\hypertarget{chapter-35-portents}{%
\section{Chapter 35: Portents}\label{chapter-35-portents}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``One who rears a tiger should not complain of stripes.''}

-- Soninke saying
\end{quote}

The Painted Knife's band had been one of the first we'd assembled, back
in the first days under the Truce and Terms.

I'd been a given that a hero would have to lead it, as even with Hanno
and the Pilgrim backing the Terms there would have been desertions if a
villain had been put in charge of Above's precious little bastards. The
Painted Knife, whose name was Kallia, was a tall woman who wore
elaborate red face paint and had been Tariq's personal recommendation
for the task. A heroine but not from one of the Dominion's great lines,
and one who tended to be more comfortable on the prowl than standing
shoulder to shoulder in a shield wall. I'd wedged in a Proceran villain
I'd thought it best to keep out of sight for a while, the Poisoner,
since amnesty or not she'd killed a \emph{lot} of nobles. She was a
decent alchemist besides, which tended to be useful in all sorts of
ways, though naturally to keep an eye on her the heroes had pushed for a
Proceran hardcase known as the Relentless Magistrate to be added to the
band.

The man was deeply unpleasant to anyone he considered to be a criminal
but obsessed with respecting the letter of the law and a prodigious
investigator, so I'd made my peace with it. To add a bit of bite to the
band we'd rustled up the Grizzled Fantassin, though we'd had to
appropriately pad her retirement fund to get her on board, and since I
wasn't sending anyone hunting for old secrets without a dedicated mage
I'd reluctantly parted with the Royal Conjurer. The Helikean mage was an
escapee from Kairos' rise to power and remarkably flexible in ability --
he was a more than decent combat mage as well as capable of subtler
touches -- so it'd been a real loss sending him out. He would have been
a good fit at the Arsenal, or any of the fronts for that matter, but in
my experience sending a band of five digging into ancient mysteries
without \emph{some} sort of magical support tended to result mostly in
corpses.

Yet they'd returned, at long last, and all five of them were alive. Not
without some missing parts -- I saw with dismay that the Grizzled
Fantassin was missing a finger, and from what I remembered of her
contract that was going to put a dent in someone's savings -- but the
way they held themselves as they strolled out onto the expanse of stone
caught my eye. Wary, yes, but that wariness was aimed outwards. The
Poisoner, a plump and smiling middle-aged woman, stood close to the
skinny and permanently stubbled Relentless Magistrate whose gaze was
sweeping their surroundings without an eye being kept on the criminal
he'd once been so scathing about. The Royal Conjurer was trusted to
stand at the back without anyone feeling nervous, and the Grizzled
Fantassin was standing next to the Painted Knife instead of slightly
behind so that she'd be the one to eat an arrow if they got ambushed.

I knew that look, that way of standing together. How could I not, when
the mere presence of three of the Woe at my side had me feeling lighter
on my feet than I'd had in months? Those five gone through the crucible
and come out on the other side changed. Bound to each other in some
intangible way, and though it wouldn't make them like each other it had
brought trust with it. A lot more precious a thing, that, in my opinion.

I liked a lot of people, after all, but trusted only a handful.

I wasn't the only one to see it. Vivienne had turned when I did, but it
wasn't her who let out a low whistle. Archer, ever more perceptive than
she seemed, was watching the five Named with narrowed eyes.

``Those five have had an interesting year, I bet,'' Indrani murmured.

I'd expected the Royal Conjurer would be eager for a different
assignment, after this, but now I doubted it. A proper debrief would be
needed, at some point, but I was personally more inclined to find
something else important to send a proper band of five at than try to
break it up. Practical considerations aside, my heart clenched in
excitement. A band, a \emph{real} band, with villains in it. That
was\ldots{} there were precedents for temporary truces, even the
occasional cooperation, but never anything like this. Not that I knew
of, anyway, and I'd made it my business to know.

``Catherine's associate is making his way here,'' Masego noted.

I flicked a glance upwards and found him at the top of the stairs,
burning glass eyes staring at the unseen through the walls of the
Arsenal.

``Which one?'' I asked.

``The tolerable Ashuran one,'' Hierophant said, then added, ``By which I
do not meant the Blessed Artificer, to be clear.''

Three amused looks were turned onto Zeze. His continuing feud with
Adanna of Smyrna, now drained of the dangerous underlying tensions, had
resumed being entertainingly petty. He meant Hanno, presumably, who I
really should have expected to turn up the moment the Painted Knife's
band came through. The White Knight had a general knack for being in the
right place at the right time, even more so than most heroes. Mind you,
providence was not absolute. It could be gamed, if you knew the right
tricks. I looked down at the gathering Named, speaking with the mages
who'd spelled them through, and grimaced as I realized it'd be rude not
to greet them down there and instead continue up and wait there. Which
meant I was going to have to go up and down these fucking stairs
\emph{again}.

Forget the Dead King: if I didn't get to take a sledgehammer to
these\ldots{} tyrannical stones before I died, I might just have to come
back as a vengeful spectre.

``'Drani, go tell him to get a move on,'' I said. ``Vivienne, do you
remember their Names?''

Blue-grey eyes turned to me and she grimaced the slightest bit.

``All but one,'' she admitted. ``The smiling one who looks like the
village baker?''

``The Poisoner,'' I said, enjoying her slight wince. ``One of mine.''

``You don't say,'' Vivienne drily replied.

Admittedly the Name was not one that, uh, invited nuanced
interpretation. The

``I don't know any of them,'' Masego informed us.

Neither of us bothered to pretend we were surprised. Painted Knife and
her companions had begun the walk across the floor but we got to the
bottom of the stairs before they did. The red-painted heroine offered me
a salute, a fist against the chest, that I vaguely remembered being a
gesture of respectful acknowledgement among Levantines.

``Black Queen,'' the Painted Knife greeted me. ``We return.''

``And I am glad of it,'' I replied, offering her a nod before turning my
gaze on the others. ``What you have found is eagerly awaited.''

Especially since they'd refused to commit it to either scrying or
letters, which would have gotten it to us months ago.

``Ah,'' a voice came from above. ``I had been wondering why I was
here.''

Hanno looked pleased but not entirely surprised as he came down, Indrani
idling at his side and only parting ways at the bottom to throw an arm
around a tolerant Hierophant's shoulder.

``White Knight,'' the Painted Knife greeted, significantly warmer.

Still the same salute, though, so I decided not to feel too insulted.
The Grizzled Fantassin cleared her throat, freeing her grey hair by
removing her helm.

``This is all lovely, but after this long on the road I'd knife an angel
for bed and a warm meal,'' she said, her Arlesite accent light and
pleasant.

``Contrition's your choir,'' Archer advised. ``Steer clear of Mercy,
though, they're a little\ldots{}''

I cleared my throat. The old soldier looked mostly amused, and Hanno
patiently forgiving, but the Painted Knife was waiting to see if the
Peregrine's own Choir was about to get insulted. Would a Levantine fight
an honour duel over an angelic choir's reputation? It said a lot about
the Dominion that I could not reply with an immediate and definitive no,
to be honest.

``We'll get you settled in,'' I said. ``But for a few hours at most.
There will be a council to receive your findings by Afternoon Bell at
the latest.''

Considering how the First Prince tended to pack her hours even more
tightly than I did, I suspected she'd have trouble shaking loose the
time for a proper debriefing before then anyway.

``Will Kallia speak for all of you?'' Hanno asked. ``Or will the report
be given as a group?''

``As a group,'' the Painted Knife said, and there were nods all around.

I caught the Royal Conjurer's eye, cocking an eyebrow in question, but
the tanned old man discreetly shook his head. No need for a separate
talk between us, then.

``Good, it will simplify matters,'' I said. ``Messengers will be sent to
you rooms to inform you of when the council will take place.''

I paused for a moment.

``Water's rationed in the Arsenal, but feel free to ask to be drawn a
hot bath anyway,'' I said. ``Under my authority, if need be,''

Groans of anticipatory pleasure were my answer.

``Many are temptations of Evil,'' the Relentless Magistrate gravely
said.

His tone was serious, but the slight quirk of his lips gave the humour
away.

``I assure you,'' the Poisoner said, ``evil paid \emph{much} better than
the Grand Alliance.''

\emph{Fair}, I admitted even as the band let out the kind of small
chuckles a fond but worn joke would get after a few months or a year of
being bandied about. Exhausted as they were, we didn't linger around for
small talk.

Ultimately my pride was my downfall, as I decided that asking Masego to
levitate me over those fucking stairs would be too undignified.

---

I'd either overestimated how full Cordelia Hasenbach's schedule was or
I'd underestimated how much she wanted to hear the report from the
Painted Knife's band, because as soon as an hour past Noon Bell our
little council was seated in one of the formal halls of the Arsenal.

We'd kept the numbers relatively low, since this was unlikely to be the
sort of thing we wanted spread around and numbers were always the death
of secrecy. There were three seats filled as a given -- mine, Hanno's
and Hasenbach's -- but after that it'd been on strict basis of need.
Vivienne, while tired and fresh off her own travels, was my
heiress-designate so she'd naturally been brought in. Masego was as
well, as my advisor on sorcery and the eldritch, and he'd not even
needed to be talked into it. Hierophant had no interest in politics, but
he'd always been like a magpie when it came to secrets. Hanno had
brought in Roland and the Blessed Artificer, both of which had been hard
to argue with. The Rogue Sorcerer was a generalist, when it came to
magic, and Adanna of Smyrna understood Light in ways few others could.

I was pretty sure that the only reason she and Masego weren't trying to
stare each other down was that the Artificer knew he didn't blink.

The First Prince had brought in Frederic, and I'd had a hard time
placing why at first. The Prince of Brus was popular and a Hasenbach
loyalist, but he wasn't exactly in the running for the throne even if
she stepped down from it. Malanza was all but certain to get the chair,
if it came to that. I liked Frederic, our little affair aside, but as
far as I knew he didn't bring much to the table. Except, I realized
after a moment, security. He was a Named that the First Prince knew
would be on her side, if anything went wrong in this room where no
guards would be allowed in. Given that he was a prince it was hard to
argue with his presence, regardless, and one might argue that anyhow I'd
already put my faith in the\ldots{} discretion of the Kingfisher Prince.
Hasenbach's other seat had been given to a middle-aged man by the name
of Alvaro Corrales, who was introduced as a scholar and one of her
secretaries.

He'd be taking the formal notes for the session, though Vivienne would
be taking notes for my side as well.

Since Lord Yannu Marave had yet to arrive, the Dominion would go without
a representative today. It wasn't ideal, but to be honest there simply
wasn't anyone high-ranking enough from Levant on the premises. Anyone
brought in -- one of the few captains, most likely -- would be lost for
most of the conversation and require access to several more well-kept
secrets just to understand most of what was going on. It wasn't going to
be happening, Hasenbach and I had agreed. We'd keep the Painted Knife
and her band here long enough that the Lord of Alava could hear the same
report we had, if a little later, and maybe offer a polite apology for
the haste. Not a very sincere one, though. No one had been particularly
inclined to delay until Marave got here, given the potential importance
of the report and how long we'd been waiting for it. Sparse small talk
was had as a courtesy for the short while we waited after the coming
Named, but it'd barely gotten past greetings by the time the five were
brought in.

A few hours of rest had visibly done them some good, I thought. Months
on the road couldn't be cured with a catnap, but at least it'd taken the
edge off and allowed them to change into clean clothes. By habit my eye
sought weapons and found none, not that Named could ever truly be
harmless. After the attendants escorted them down to the lower table --
ours was up on platform, in a bit of pageantry -- and the Painted Knife
offered greetings for the band as a whole. Hasenbach took the lead in
answering, even as I studied the five Named. The Poisoner looked
uncomfortable, which was only to be expected since she'd once accepted a
tidy sum to kill the First Prince even if she'd ultimately failed, but
that the Relentless Magistrate looked the same caught my attention.

Whatever it was they'd found, it didn't sit well with the man.

``- if my fellow high officers have no objection?''

I'd kept half an ear on the talk, so I wasn't caught unawares. Cordelia
was trying to move this along.

``None,'' I said.

``Agreed,'' Hanno replied.

The Painted Knife breathed out, and I wondered how much nervousness the
thick face paint was actually hiding. The people in this room, the
people she'd be addressing, were not without power or influence in the
wider world.

``The mandate given us by the White Knight and the Black Queen was to
find the truth of what took place long ago in the place known as the
Verdant Hollow,'' Kallia of the Knife's Blood began.

It was Neshamah himself, during the conference in Salia, who'd suggested
we should look into a place where the first Grey Pilgrim would have
`slain many men'. Paired with the insinuation that we owed Kairos
Theodosian all our lives and that the Wandering Bard had been playing us
for fools, it'd warranted investigation. Tariq himself had known of the
existence of the hidden valley, this Verdant Hollow, and even negotiated
with the Holy Seljun on our behalf to access the records of the secret
records Isbili when it turned out that the White Knight could not see a
single thing that'd taken place within the valley grounds through his
aspect. After a look through the records the band of five had chased
after the trail like bloodhounds, but I'd heard very little of how
they'd gone about it.

``We first tried the Verdant Hollow ourselves, using sorcery to try to
bring forth a shade from those ancient days,'' the Painted Knife said.
``It did not succeed.''

She glanced at the Royal Conjurer, who cleared his throat and asked for
permission to speak.

``Granted,'' I said.

``Old battlefields and sites of slaughter usually have stray spirits
even when shades have faded, as the former often feed on the latter,''
the old man said, offering a grandfatherly smile. ``There was not a
trace of either, however, and my attempts to conjure up the dead failed
in a manner that can only be called absolute.''

At my left, I saw Masego lean forward in his seat.

``\emph{Tabula rasa}?'' Hierophant asked.

The wrinkled old mage nodded.

``Indeed, Lord Hierophant,'' he replied. ``I drew the obvious
conclusion.''

``Angelic intervention,'' Roland said, voice quiet and troubled.

I sagely nodded, as if I'd known that all along. Although, the tabula
rasa thing \emph{did} vaguely ring a bell. Akua had once mentioned that
the touch of angels on Creation tended to `renew' the fabric of the
Pattern, often erasing old damage, which was why even though Callow had
been subjected to more than a few rituals it wasn't up to its neck in
fae and devils all the time. Still, this was hardly a great revelation.
If the first Pilgrim had called on an angel to tip the scales against a
villain, it wasn't exactly unprecedented.

``It was clear there would be no shortcut, so we followed our other
lead,'' Kallia of the Knife's Blood said. ``The records of the Pilgrim's
Blood spoke of survivors that fled north, into the Alavan hills,
carrying wounded with them. We looked for graves along that path,
combing the countryside.''

A sideways look at the Grizzled Fantassin saw the older woman salute --
towards Cordelia in particular, I noted -- and speak out in a cadenced
tone I recognized from my own years on campaign.

``There weren't any Dominion graves, Your Highness, but I recognized old
markers in the tradition of the southern companies,'' she said. ``It was
my kind that got butchered in that valley, and they buried their own as
best they could while running away.''

I'd not guessed it would be \emph{fantassins} that'd gotten killed by
the first Pilgrim, but that it would be Procerans had been something of
a given. The founders of the Blood, immortalized in the epic poetry of
the Anthem of Smoke, had been rebels against Proceran occupation.

``We attempted to summon forth the spirits form the graves, but there
was a complication,'' the Painted Knife said.

``Someone had beaten us to it,'' the Royal Conjurer said, sounding
amused. ``Necromancy had already been used there, and recently.''

``How recently?'' Masego asked. ``For how many corpses?''

``A month, five corpses,'' the old Helikean mage replied.

Zeze scoffed, and I let out a low whistle myself.

``That's a hell of a bleed,'' I said.

From the corner of my eye I saw Roland lean to the side to explain to
the First Prince in a whisper what I'd learned from my own lessons in
the Art. Usually the turn of the moon dispersed weak magical residue, so
for it to still have been detectable after a month when there'd only
been five corpses to raise meant that the caster had grossly overcast
their spell. Usually either the mark of the incompetent and ignorant --
Masego's own conclusion, obviously -- or of people with a lot of power
but little control.

``Fortunately, we were able to track the risen dead through the gift
Bestowed upon of one of our own,'' the Painted Knife said.

The Relentless Magistrate, who I could not help but not had yet to
shave, rose to offer us all a stiff bow.

``We followed the trail to a fishing village south of Malaga before it
went cold,'' the man said, his strong Alamans accent showing even when
speaking Chantant. ``Upon investigation, Your Highness and Majesty, it
turned out that villages in the region all had a few missing
individuals. While the locals were disinclined to answer the questions
of a Proceran magistrate, Lady Kallia's stature as one of the Blood
bridged the gap and we figured out the common link was access to
boats.''

My brow rose.

``The Royal Conjurer and my humble self meanwhile found out that graves
were being robbed in the area,'' the Poisoner tittered. ``Which painted
a damning picture, yes?''

Considering I'd heard that poisonous things tended to grow around
Dominion barrows, I decided not to ask exactly \emph{what} they'd been
doing when finding that out.

``When another young man was abducted we followed,'' the Painted Knife
said, ``and after borrowing a boat and sailing across the Pond we made
shore south of the Brocelian.''

Which was, from what I recalled, one of the last largely unexplored
stretches of Calernia by virtue of most people going into it dying ugly
deaths. Ventures in there were profitable if you could handle yourself,
though, given the amount of magical creatures and rare resources. The
city of Tartessos should be an impoverished hole in the ground, going by
simple geography, but trading in Brocelian goods had instead made it one
of the great cities of Levant.

``Didn't even get to find our way before we got ambushed by undead,''
the Grizzled Fantassin sighed. ``Although that was still better than the
damned boat reeking of fish.''

``It was clear we were on the right path, if the enemy was attempting to
obstruct us,'' the Relentless Magistrate smiled, a small slice of teeth
and malice.

``The Brocelian is not a forest to be tried without preparations,''
Hanno said. ``Did you seek a guide?''

``One of the ambushers was a living man,'' the Painted Knife said. ``And
though terrified of his `master' he agreed to serve as our guide after
some convincing.''

The Poisoner tittered, smiling girlishly.

``It is easier to bargain when one has the only antidote to be found for
a thousand miles,'' she said.

That'd been an \emph{impressively} creepy titter, I mulled to myself.
The woman was talented.

``Ten silvers it was some Named undead trying to gather an army on the
sly,'' I muttered under my breath.

``I will take that,'' Masego decided. ``No one with that much bleed
could possibly be competent enough to lead an army.''

Ha, the sucker. Although it'd better not come out of the Arsenal budget,
since that'd just be cycling my own coin around.

``Twenty it was trying to take over Levant,'' Vivienne offered under her
own breath.

The White Knight turned a steady gaze onto us, and I felt vaguely
ashamed at having been caught betting on this.

``I'll take the bet on the twenty,'' Hanno softly said, leaning towards
us. ``And thirty it has Barrow in the Name.''

It was probably some sort of heresy to gamble with the White Knight, I
thought, but then I \emph{had} been Arch-heretic of the East. They
couldn't reasonably expect me not to dabble at least a little.

``I'll take that bet,'' I snorted. ``We've already got a Barrow Sword,
the Gods Below wouldn't be that uninspired.''

``It's Levant,'' Hanno drily replied, ``there's always a barrow involved
somehow.''

A few gazes had turned towards us at the continued whispers, so I
painted a solemn look onto my face. It'd been a serious, professional
conversation we'd be having and there was no reason to even suspect
otherwise.

``We pushed on into the woods, meeting little opposition as we went,''
the Painted Knife said.

``About a hundred zombies and just the most \emph{horrid} manticore,''
the Grizzled Fantassin corrected.

``It was unusually unpleasant even by manticore standards,'' the Royal
Conjurer agreed.

``We then found an army of the dead being gathered in the depths of the
Brocelian, thousands of corpses being armed in the shade of the trees,''
the Painted Knife continued.

I cocked an eyebrow at Masego who looked mightily disgruntled at the
revelation. Ten silvers for me, that was.

``We knocked out the prisoner and infiltrated the camp, where we learned
that it was one of the Bestowed who was gathering a host,'' Kallia of
the Knife's Blood said. ``Though long dead, it had once been of the
Tanja and wanted to claim rule of Malaga once more -- Lord Razin Tanja
was only titled through a loophole, it argued, and so it would rise the
same.''

It made me feel a little dirty inside to refer to Praes laws on
anything, but for once the Dread Empire might just be the leading light
there: it had pretty strict laws cutting out the undead of both
inheritance and holding titles at all. It'd only taken like three civil
wars to get there, too, which by Praesi standards was basically
unanimous consent. Hanno glanced at Vivienne, who was to embarrassed to
curse in front of the Sword of Judgement but looked like she very much
wanted to. Malaga wasn't all of Levant, after all.

``He had proclaimed himself to be lord of the dead,'' the Relentless
Magistrate said, sounding offended by the pretension.

``She,'' the Poisoner corrected.

``They named themselves the Barrow Lord,'' the Painted Knife cut in.

I cursed in Kharsum, which drew some gazes. Including the First
Prince's. \emph{Really}, Below? That was why Good kept winning, because
they were such shits about it all. Now the White Knight was the one
who'd won the most out of this whole blasphemous sidebar, and let that
be a lesson: Above would always win so long as Below wasn't willing to
spring for some proper Names. \emph{Barrow Lord}, I scathingly thought.
They might as well have just named the poor bastard `Grave Noble', it
was about as clever in the greater scheme of things. People were still
looking at me, so I cleared my throat.

``I grieve for the people of Levant,'' I said, which strictly speaking
wasn't a lie.

``I thank you for your kindness,'' the Painted Knife said, sounding
surprised. ``But the five of us were able to defeat the old dead. Though
it refused to rest even when broken, the Poisoner was able to find a way
to destroy it.''

``Manticore venom is a powerful acid, when mixed with blood and
rhododendron,'' the Poisoner smiled.

Well, that was an image. Masego and Roland both looked interested but
were aware enough not to indulge their curiosity just now.

``And the corpses you had come there to find?'' the First Prince calmly
asked.

``We had destroyed several without knowing it,'' the Painted Knife
admitted, ``but the fifth made itself known.''

``It proclaimed itself the new Barrow Lord,'' the Grizzled Fantassin
snorted. ``Which several other undead saw fit to argue with. It was all
very Highest Ass-''

The older woman paled.

``-League of Free Cities,'' she hastily corrected, glancing sideways at
the First Prince of Procer.

I was rather amused she did not so much as glance at Frederic, who was a
sitting member of the Assembly as well.

``You captured your corpse, however, I take it?'' Hanno asked.

Subtle laughter rippled through most of the band.

``I arrested him,'' the Relentless Magistrate defiantly said. ``For
false arrogation of noble title, which is a crime under Proceran law.''

I choked at the bold assertion and was not alone in my surprise.

``Dead or not, he was a Proceran subject,'' the man insisted.

I was a little disturbed to see that Cordelia Hasenbach was
\emph{beaming} down at him, or at least as close to that as her face
would allow.

``Is it actually illegal to be undead under Proceran law?'' I asked,
cocking an eyebrow.

``It would fall under the heresy laws, in most cases,'' the First Prince
told me. ``Though in the four northern principalities undeath is
considered high treason and acted upon as such.''

``It's illegal for undead to do manual labour under the Accords, by the
latest draft,'' Vivienne noted.

``We're going to need to make sure I don't accidentally qualify under
the wording, given how often I've died,'' I told her under my breath.

``The ancient dead was convinced to surrender to the authority of the
magistrate,'' the Painted Knife said. ``After some aggressive
persuasion. And after we ran away with him tied to the Grizzled
Fantassin's back, we finally had our answers.''

That caught everyone's attention.

``The mercenary companies were led by the White Knight of the time, a
woman of Procer,'' Kallia of the Knife's Blood said, ``and had been
hunting the Grey Pilgrim for some time. They caught up to him and his
fellow rebels in the Verdant Hollow.''

Wait, it was a \emph{heroine} he'd been fighting? I'd known that in the
past the Principate had fielded the occasional hero when taking a swing
at its neighbours, but I'd not expected a damned White Knight to end up
serving as a bloodhound for insurgents. By the look on Hanno's face, he
was less than happy to hear this but not outright surprised. I supposed
he'd seen too many of the lives of his predecessors to hold any
illusions about their infallibility.

``The fight went in the favour of the Pilgrim,'' the Painted Knife said.
``Yet the White Knight would not have it. When defeat seemed to be
looming, she called on the help of a Choir.''

Oh, \emph{fuck}. I did not like where this was headed. I did not like it
at all.

``Which one?'' Hanno calmly asked.

``Mercy,'' the Relentless Magistrate quietly said. ``I\ldots{} glimpsed,
and it must have been Mercy.''

Considering how brutal Tariq could get in the pursuit of greater goods,
I could actually believe the ancient White Knight had been backed by the
Ophanim in her quest. Suppress the rebellion and reform from the inside,
maybe? It was an uncomfortably familiar refrain, and it might just be I
was painting my own history on a blank canvas there. But she'd led
fantassins instead of regulars, so perhaps it had been unkind to assume
she'd been with the rapacious princes occupying Levant back then.

``And what happened after that?''

``Angels came,'' Kallia of the Knife's Blood said. ``But a woman stepped
in, and then the angels \emph{left}.''
