‘Tell me about Stenwold Maker,’ he said.

Lieutenant Graf glanced at the others and then spoke. ‘He arrived the day before you, sir. Quite a tail of followers, too.’

‘Was there a Mantis-kinden with them?’ Thalric asked. His mind returned abruptly to the night battle at the engine works at Helleron that had seen the Pride destroyed. There had been a Mantis there, making bloody work of every man who came against him – until Thalric had burned him. Tisamon, Scyla’s reports had named him, and his daughter had been Tynisa. Tynisa, who had very nearly done for Thalric when he came to finish the matter. In his heart he had hoped that the man had died from his wound, but Graf’s next words surprised him not at all.

‘Yes, sir, his name is Tisamon. I’ve learned he was a student at the College many years ago, at the same time as Maker. Even from back then, he had a reputation.’

‘And well deserved,’ Thalric confirmed. ‘What movements?’

‘Maker’s settling his men in. He’s applied to speak before the Assembly, but that’s likely to take a few days. He’s not exactly popular. A maverick, they think, and he leaves his College duties too often. They’ll stall him with bureaucracy for a while, maybe even a tenday, before they let him in. A slap on the wrist.’

‘And the rest?’

‘Many of the others are now at the College,’ Arianna said. ‘Some are in the infirmary, in fact. They brought some wounded with them from Helleron. There’s a monstrous little wretch with them, though, some spiky kinden I’ve never seen before, and he’s been going about the factories a lot, the engine yards and the rail depot.’

‘That would be Scuto,’ Thalric explained, ‘Stenwold’s deputy from Helleron. He’s an artificer, I understand, so some of that might just be professional curiosity.’ Thalric remembered his one meeting with Stenwold Maker, a few brave words over a shared drink: two men in the same work on opposite sides, but common ground nonetheless; they were two soldiers who had suffered the same privations under different flags.