\hypertarget{chapter-69-peerage}{%
\section{Chapter 69: Peerage}\label{chapter-69-peerage}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Traitorous's Law: while redemption is the greatest victory one
can achieve over a villain, to function it does require the villain to
have at least a single redeemable quality.}

\emph{Addendum: Yes, even if a Choir is involved.''}

-- Extract from `The Axiom Appendix', multiple contributors
\end{quote}

Some days I wondered what it said about me that I much preferred holding
court down in the Everdark than back in Laure. Sure, odds were good that
every single member of my Peerage -- even Ivah -- would turn on me in a
heartbeat if their oaths allowed for it, but for all that there was a
simplicity to the proceedings that I enjoyed. Callow's royalty was known
for a certain lack of pageantry compared to its much wealthier
neighbours to the east and the west, but even that relative lack of
ceremony could feel stifling at times. I'd spent most of my times prior
to the crowning on one campaign or another, and while it was true that
the Legions were strictly regulated I'd had the benefit of being a Named
in a Praesi institution. Which had meant, more or less, that rules had
only ever applied to me if someone higher in the Empire's pecking order
had decreed that they did. Considering Black had been the very
definition of hands off and Malicia had largely considered me his
problem early on, I'd been allowed to run free.

It might have been for the better if I hadn't. I'd learned a lot from my
teacher but in many ways my apprenticeship felt only half-finished.
Though I had long disdained the kind of aristocratic someone like Akua
brought to the table, I'd since felt the costs of lacking that kind of
education. Dealing with Wastelanders and Procerans I'd often been on the
backfoot while they turned etiquette and custom into armaments. Much as
I hated to admit it, treating with Cordelia Hasenbach without Diabolist
whispering in my ear all the while would have seen the First Prince
playing me like a fiddle. She'd called me a warlord, in one of our
little talks, and she had a point. On the surface that was a stone
around my neck, but down here? It was the wind in my sail. I was dealing
with other warlords, and even before I'd stolen Crepuscular from Akua's
mind I'd known how to speak the language of these people. Seated
comfortably on a stone bench perched atop an inclined that
less-than-subtly set my Peerage below me, I struck a match against my
sleeve and lit my pipe.

My wakeleaf stash was running low, so I'd had to ration the vice, but
there was no point in letting the herbs go to waste. I puffed at the
sculpted dragonbone shaft, inhaling the smoke and letting it stream out
of my nostrils with a pleased sigh. It was gladdening that Winter had
not stripped me of all my petty pleasures.

``Evening,'' I drawled. ``I see none of you are missing, so I'll take it
that negotiations didn't go too badly.''

My court of murderers offered up polite amusement at the admittedly weak
jest. The Peerage now numbered eleven Mighty, every single one titled by
Winter. Most of those had come from Great Lotow, reluctantly bending the
knee after wandering around the outskirts of Arcadia for a while and
finding no way out save the one I'd offered. Slaus and Sagas had been
the first to fold, remaining where I'd left them and taking the oaths
after a single day. The others trickled into my service over the
following week as my sigil settled our other affairs in the city. Nodoi
and Vasyl had held out for three and five days, respectively, finding no
trouble living off the land but no way back to the Everdark either. By
then I'd already bullied Losle and Zarkan into oath-taking after a few
demonstrations of how dangerous living in places with only one entrance
and exit could be when that space could be closed off by gate. Kanya and
Soln had refused the longest, the full seven days, and they'd only
changed their minds after Mighty Orelik vanished without a trace. Sooner
or later, those treading the domain of the fae were found by them.
Including Ivah, I'd left Great Lotow with nine titled lords. The last
two we'd picked up on our way to Great Strycht, the sigil-holders of the
Lovre and the Vadimyr.

Practically speaking, those sigils had been roving bandits and raiders
living off whatever they could take from the weakest nearby territory.
They'd had almost no supplies to throw into the pot, which had been
something of an issue, but the sigils were also the most battle-hardened
I had at my disposal. They'd had as many dzulu as nisi in their ranks,
and according to Akua they were the tribes finding it easiest to live
under my rules. It made sense to me: with low numbers, they simply
hadn't been able to afford the casual cruelties of larger and more
established sigils. The other sigil-holders we'd come across on our way
to Strycht had been less inclined to bend the knee when presented with
overwhelming numbers, so they'd ended up feeding my nascent Peerage
instead of joining it. Their lesser Mighty and dzulu had not been so
obstinate, so they'd been folded into my own Losara Sigil where Ivah
could keep an eye on them. It'd had the added benefit of swelling what
could be considered my personal tribe larger than any of the others,
always a good card to have in hand when dealing with other warlords.

``Reports, then,'' I said. ``Lord Soln?''

The Lord of Shallow Graves smiled, which was promising. I'd been careful
not to play favourites with my Peerage, but I would privately admit that
Soln was the Mighty who'd most grown on me. It had taken to its title
better than any drow save Ivah, and its continued knack for producing
results was a very large feather in its metaphorical cap.

``Talks with the Jindrich have been fruitful, Losara Queen,'' it
announced. ``Mighty Jindrich is willing to take the oaths, in exchange
for certain considerations.''

I puffed at my pipe, impressed but trying not to show it. The Jindrich
weren't top dog back in Strycht, but they were widely considered the
runner-up to the sigil that was. In large part because Jindrich itself
was apparently a fucking terrifying savage that went berserk when
fighting other Mighty and sunk entire chunks of island in the throes of
uncontrollable rage. I'd expected them to be holdouts, not in the first
batch of collaborators. Letting out a stream of acrid smoke, I let out a
pleased hum.

``Considerations?'' I prompted.

``Jindrich territory holds the largest cisterns of Great Strycht,'' Lord
Soln elaborated. ``This is well-known. They would outlast all others
when thirst takes the city, and so cabal was forged among lesser sigils
to take the water from them by force. Mighty Jindrich requests
assistance in scattering the scavengers before oaths are taken.''

Ah, these charming drow. You could always count on them to turn on each
other even when the enemy was at the gate.

``And Jindrich will fight at our side, when the time comes?'' I asked.

``That is so, Losara Queen,'' Lord Soln replied.

``Then the bargain is struck,'' I said. ``Centon?''

Akua's secretary had been standing in my shadow all the while, stone
tablet and chalk in hand, and approached when bid.

``My queen,'' it murmured.

``Add five auction seats to the due of the Soln,'' I ordered.

The auction system had not lasted long before needing revision, though
we'd never expected it would. Considering we now had almost forty
thousand drow on the march, allowing everyone to bid would have been
difficult. The simple logistical difficulties of fitting that many
people in a single cavern aside, I'd needed a carrot to keep my growing
army happy. Oaths bound them regardless of preference, but willing
soldiers tended to be a lot more useful than conscripts. The right to
attend the auction of Night-filled corpses was now restricted to a
smaller number of people, currently four hundred. My own Losara Sigil
owned a quarter of that, most of it attributed by lottery so more than
dzulu and Mighty might rise, but I'd given every sigil under my banner a
certain number of seats and kept the last hundred as rewards to parcel
out. Lord Soln would have the right to grant those seats to whoever it
wished, both reinforcing its authority over its sigil and giving a
reminder that the power's ultimate source was the Queen of Lost and
Found.

Diabolist might be a bloody viper but there was no denying how
godsdamned \emph{useful} she was.

``Honour was given,'' Lord Soln said, inclining its head.

``The worthy rise,'' I replied, the cadenced sentence in Crepuscular
rolling off the tongue.

My gaze swept over the rest of the Peerage, and I could almost taste the
anger and envy some displayed. \emph{But not directed at me}, I thought.
\emph{Not for now, anyway.} It was an ugly little bit of irony that some
of the Praesi practices I despised the most worked so well with the
drow. Keeping the blades of my subordinates pointed at each other was an
old Wasteland game I was beginning to be a fair hand at. \emph{But they
will not fight each other}, I reminded myself. \emph{The oaths have seen
to that.} The violence would be turned outwards, and put to my purposes.

``I await other fair news,'' I said. ``Lord Vadimyr?''

The most recent addition to the Peerage shook its head. Vadimyr had
actually answered a few questions I had about drow and the nature of the
titles I was handing out without meaning to. The Lord of Fading Echoes
was, well, the owner of a womb. It had risen to prominence late, and
birthed a child when it was nisi. I did not choose the titles I gave out
when empowering my lords -- Winter provided them -- so it'd been
interesting to learn that my mantle would likely never hand out a title
of Lady to a drow. A matter of perception by the beholden, Akua had
theorized, and in Masego's absence I had no reason to gainsay her.

``Mighty Karmel founded a cabal with three others to share their
water,'' Lord Vadimyr said. ``Together they may well last until the
great cabals of the inner ring come to war against us, and so will not
consider the taking of oaths.''

I nodded.

``Lord Slaus?'' I tried.

``The fortune of Mighty Soln was my own curse,'' the drow ruefully
admitted. ``For the Hushu are of the cabal besieging the Jindrich, and
so have undertaken salvation by strife. They deny any other ending.''

Yeah, there were two sides to that coin. For every cornered sigil they'd
be twice as many sigils cornering it, and those would be less than
inclined to make a pact with an interloper like me. I suspected that if
I allowed the internal skirmishes to play out I'd get a willing
accomplice out of every major defeat, but I had constraints of my own to
consider. My own camp might be fine when it came to water -- I
\emph{did} have a lake to parcel out -- but food was another story. I
had over forty thousand drow to keep fed nowadays, and no supply train
to speak of. Considering I'd refused foraging raids in favour of
assimilating the same sigils we'd be pillaging, the state of our food
reserves was essentially a downwards slope with the occasional uptick
when we brought in a sigil. Of course that same sigil also brought
additional bellies to fill, so the relief was short-lived and followed
by even sharper descent. We had maybe another two weeks left in us
before emergency rationing started, and after that \emph{maybe} a third
before the stores ran empty.

There'd been cattle in Great Lotow, great lizards and some sort of giant
moles whose milk Indrani assured me was utterly disgusting, but Lotow
was an outskirts city. The wealthy sigils with full stores were further
in, and meanwhile we'd already butchered most of the lizards for meat.
Several times, actually. The younger ones were smaller but they grew
back body parts over several days as long as they didn't lose too much
flesh and die from the effort, which had strung out their use some.
Strictly speaking I could afford a week of sitting on my thumbs before
matters became urgent but it would be risky. We'd have to take Strycht
and its entire stores immediately afterwards or risk circling the drain
of our personal reserves while hammering down the last pockets of
resistance. Archer had half-seriously noted that since corpses were
currently our most common form of loot perhaps grey meat should be put
on the table, but cannibalism was a little too far for me. Akua had
noted that it was strictly taboo in drow culture regardless, as eating
their own kind's flesh was believed to cause rot in the soul and cause
Night to seep out.

No, in my eyes were needed to take Great Strycht within the next few
days. It'd give us enough of a margin that we'd keep our head above the
water while resuming our march into the inner ring, racing ever more
harshly against the bottom as we went. It wasn't sustainable, but then
it didn't have to be: this was an exodus, not a conquest. Unfortunately
that meant attacking soon, and that would be risky business without
allies on the inside. Which proved to be in rather short supply, I
discovered as the Peerage continued giving me their reports. There were
a few offers to help against other sigils but not take oaths, in
exchange for water, but the lords who'd held those talks admitted
betrayal was more than likely the moment water was supplied. Lord
Zarkan, who'd yet to bother hiding how much it despise my very
existence, brought a second success with a minor sigil that'd apparently
been evicted of its territory by a cabal and was now furious enough to
turn its cloak. Five auction seats went to the Zarkan for the success,
though that one did not thank me for them afterwards. Lord Nodoi had
failed in talks with the Strycht sigil it'd approached but found another
settled near the western sluice gate that was desperate enough to take
the full oaths in exchange for survival. They were already on their way,
and for that the Nodoi earned six seats.

It was Ivah's own report that turned the mood grim, for it'd been sent
not to bargain but to gain information.

``Over the last two days I took five Mighty from varying sigils,'' the
Lord of Silent Steps informed me. ``As of an hour ago interrogation of
four of them has been carried out. From this, two matters of import were
discovered. The first is that we have drawn the attention of the
Longstride Cabal.''

The drow were always eerily well-behaved, at least when I was present,
so there was no ripple of murmurs as there would have been with humans.
But several of the lords visibly stiffened, which for their kind was a
glaring warning sign.

``This is certain?'' Lord Vasyl pressed.

``Mighty Leslaw is of the Swooping Bat Cabal, of which a lesser member
of the Longstride is also part,'' Ivah said. ``It is my understanding
that is the path by which word of our arrival spread. When the cabals of
Great Strycht put out the call to war, interest developed.''

``You'll have to fill me in on the particulars of this Longstride
Cabal,'' I said.

Ivah grimaced.

``Hunters of hunters, my queen,'' the Lord of Silent Steps said. ``A
great and ancient cabal.''

Lord Soln nodded, catching my eye.

``They fight only for the glory of the Night,'' it added. ``Only the
sharpest blades are invited into the fold. They hold no territory,
protect no temple: their only purpose is the death of those they deem
worthy.''

So not so much dwarven deed-seekers as a bunch of Night-powered Ranger
equivalents. That was just lovely.

``How many?'' I asked.

``Two hundred,'' Ivah said. ``Never more nor less. One invited must take
another's place.''

By which it meant murder their predecessor. So I wasn't just dealing
with thrill-killers, I was dealing with a full cohort of hardened Mighty
who'd either been dangerous enough to kill one of the old monsters or
remained sharp enough to kill the young ones.

``How long before they're mobilized?'' I asked. ``If they're this picky
about members, they have to be widely spread out.''

``It is hard to say, Losara Queen,'' Lord Lovre told me. ``For while
they range far and wide, there are those among them who know the Secret
of shadow-striding. That is the source of their name.''

``Shadow-striding,'' I slowly repeated. ``Is that what I think it is?''

The drow sharply grinned.

``Wherever there is shadow, their strides may take them,'' Lord Lovre
agreed. ``It is a gift from the very hands of Sve Noc.''

``And this is instantaneous,'' I said, disbelieving.

That sounded like teleportation through shadows, which was a bit much
even if the Priestess of Night had her fingers in it. Even the Miezans
had to sacrifice a city's worth of captives to move their armies like
that. \emph{Masego} couldn't fucking teleport, and I'd seen him order a
Princess of Summer to go sit in the corner like a petulant child.

``Not so,'' Lord Soln said. ``It is a lengthening of stride. Not unlike
the stories Mighty Archer speaks of your journeys in the Garden of the
Splendid.''

So cutting corners, not snap-your-fingers-and-it's-done. If the Gloom
and the Night were really part of Sve Noc's domain, as I'd come to
suspect they were, shadow-striding might just be taking a shortcut
through the original domain from which all the rest spawned. Or it might
just be an improvement on the shadow-tendril trick almost every drow
with Night could use, only with a difficult relationship with its father
and something to prove. Regardless, that meant we were about to be up in
our neck in veteran old guard killers.

``A week?'' I tried.

``Less,'' Ivah said. ``My captive had no precise day, yet believed they
would arrive before assault was made on Great Strycht.''

``They don't know when we're going to assault,'' I pointed out.

``Speculation abounds,'' my Lord of Silent Steps drily said. ``Most
common is the belief that within five days there will be battle.''

``So four days,'' I frowned. ``Give or take.''

This was starting to take shape, slowly but surely. This would be fought
in waves. My army had to strike within a few days. The Longstride Cabal
would arrive within four to hunt us for sport. The earliest
reinforcements from the inner ring cabals would start arriving within a
week. If I took Great Strycht before the Longstride arrived, I could lay
an ambush for them. Which would pay off massively, if I could title even
a few of those drow. The shadow-striding trick would allow us to spread
exponentially fast, and we'd be able to eat up the reinforcements as
they arrived. That would be a tipping point for this campaign, I
thought. If I had a Peerage that large and powerful? We'd trample
everything in our way towards Sve Noc, swelling with recruits as we did.
On the other hand, if we botched the invasion of Strycht we were fucked
for good. We'd lose strength in the attempt, and then we'd get hit by
the Longstride and the reinforcements in quick succession. It had
downwards spiral written all over it. Bold strokes would either win this
or end this, depending on how it all fell out. Waiting was essentially
giving up the game, and so not even worth considering.

``There is a second matter of import, Losara Queen,'' Ivah reminded me.

I rolled my shoulder, reluctantly emerging from my line of thought.

``I'm listening,'' I said.

``One of the prisoners I obtained was a jawor of the Rumena Sigil,'' my
Lord of Silent Steps said. ``Privy to intent of Mighty Rumena itself.''

My brow rose. If the Jindrich were the runner-ups, then the Rumena were
the local hegemons. Their sigil was twice the size of anybody else's,
their rylleh were said to be a pain to even sigil-holders and Mighty
Rumena itself was rumoured to have died once, gotten rather angry about
it and promptly gotten up with a severed spine to smash in the head of
the offending Mighty. The only drow in Strycht it was even remotely wary
of was Jindrich, and there was cabal essentially every other
sigil-holder was part of whose entire purpose was making sure the Rumena
didn't eat everyone else. If it was making a move, it would have major
consequences on how this battle unfolded.

``And?'' I said.

``The many sigils of Great Strycht are turning on each other,'' Ivah
said. ``Cabals have split, or been reforged to address more pressing
concerns. There is opportunity in this.''

``It's preparing to take a swing at claiming all of Strycht,'' I said.

``Malcontent rylleh were approached, I am told,'' Ivah smiled. ``And the
jawor I took was looking for weaknesses in the defences other sigils.''

I closed my eyes. This\ldots{} It might work. If they struck hard and
quick while other sigils were already fighting. If they kept the
fighting out of sight until they'd harvested enough Night, they could
just retreat for a day and let their Mighty digest what they took --
after that they'd have enough power to bring to bear that even allied
opposition wouldn't matter. That was an additional beat to the dance
ahead, and one I could use. If I had eyes in the right place. If I was
careful and fast and lucky. I opened my eyes and brought the pipe back
to my lips. The fire had gone out, since I'd put talking above smoking,
but there was still some wakeleaf not entirely gone to ash. I took a
match out of my cloak and struck it on my arm, puffing at the pipe until
it lit up again. Waste not, want less. Meeting the eyes of my Peerage, I
spat out a mouthful of smoke and let it curl around my face.

``Are any of you,'' I smiled, ``familiar with Irritant's Law?''
