The City was . . . strange. For a place as big as it was, it was echoingly empty. No building was the height of the Palace, of course; the Palace loomed over everything, inescapable, the symbol of how the Empire controlled everything. He didn’t see much that was over three stories tall, and the buildings themselves were a mix of so many different materials and styles that it made his head swim. There were canals, as he expected; in times past, canals were not just practical, they were seen as a symbol of prosperity and prestige, and to his surprise, the canals here had a steady flow, sometimes as brisk as a horse’s canter. They were paired with canals flowing in the opposite direction. The streets, though, were arrow-straight, and paved with something like a sheet of solid stone—except that his horse’s hooves, and the hooves of the other beasts on the streets, made very little sound on it. And it seemed to have some give to it.

There were few horses or vehicles, few people afoot, and all of them seemed to be going someplace in a very great hurry. Buildings showed dark windows, like empty eyes. There were shops, usually attended by a single person, brightly lit, and generally with one customer or none. But there were also craftsmen in workshops, with goods showing in stalls to the side, and the workshops open so that you could see them working, and all of them seemed very busy, even frantically busy. Many—far too many—of them were weapons-makers, including ones making Spitters.

But as he approached one of those workshops, he discovered that there were also large versions of Spitters, something he had never seen before, things about as long as his arm and thick as his thigh. He caught sight of some of them being loaded onto a wagon, and stared.

“Poomers,” said Star, seeing where he was looking. “That is the largest practical size of Spitter. Anything larger, and defects in the castings often make them explode in the field, which is considered a waste of metal and soldiers. Each discharge requires seven pellets. Poomers rarely fire bolts. They fire wooden sabots packed with metal shot and weighted chains.”

That would be horrifying to face. Kordas had seen the effects of shot, versus bolts, on waterfowl. A ground-braced Poomer, firing shot, would shred anything at medium distance, and the chain-shot? It could probably fell a twenty-year-old tree if it struck dead-on, and the shrapnel from the tree would explode outward. He visibly shuddered.

“Pellets are made in the Palace, in the Fabrication Annex,” Star continued. “In case of accident, the Palace proper would not be harmed badly. The Annex is exclusively staffed by Dolls.”

“I’d like to see that. Is anything else made there?” he asked.