose to leave for home. What a joke. Leave for home? How could she do that with a broken spine and her legs paralyzed by the plane crash? She should have cut her wrists rather than suffer such a dishonour. That was the way of her house. For someone born and trained from birth to rule over millions, Cassandra had ended up not even being able to leave her bedroll unaided. The Vandian Imperium was power and strength or it was nothing. Maybe Cassandra would have ended her life if Alexamir hadn’t removed and hidden her dagger. Or maybe these people will cut my throat and save me the trouble. Like so much else, it seemed that Alexamir’s boasts of his importance among the clan had been somewhat exaggerated. Or maybe this is how they greet all honoured guests under the protection of one of their so-called greatest warriors?

She caught a brief glimpse of the witch rider, Nurai, standing by the entrance to the massive tent palace. A look of satisfaction twitched around the margins of her face. It makes a difference from jealousy, I suppose. Nurai clearly regarded Alexamir as her property, and would be only too happy to help Cassandra shuffle off this mortal coil; preserving the dashing, insanely reckless nomad for her sole attentions. There wasn’t a future Nurai had prophesied where Cassandra’s presence among the people of the plains wouldn’t end up in despair and the gnashing of teeth and lamentations for the clan. Maybe that means I’ll live a little longer with Alexamir pining after me. Although perhaps the witch rider just foresaw my death here?

Lady Cassandra was dragged like a haunch of meat, cursing her dead, useless legs, deep inside the palace of tents, ending up in a wooden-frame-vaulted throne room. The throne itself was composed of propellers taken from the planes of their Rodalian enemies, fallen skyguards who had broken every nomad horde to attempt the invasion of Rodal. She gazed up at the man who sat upon the throne. So, this was Kani Yargul, the warlord who had declared himself Lord of Clan Lords. The clans called such a king their Great Krul. Cassandra suspected that anyone capable of unifying the quarrelsome, ever-warring clans of horsemen was going to prove an equally great nuisance to the nations surrounding the steppes. Physically, Kani Yargul looked every inch a warlord. Strapping, even by the standards of the strong Nijumeti tribesmen, perhaps two normal men wide, a shaved head, dark, short beard, narrow eyes, and a notably bulbous nose that had been broken many times. On the warlord’s left stood an ancient witch rider, presumably the priestess to whom jealous Nurai owed her training and allegiance. On the right was an even queerer sight. An obviously foreign golden-skinned elder weighed down with the heavy rune-embroidered robes of a sorcerer. The way the robes covered his protruding spine make him look like he might be hunchbacked. His hair was naturally curled in a way that would have made many of the ladies of the Vandian imperial court jealous; a high forehead with dark, brooding eyes belying a superior, erudite manner. The sorcerer looked younger than she’d expect a man of his position to be.

‘Hear me, Great Krul. I have given my word to Lady Cassandra, offering her the protection of salt and roof,’ said Alexamir, pushing his way to the front of the crowd.

‘Your word,’ said the warlord. ‘Not mine. Am I to extend the hospitality of the clans to every beggarly intruder who despoils the grass sea? So much trouble from you, Alexamir Arinnbold. Always. You leave to raid Rodal and prove yourself a man and you come back not with thralls to serve the clan, but with guests?’ Kani Yargul chewed unhappily on the last word as though it was unexpected gristle on a haunch of meat.

‘These two I have taken as thralls,’ said Alexamir, pointing at Kerge and Sheplar Lesh. ‘But the golden fox I would take as my wife.’

‘Then marry the girl as a saddle-wife. Throw her inside your tent and go raiding for more.’

‘Indeed,’ said the priestess by the warlord’s side. ‘One saddle-wife is a vexation. Three or four is a goodly number.’

Cassandra pulled against the hands of her captors. ‘I am no common prisoner.’

‘It is true,’ said Alexamir. ‘She is the daughter of a princess, granddaughter to the Emperor of Vandia.’

‘Another empire?’ said the warlord, puzzled. ‘I know of the Empire of Persdad to the north. Fine raiding for those willing to brave their legions.’ He glanced at the sorcerer. ‘What is this Vandia? Have you heard of them, Temmell Longgate?’

‘I have, Great Krul,’ said the sorcerer, nodding on the other side of the wooden throne. ‘The Vandians are now allies of the king across the mountains. They fight in the Kingdom of Weyland’s kin war, brother against uncle, for control of the land. Vandia lies far-called to the south, a rich and powerful empire which they boast of as the world’s greatest nation. Their forces rarely travel as far north as the Lancean Ocean. I find their presence so close to us to be most disturbing.’

‘So, an emperor’s granddaughter? It’s hard to take a wolf cub without bringing in the whole pack. Still, although they know it not, these Vandians are also my allies. Let them rip each other apart in the south,’ scowled Kani Yargul. ‘Let their kin war lay a thick red carpet of corpses for us to crunch over when the clans ride. Every dead Weyland soldier is one less for us to face when the time comes.’ The warlord stared at Cassandra with his cold green eyes. ‘And how much is the Vandian emperor’s granddaughter worth in ransom?’

‘Nothing,’ said Cassandra. ‘Not as I am … broken. A Vandian noblewoman must be able to fight for her house when challenges are issued. I cannot stand in any duel now. I am worthless to you. My house will expect me to end my life honourably. There will be no gold for you in exchange for my person.’

‘At least she is honest,’ said Kani Yargul. ‘Useless, but honest.’

‘She is dangerous, Great Krul,’ said Nurai. ‘She saw what we are building when we rode into the camp. The girl and the rice-eater and his forest man friend, all.’

Yes, that sight had come as quite a surprise to Cassandra. But not as much, she suspected, as to Sheplar Lesh. This was the young witch rider’s best chance to have Cassandra executed, and the woman knew it.

‘Do you expect this broken girl to gallop south and warn the nations of the Lanca?’ said the warlord. He sounded amused, but Cassandra sensed the undercurrent of menace in his tone. ‘Have you seen this in your visions, witch rider?’

‘I have seen many things concerning this one’s presence, Great Krul,’ said Nurai. ‘All of them leading to dark fates for our people.’

Madinsar fixed her understudy with a beady glare. ‘Then why have I not seen similarly, my acolyte?’

‘The true sight shows many paths,’ was all the answer Nurai had to give.

Madinsar pulled her priestess robes in close and eyed Alexamir suspiciously. ‘As does the heart. Never confuse the two.’

‘This foreign whelp has cast a spell over Alexamir,’ accused Nurai. ‘How else can you explain his willingness to carry her here, the girl unable even to clean a tent or cook for his family? She is a burden, not a saddle-wife.’

‘She was given my protection before her wounding,’ said Alexamir.

Even Cassandra thought the justification hollow. There was more to it than that. She had experienced the tenderness with which Alexamir had cared for her when she had been injured. How eagerly he had tried to distract her from her plight and duty. He might be a fool, but he was her fool now.

‘If a spell it is, I believe it a very ordinary enchantment,’ said Madinsar. ‘And not one you care for, Nurai.’

‘I would ask you to heal my golden fox, Temmell,’ said Alexamir.

‘I am adviser to the Great Krul,’ said the sorcerer. ‘You seem to mistake me for some wandering healer.’

‘Yet such you were when you first arrived with us,’ said Alexamir.

This was clearly not the right response; reminding the strange-looking adviser of his humble origins here. The sorcerer’s irritated expression turned to fury. ‘I once regrew the arm of the Mark Lord of Simaria after he lost his limb in a joust. Am I now to be the medic to a common mounted thief?’

‘Careful, Temmell,’ cautioned the warlord. ‘It is a fine thing to be a thief among the Nijumeti. To be an unsuccessful thief, however, is quite another thing. Your raiding party took many casualties, Alexamir. And you have returned with a bare handful of thralls and a hostage who has lost her worth.’

‘Lesser men would have perished a dozen times where I survived,’ said Alexamir. ‘We were attacked twice by the Rodalian skyguard, their flying wings swooping down on us, dropping bombs and giving us the bitter taste of their cannons. The golden fox was taken from us and locked up in Salasang. But I broke her out and left the rice-eaters a burning town for their troubles. Then I escaped in one of their planes and claimed two propellers from the rice-eaters’ pursuing skyguards. And when these two fools tracked me to recover the girl, I ambushed them and took them as thralls. If any bard was brave enough to travel with Alexamir, people here would be singing for months of my bravery and audacity.’

‘Why would we need a bard, when we have you to sing your own songs so well?’ asked Madinsar, wryly.

‘I dreamt that Alexamir would scale the walls of Salasang and leave the town in flames,’ said Nurai, speaking in defence of the reckless young nomad.

‘I do not doubt it,’ said Kani Yargul. ‘You are truly the blood of your father, Alexamir Arinnbold. He danced with death every day until it found him. He tried to get me killed on his adventures a dozen times a season, and this is a hard thing to do, as the spirit of every broken-necked clan lord hovering above my throne will testify.’

‘You honour me, Great Krul,’ said Alexamir, his chest puffing with pride.

‘Do I? The bravery expected of a rider and the recklessness of a clod are easily confused,’ said Kani Yargul. ‘Sometimes I can barely tell them apart myself. We shall see. Paltry though your booty may be,’ said Kani Yargul, ‘I shall claim the right of the Krul and take the rice-eater as my own thrall. You have a use for him, do you not, Temmell?’

‘Officers of the Rodalian skyguard are rarely brought down on the plains alive,’ said the sorcerer. ‘I have many uses for such a servant.’

Cassandra winced. That does not sound good for him. Although Sheplar Lesh had been prime among her captors after she was seized from the Imperium, the Rodalian pilot had treated her honourably and risked his life twice to save her from the nomads. You should not show such weakness, lady. One captor less is no bad thing for you. Except she had no home to return to now. Not as she was.

‘You would put him to use against the mountain people, Great Krul?’ asked Madinsar.

‘And where would you have the clans turn their attention instead, priestess?’ retorted the warlord.

‘North. Towards the Empire of Persdad.’

‘Your ambitions are limited, Madinsar,’ said Temmell. ‘The nations of the Lancean League are the richest, fattest kingdoms in all the Three Oceans. Poultry left unplucked by the clans for too long.’

‘Left unplucked, but not for lack of trying,’ said the witch priestess. ‘You were not born in the saddle, Temmell Longgate. Wander the camp at night and listen to our ancient songs. Hear of all the Great Kruls who raised their hordes and led them against Rodal, smashed them into the mountains, urged them through canyons and were left with nothing but bleached bones in foreign passes for their plunder. There are countless sagas that end sadly in Rodal. Or perhaps you would prefer those that end in the bogs of Hellin, whole clans drowned in quicksand and never seen again? North lies Persdad, protected only by hills and steppes and mortal men with timber palisades. That is where we should ride.’

‘And rich only in wheat and lumber and thick-headed legionaries with blades to protect their wooden walls,’ growled the warlord. ‘The league lies on the southern caravan routes, littered with trade metals and the bounty of machines and mills, the Guild of Rails carrying treasure in every direction. Ports on the salted sea heaving with vessels packed full of plunder.’ He slapped his thick muscled legs. ‘This Vandian girl is a sign from the gods. What we seek is seeking us. Her people have joined the kin war in Weyland. Our enemies are disunited. The Lanca turns in upon itself. There is no better time to strike south.’

‘You speak wisely,’ said Temmell, his eyes gazing slyly at the priestess. There was obviously no love lost between these two, the left hand of the throne as jealous of the right as the reverse was also true.

‘No Great Krul has ever breached the Walls of Rodal,’ warned Madinsar.

‘I am no mere Great Krul,’ said the warlord. ‘I am Kani Yargul. I shall make the god Atamva weep in envy at how thoroughly my foes are smashed. I will forge a victory crown so heavy that only my own sons will be able to bear its glory without being crushed.’

‘Atamva always remembers,’ whispered the priestess. Then Madinsar raised her face and looked at the warlord. ‘Claim the right of the Great Krul again, my lord, and give me the forest dweller as my thrall.’

‘What use do you have for this creature?’ said Kani Yargul, staring down contemptuously at Kerge. ‘I thought him half a bear and half porcupine, walking upright like a man when he entered my tent.’

‘He could dance for us. Or perhaps the high priestess wishes to use the spines from his hide to pick meat from her teeth,’ said the sorcerer. ‘I hear the care of teeth becomes of great importance when one reaches such an inestimable age.’

‘One of a great many nuisances I would rid myself of,’ said Madinsar, staring down the sorcerer. ‘If I could. This one is a gask. A twisted man, and the people of the forests possess many gifts, including that of dreaming the future. Such a thrall would be useful to me, and of service, thereby, to the clans.’

Kerge looked like he was going to say something, but didn’t. Cassandra guessed the gask was going to point out that he had lost his gift of prophetic vision, but on second thoughts had wisely decided to keep his loss quiet lest he end up with a far worse fate. Poor Kerge. If you could still see the future, you would have never come after me with Sheplar. You would have stayed safe in Rodal and gone back to your shaded city in the trees.

‘I must have something so you must have something,’ said the sorcerer.

‘As long as our clans grow stronger,’ said Kani Yargul. ‘So be it. Now bring me my feast. No more talk without action. I have a hunger and I have a thirst.’

He waved away the foreigners and court supplicants. Cassandra was dragged through the crowded tent until Alexamir caught up with her and lifted the weight of her body from the two guards. Nurai manoeuvred through the crowd to make sure she was there too. A knowing look on the young witch rider’s face that Cassandra wished she could wipe off by breaking her proud nose. If I could just take the step towards you, I would.

‘You came back from the raid with three thralls,’ said Nurai. ‘And you leave the tent with just one.’

‘I leave the Great Krul having made two gifts to him,’ said Alexamir. ‘And the golden fox is the only prize I value.’

Those words struck Nurai like a slap. ‘Fools’ gold for a fool,’ she growled and stalked off.

‘The witch rider is right,’ said Cassandra. ‘I am no prize worth possessing.’

‘Her words drip with envy,’ said Alexamir. ‘But then, what woman would not be envious? I am already a legend among the clans and my saga has only just begun.’

While mine is doomed to end here, it seems. ‘And what of me?’

‘I gave you my word that you would be free to return to your people if that is what you wished.’

‘You gave your word to a different woman.’ One who could walk.

‘You shall be that woman again. I will talk to Temmell. Beg him to heal you. Offer him my life and loyalty if he heals you for me.’

Cassandra felt her heart sink. This golden-skinned outsider, Temmell; he was clearly an itinerant medicine man whose wagon had been seized by the clans trying to cross the plains; an ex-clan slave who had used science and his canny knowledge of herbs and powders to bluff his way into a minor position of power. Not even the imperial surgeons attending the emperor and the imperial family could mend a broken spine. What chance did some travelling peddler who had landed on his feet here have? ‘You are wasting your time.’

‘It is my time to waste,’ said Alexamir. ‘Come, I shall take you to meet my family.’

As if I have any choice in the matter. ‘I am sorry to hear your father is gone. Does your mother still live?’

‘She became one of the Great Krul’s wives and lives inside the palace. It is the way of our people. If your friend dies, you take in the wives of your fallen brother. My Aunt Nonna keeps my household. You will like her.’

Cassandra suspected nothing would be further from the truth. Survival out here in the grasslands, cooking, cleaning, finding water, keeping the animals alive that helped feed mouths and give the clans their hides and wool for clothes, leather, saddles and tents … that was a full-time occupation. A pampered Vandian noblewoman, raised for power and made a cripple, that was only another burden.

Cassandra glanced behind her to the palace. No sign of Kerge or Sheplar. It was strange, when that pair had been her captors, there hadn’t been a day as prisoner in Weyland when she hadn’t dreamt of escaping and making her way back to Vandia. But now the pair were thralls, slaves to the clan, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for them.

She gazed out to the east, beyond the hills where acres of camouflage netting helped conceal the clans’ greatest secret. Perhaps this Kani Yargul would be the first war leader of the hordes to do what had never been done before. Conquer Rodal and push into the rich nations of the south. So, Vandia is now involved in Weyland’s civil war? The Imperium had come at last to punish the slave revolt in Vandia. Her people were across the mountains in force. Ridiculously close, given the scale of distances the Vandians must have flown to reach Weyland. Is my mother there? Paetro, Duncan, others from my house? Almost certainly. Cassandra knew her mother. Nothing in Pellas would stop Princess Helrena Skar from seeking out her kidnapped daughter, punishing the escaped slaves who had humiliated her by snatching the daughter of her house as a hostage. Lady Cassandra had to stop herself from laughing at the irony. All this way and did her grandfather’s legions but know it, it was only the indignity of the slave revolt they had left to punish. With me, there is nothing left to save. Only to avenge. Better she stayed here among the savage nomads. Lost to her house. Let Helrena Skar think her daughter dead. For I am. If I only didn’t have Alexamir’s affections to remind me that I’m alive.

Alexamir lifted Cassandra on to a horse so she could pass through the camp with more dignity than being carried like a sack of meal.

‘You should have let me end my life,’ declared Cassandra.

‘Then you would have ended two.’ It was clear Alexamir would brook no interference with his plans for Cassandra, no matter what her wishes.

There were thousands of similarly sized and shaped tents in the busy encampment, although there was no chance of the nomads getting lost. Each tent’s exterior had been dyed or embroidered with unique runes and symbols, prayers for success against rivals and protection against evil spirits. Children played outside while adults cooked on low stone ovens, cleaning weapons and brushing horses, picking stones from their steeds’ hooves. She reached a tent, or rather, three connected circular tents formed into a triangular formation. It had been staked on the top of a low hill. Down on the other side was a stream where nomads squatted by the side of the frothing water, beating clothes clean against rocks.

‘I return from the raid, Aunt,’ said Alexamir, pushing aside a woollen flap acting as a door to the tent.

‘Yes. Yes. I heard the cheers from the palace,’ said Nonna. ‘I shall cook their applause at once to make a fine feast from the great words of such heroes.’

The nomad woman standing inside sniffed, irritated, watching Alexamir bear Cassandra in and laying her down on a simple bed of sheep skins in the corner. Nonna had the same blue tint to her skin as all the nomads. The same twisted blood that allowed Alexamir to walk around Rodal’s frozen heights bare-chested. Alexamir’s aunt must have been close to her sixtieth year, but she was still a handsome woman, with the muscled tone of a woman a third her age, dark leather riding clothes belted with twin daggers swinging on wide hips. To Cassandra’s eyes, Nonna appeared a gladiator born to battle, not a housekeeper. Perhaps that is the way with all the Nijumeti.

‘And what else have you carried back from your raid? Sheep with no pelts and a stallion that only gallops backwards? A sword hilt with no blade attached, perhaps?’

‘This is the Lady Cassandra of Vandia, granddaughter of a rich and powerful emperor,’ said Alexamir, a touch too haughtily. ‘She has been given my guest oath.’

Nonna bowed ironically in Cassandra’s direction. ‘Then I live to serve. As always.’

‘She will be no burden on you. Not for long. Temmell will heal her. I know it.’

‘That one? That foreign degg? That golden-skinned spell-sucker? Promise him your soul for a saddle-wife if you must. He shall not have mine.’

‘My golden fox is to be no thrall or saddle-wife,’ said Alexamir, setting matters out clearly. ‘She has my protection and we will honour her with all the traditions of roof and salt. She is free to go among us as she wishes.’

Cassandra couldn’t help but feel her heart soften at the young nomad’s words. Few men in this land or any other would have held to her in this state. But he has. Nothing had inhibited his yearning for her. Not being held as a prisoner in Salasang or being shot out of the clouds by the Rodalian skyguard. Alexamir was a savage, a reiver and a common thief, but he possessed the nobility of a prince of the plains.

‘How splendid. Then I shall be witness to a miracle of the gods … I shall see a fox walk,’ said Nonna. She waved her hand indifferently around the connected tents. ‘Welcome to your new kingdom, then, Lady Cassandra of Vandia. You will find we have fewer servants than an emperor’s offspring is used to, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in spirit.’ She snorted and picked up a leather drinking bottle, uncorking it and tossing it to the little-welcomed guest.

Cassandra sniffed at the canteen and then took a gulp, swallowing a pale white liquid that tasted of almonds. It burnt her throat like acid before moving down her gut as a stream of liquid fire. She only just resisted the urge to spit it out again. The young Vandian woman experienced a strange, dizzying warmth coursing through her veins. ‘What in the name of the ancestors did I just drink?’

‘Cosmos,’ said Nonna. ‘Distilled and fermented milk of the mare. Only the finest. Sent by my sister-in-law from the leavings of the Great Krul himself. Milk of the mare gives a woman the strength to see out the day and work like a devil.’ She laughed. ‘Drink too much and I shall lose my legs as surely as you have lost yours. Or perhaps I shall go blind first?’

Cassandra proffered the bottle back for Nonna to take. As Nonna reached over, she grabbed Cassandra’s wrist and turned it around, inspecting the guest’s fingers and hand like a palm reader. ‘An emperor’s granddaughter, you say? On whose word? These hands are hard and calloused, not soft and coddled.’

‘I speak the truth,’ protested Alexamir. ‘The rice-eaters and men of Weyland held her hostage in the kin war across the mountains. I rescued her. I freed her.’

‘Indeed. So, you could not resist stealing a burning brand from the fire,’ said Nonna. ‘Every day you walk into the tent and I glance up and see you and think you are your father, returned from riding the heavens. Like two peas in a pod, in bad manners, poor wisdom and fine features. Truly you are my brother’s blood, Alexamir Arinnbold.’

Cassandra broke the aunt’s grip. ‘That he may be, but I am Vandian. The Imperium’s celestial caste does not have soft hands and fat chins. We are raised to battle and trained to rule. No house that carries weaklings survives long in the Imperium.’

‘Then perhaps your people are not so different from ours, after all,’ said Nonna. ‘You certainly show enough pride to be a Nijumet. But is it false pride? Never in my day.’

‘Your nephew would be dead without me,’ said Cassandra. ‘I flew the flying wing we stole from Rodal. It was crashing it which broke my back.’

‘Indeed? Well, even foul water may put out a fire.’ Nonna shrugged and lay a hand not unkindly on one of Alexamir’s boulder-like shoulders. ‘Yet, where would I be without my Alexamir and his hot air to warm my tent? Winter would have claimed me an age ago.’

If winter tried, I suspect it would end up with a dagger shoved through its eye. This was Cassandra’s fate, her future. Worn fabric walls stretched over a wooden frame, her bones warmed by a dried sheep-dung hearth. Before, she had been a prisoner in Weyland. Now she was a prisoner inside her own body. Where is my escape to be, here?



War hasn’t been kind to Midsburg, mused Duncan Landor, blackened rubble crunching under his feet as he strode toward the military headquarters with his friend Paetro. As sieges go, this city had seen a quick, decisive action. Even the Guild of Radiomen’s hold he and Paetro had just left had escaped largely undamaged. But it wasn’t the war that was troubling Duncan so much as what passed for a peace which had followed it. After a brief spell of looting, mostly by Weyland’s victorious southern army rather than their Vandian allies, both King Marcus’ regiments and Vandia’s legions had set up camp inside the city’s unaffected quarters. And very little that had followed had gone according to plan.

‘Have you heard that Captain Aleria’s section was posted missing yesterday?’ asked Duncan.

‘I hadn’t,’ said Paetro. ‘He was no greenhorn; there was a man who knew what he was about. Where was his section dispatched?’

‘A rebel artillery column was spotted heading for the Sparsnow line. The captain took a patrol ship out to investigate. The ship was found later, empty. No legionaries, no pilots.’

Paetro grunted. ‘There is a road in Vandis where courtesans play the same game … Lares Shrine Street. Show a little leg, lure a man into an alley, a flash of knives, and the blockheads were never seen again. Not unless you count the rats in the sewer going after chunks of meat floating by.’

‘I hear that King Marcus has declared the rebellion over,’ said Duncan. ‘He’s leaving the capital and travelling on a royal progress through the pacified prefectures.’

‘He’s as big a fool as the dunces who went visiting Lares Shrine Street’s courtesans, then,’ said Paetro. ‘The northern army hasn’t disappeared, they’ve just scattered. The ones they can keep supplied are hiding out in the wilderness, the rest have buried their rifles in greased rags and are hiding in plain sight in the fields and towns, pretending to be farmers and shopkeepers.’

‘There’s a lot of wilderness in Weyland,’ noted Duncan.

Paetro halted. A line of townspeople marched down t