Pronos paced back and forth, the bronze plates of his armored tunic swinging to the rhythm of his steps. Fifty men stood in neat rows and columns, feet together, arms at their sides, eyes straight ahead. It had taken him half a day of yelling and striking them with the flat of his spearhead before they could all achieve that and they still needed occasional reminding. If he was expected to teach fifty men to fight all by himself, they had to do everything he told them to do, all in exactly the same manner.

As he paced, he spoke at length about the sacred duty of the strong to guard the weak and the honor of serving their city. Though he spoke at length, he didn't listen to what he himself said. His words weren't even intended for his men. They were for the benefit of the handful of merchants standing in the shadows of nearby buildings observing them, overseeing their investments in the newly-formed city guard.

Coming to the end of his speech, Pronos directed them to start their daily drills. They collected their wooden practice poles and ran off to do their combat exercises. Once the merchants grew bored and left, his tone would change. Then, between shouted commands and corrective blows from his spear, his words would be about their need for blind obedience, how he held their lives in the palm of his hand and if they wanted to live they had to do as he said.

His observers began to drift off, but before he could begin his true instructions, a tailor named Okuvas walked up to him.

"I admit I was skeptical at first, but over the last sennight, the streets have been quiet."

Pronos returned a crooked smile. He didn't dare tell him the most likely reason was that he had given Tarakae a bag full of money to hire some of the same large thugs who had once terrorized the street. He realized he needed to tell Tarakae to keep up the pressure on the merchants to justify the money they were paying him.

"That quiet will only last until the mob figures out that we've created a toothless tiger."

"Toothless? They look pretty fierce to me."

"They have no weapons and no armor and I have no coin with which to buy them."

"What are they training with?"

"Those are practice poles."

"Why can they not continue to use those?"

Pronos snapped his spear around, it's gleaming point suddenly a hair's breadth from the tip of Okuvas' nose. "Which would you prefer between you and your enemy, a blunt piece of wood or a sharp piece of bronze?"

"We have enemies?"

"You most certainly do. You don't think all that chaos on the streets was an accident do you?"

"That was on purpose?"

"Of course."

"But who would do that? Why?"

"The thrill of power, revenge..." sudden inspiration seized Pronos. It was always best to keep the enemy divided, "...to eliminate a competitor?"

Okuvas gasped. "You think one of the other merchants might be behind it?"

"Who might gain from all this?"

It had been a rhetorical question, but Okuvas looked up, eyes darting back and forth as he searched for an answer. "Most of the violence has been near the water, but Trove has not only not been hurt by this, he's picked up a lot of business transporting goods overland that were once shipped on the river." Okuvas' eyes lit up. "You don't think he's the one behind the Red Hands, do you?"

Pronos shrugged, pursing his mouth to hide his glee at Okuvas' gullibility. "A mob is a lot like a stray dog. If you hurt it and show you are not afraid, it will run away. But an organized mob is a different animal entirely. It'll keep coming back and coming back. Show any sign of weakness and it will not stop until you are destroyed."

Okuvas looked dismayed. "But what can we do?"

"We must arm our defenders. I need more coin."

"But we're all paying as much as we can."

Pronos gave him a knowing look. "Not everyone."

Okuvas nodded. "Nearly. There are one or two who refused to participate in the plan. We warned them they might not be protected."

"One or two of the wealthier merchants, you mean. There are still hundreds of smaller merchants and individual business men who are donating nothing to the common good."

Okuvas shook his head. "We'd never get them to agree."

Pronos cast a glance back at his men thrusting poles at leather bags hanging from scaffolding or blocking attacks from their fellows. "Arm my reavers and I think you'll be able to persuade anyone you want to do whatever you want."

Okuvas leaned in close and lowered his voice. "Force them to give up their coin? Or what? Kill them? We'd be nothing but thieves. We'd be no better than the mob!"

"We wouldn't have to kill them, just shut down their businesses. Think about it—you're spending a lot of coin and my men will be risking their lives to make this city safe—should the other merchants be allowed to enjoy the fruits of our labor without contributing to it?"

Okuvas looked down and rubbed his forehead. "I suppose not. Still, we'd be forcing them..."

"It's all or nothing. Either the city is protected or not. If anyone doesn't want to do their fair share, they can leave."

"I guess..."

"We do have another problem though."

Okuvas looked up with a worried expression.

"While I'm training the men, we're going to need someone to collect the coin, someone everyone knows and trusts." Pronos smiled and clapped a hand on Okuvas' shoulder. "Do you know anyone like that?

<====|==|====>

Five years before the founding of the first kingdom

"Must you go?" Tokarha clung tightly to Macander. Macander wrapped his arms around her. He had known uprooting his family and moving them from the open skies of Kerwyn's Hill to the glorified caves of Har-Tor would be difficult for them. Reavkin, at least, had found new places to explore and other children to explore them with. But Tokarha acted as if she felt out of place, despite the other women encouraging her to join them in their activities. She resisted involvement as if ready to bolt back to their village at a moment's notice.

"Yes, dear one. I fear I must."

"But I thought you had sworn off the way of the spear."

"I had, but it seems the way of the spear has not sworn off me."

"Can they not fight without you?"

"They could, but they need experienced reavers to lead them." Macanderheard the faint echo of Karux's words in his reply and hated them. He pulled himself free of her embrace and held her at arm's length, looking into her beautiful worried eyes. "Besides, they will be fighting to defend our friends and our home. I can't stay here and hide in safety. Have I ever shirked when there was work to be done?"

"No." Tokarha turned away, wiping at her eyes. "I told Reavkin to be here to see you off."

"Let him play. He's too young to really understand." Macander lifted his armored tunic and set it on his shoulders. Tokarha helped him tie the leather straps at his sides where the front overlapped the back. Macander picked up his newly sharpened spear, holding it carefully so that neither point rested on the floor.

With a fierce hug and a desperate kiss, Tokarha let him go.

"I'll be back," he promised quietly and left.

He walked alone through familiar corridors that, despite the time he had lived within them, still didn't feel like home. Feeling lost and disconnected, it was the same feeling as when his village had been destroyed. Only this time he had a wife and a child—no—children left behind. If he needed one, he would tell himself that was the reason he fought. Anything he felt, like a flicker of excitement, was only the eagerness to finish this.

Karux waited for him at the outer gates with a satisfied smirk, bouncing his walking staff off the ground. Garanth stood next to him, leaning on a wall, watching the traffic pass. He no longer looked like the boy who had once shadowed Karux everywhere he went. He was a young man, a warrior, a maccari in a bronze armored tunic with a spear, shield and sword.

"Welcome back," Karux said, and Macander was relieved he didn't rub it in further.

"Greetings, uncle." Garanth smiled and they clasped hands, surprising Macander with his strength.

"So he's dragging you into this as well?" Macander asked.

"Are you jesting? I had to insist I come along."

"He'll only be going as far as Kerwyn's Hill, to help you prepare their defenses," Karux said.

"And where are you going?" Macander asked.

"Southward. The arcanths have promised me men and equipment. I mean to collect."

"And where are your shadows? Your students," Macander added in response to Karux's puzzled look.

"Overseeing the loading of my supplies. I've learned I can't trust them to be left alone, so I'll have them help me recruit and train new students."

"More students? How many do you think we'll need?"

Karux's expression grew serious. "To break this spreading curse, we will—at some point—be forced to face the n'kroi behind it. I'd much rather face a thousand angorym and all the drwg roaming the face of the world than a single n'kroi. I don't think it possible to have too many trained in the craft."

A note of foreboding shivered down Macander's spine as he followed them to the staging area where men loaded supplied on a caravan of donkeys. Perhaps there were some battles he was not equipped to fight.

"I still say we should use the dwerkan cart idea." Harkin jerked on a rope securing a load of tent canvas to a puzzled donkey. "We wouldn't need half so many donkeys."

Netac dropped an armload of tent poles at Harkin's feet. "Are you still going on about that? If you think it such a good idea, why don't you build one yourself?"

"Perhaps I would if I could figure out how the wheels turn without falling off."

"Oh, that's simple enough. They had a bar running through them."

"But did the wheels turn or the bar?"

"Of course the wheels turned, or else the carts wouldn't have gone anywhere."

Harkin flushed. "Yes, but, you know what I mean."

Netac waved his concerns away with a dismissive flip of his hand. "It doesn't matter whether the bar turned or not. Pin the wheels to the bar and slather them all in grease."

Harkin paused with a thoughtful look.

A horn sounded. The drovers began getting the donkeys up and moving. An entire second train carrying construction materials and tools, started to leave. The caravan master called back at them, "You two better get moving if you don't want to get left behind."

<====|==|====>

Pronos flopped the bag of coin on the booth's table and leaned back against the wall, sipping his beer.

Tarakae snatched the bag up with a nervous glance over his shoulder at the tavern's other patrons. "That's not very much."

Pronos swallowed his beer with a satisfied sigh and set down his bowl. He was getting to like the cheap stuff. "Don't be greedy. That's more than I kept for myself. The rest went to outfit the new city guard."

"That may be," Tarakae grumbled, "but the mob is even more thirsty for beer than blood. If they get the idea we're holding back some of the merchants' coin, they'll turn on us."

On you, you mean, Pronos thought. He'd have to remember that when it came time to cut Tarakae loose. He smiled and sipped from his bowl.

"And another thing," Tarakae added. "Your city guard has given the merchants their spine back. More and more of them are refusing to donate their fair share to the city's laborers. Your guard is chasing my men away before we can even paint the red hands on their storefronts. How are we supposed to gather more coin?"

Pronos nodded along as he spoke. "I've already spoken to the merchants about this. Between the two of us, the wealthier merchants are tapped out. It's time we looked to the smaller merchants and the more successful tradesmen."

Tarakae frowned. "Quite a few in the mob will have family connections to them. They won't like this."

Pronos shrugged. "That's where the coin is now. If they want protection, everyone needs to pay something.