… All of which the Blade Captains ignored. As autocrats, they held the demands of commoners as less than smoke upon the wind.

Rising to his feet, a slim captain clad in sapphire armor calmly addressed the hall.

"I think the council is essentially agreed. Cooperation and compliance with Svarezi's program is the most beneficial course for us all."

Despite the frantic protests of their prince, the murmured agreement of the Blade Captains rumbled around the tabletop; until, suddenly, a fierce new voice ripped out to stun the hall. "Traitors!"

The Blade Captains wrenched about in shock, staring up at a pointy-hatted form that leaned out from the galleries to cast a giant's shadow.

"Beneficial? As nobles of a defeated city, you would all be nothing!" Miliana's voice twisted like a poisoned dagger from the crowd. "But as willing lackeys of Svarezi, you keep your palaces while the citizens of Lomatra are crushed by Svarezi's taxes, and die in Svarezi's wars!"

Miliana had the commoners leaping to their feet and echoing her words. Fists pumped into the air as the gallery shook to the people's rage. The Blade Captains glared up at the mob in absolute disdain, then turned back to put the seal on their affairs.

"The vote proposed: That Lomatra declare a unity between its own Blade Council, and those of Sumbria, Colletro, and Zutria. Those in favor?"

"Wait!"

Prince Rosso shook like a leaf blown by a storm. All around him, his people roared in hatred for the council, demanding courage-demanding war. The little prince, sweating, tugged at his armor's tight gorget.

"Colleagues-this decision, it seems… it seems unpopular. It seems…" The prince jittered like a captive bug. "It seems… cowardly. Surely an alliance with our neighbors to the-"

"I think that option has already been discussed in full." Spirelli spared his fellow Blade Captains a glance rich with self-interested irony. "Shall we conclude our business with the vote?"

"No. No, not yet!" Desperate to at least delay their inevitable fate, the prince scrabbled with the covers of the great book which lay upon the table-the Articles of Association for the Lomatran Free Company. "Um… wait a minute! It-it's just in here!" The prince flipped through vellum pages almost larger than he was tall. "Here we are… a recess may be declared without a vote, once only, if any member so demands." The prince jumped at the noise as he let the covers slam to the tabletop. "Well, I'm a member, and I do think that this requires more than just… just a quick vote without even a debate. The people really don't seem very happy at all."

The fat, barrel-shaped Blade Captain stirred in his chair.

"Oh, my liege, commoners never really do know what's good for them. This is why important decisions are left in the hands of better men."

"Even so, I'd like a recess, just so everyone can think about it." The prince banged his blade upon the table, almost jumping from the violent noise. "Dismissed! I-I mean, let's break until after lunchtime. Maybe until the second hour after noon?"

The Blade Captains exchanged weary sighs; shrugging amiably, they deferred to the wishes of the prince and pushed back their heavy chairs. Walking out beneath the fury of the city's common citizens, they wandered back to the comforts of their palace walls.

"Those treacherous, self-seeking, backstabbing, vermin ridden…"

When Miliana ran herself out of invective appropriate for a noble lady, Tekoriikii's head surfaced from behind the innkeeper's bar.

"Onk gronk!"

"Thank you… lowlife, frog-sucking scum!" Miliana slammed her back against the tavern wall, her face beet-red with rage. "They're willing to sell you all into slavery for sake of a cash reward!"

The upper balcony above Lomatra's largest tavern, the Besotted Python, scarcely managed to rise above the worst of the noise. The taproom below had packed itself with soot-smeared workers from the powder mills and iron foundries, the joiners' guilds, the seamen's guilds, and masters of apprentice halls. Despite the sheeting rain, the streets about the tavern had jammed tight with angry crowds as half the city tried to cram inside to hear the news.

A guildmaster stood on a table railing at the crowd; although the commoners thundered their agreement to every single word, the citizens were utterly impotent. The Blade Captains were the Blade Captains, and they held the power.

In Sumbria, the citizens were taxed into the ground to finance the hiring of vast companies of mercenaries. Svarezi's agents roamed far and wide seeking swords-for-hire. There were turbanned horse archers from the south, brigands, berserkers, and buccaneers. Foreign mercenaries had already swept the cattle from Lomatra's outlying fields, fuel for an army which slept beneath a field of gallows trees.

"Kirenzia just fell!"

A soldier, one of Lomatra's city sentries, fought his way in through the throng. "I just saw the dispatch! Kirenzia is no more!"

Uproar swelled through the rain-soaked crowd. The soldier's voice diminished like a child's cries against the ocean's roar.

"I saw it! I saw the dispatch! They opened their gates in surrender, and Svarezi's mercenaries sacked the town! Not a man, woman, or stone still stands!"

A hundred voices shouted questions; Miliana leaned across the railings, keeping hold of her tall hat with one slim hand.

"You! You there… do your Blade Captains know?"

"What?" The soldier struggled in a tide of his fellow men. "Aye! They would have heard the news at dawn!"

Miliana turned and fixed her companions with a cold, hard stare; they returned to their drinking without a word being said.

Above the pandemonium, the balcony offered a tiny scrap of peace. A giant fish tank, suspended like a sedan chair between a sturdy pair of poles occupied pride of place on the floor. The pink nixie sat just underwater sucking on a squeeze bulb of wine, occasionally thrashing at the water with her webbed feet. Luccio's lake-bound princess had brought word of Zutria's fall, and had spent the next few hours curled despondently on the bottom of her cage.

Lorenzo was utterly outraged. Cramming fingers through his hair, he took a proffered glass of wine out of Tekoriikii's claws and swirled it in his grasp.

"My invention! He's killing people with my damned invention…"

"It's not your fault, Lorenzo." Miliana hung her head between her hands and stared in desperation at a blank tabletop. "No one blames you."

"It is my fault, because I made the cursed thing!" Lorenzo rammed himself back into a corner of the wall. "My light lathe! This is all because of me!"

Playing at being a waiter, Tekoriikii collected empty glasses, waddled over to the balcony rails, and let the tray of empties simply drop into the hall. He strutted happily back to his companions, oblivious to a chorus of screams from far below.

The irrepressible Luccio tried to be the voice of sweet reason amidst his friend's despair.

"All right-we know he's using the Sun Gem as a focus for the ray. Lorenzo, how long should the Sun Gem last?"

"Long enough." Lorenzo whirled, helpless rage burning in his eyes. "Luccio, it doesn't matter. The damage has been done. He's looted enough cities to hire an army a dozen times our size."

Cries rose from below as another speaker helplessly harangued the crowd, offering fear without solutions. Miliana ripped off her hat and cast the thing aside, flipping out long glorious sheets of mouse-brown hair.

"Did Svarezi bribe your council, or are they cowards of their own accord?" The girl took off her spectacles to polish them, and felt them tremble in her grasp. "That snail's the worst of them all! How did he get to have a seat on your Blade Council?"