Overlord Rotans licked his lips. “That’s all?” It was too fair a request for him to protest. Logan didn’t want the Lae’knaught fielding the army and then melting away at the first Khalidoran charge. He still looked puzzled, so he hadn’t seen the teeth of Logan’s offer yet, and the damn fool was about to speak. He was going to accept the offer if Ariel didn’t do something.

“I’m only a woman,” Sister Ariel said, “but it seems to me that such cowardice will make recruitment a challenge in a few countries. Let’s see. Cenaria, of course, will feel betrayed. Ceura too. Oh, and I doubt the praetor would be impressed, so definitely Alitaera—that’s a tough one to lose. Waeddryn and Modai may still send recruits; pity they’re so small.”

“And their people so historically reluctant to die for the light of reason,” Praetor Marcus said with some satisfaction.

“And this is such a bad time to have trouble with recruitment,” Sister Ariel said.

“Why’s that?” Marcus asked, playing along.

“Some superstition in Ezra’s Wood recently slew five thousand Lae’knaught.”

Marcus whistled. “That’s some superstition.”

“You’re vile, all of you. You’re the friends of darkness,” Overlord Rotans said.

“There’s the crux,” King Solonariwan Tofusin said. “You see, friends, the Lae’knaught have no country; they have only ideas. If they abandon us, they can survive the allegations of betrayal and cowardice; what will cut them is hypocrisy. They can betray us, what they can’t betray is their principles. Today we faced perhaps a hundred meisters, but this Godking Wanhope brought two thousand. Where were the rest?”

“Do you actually know the answer to that question?” Lantano Garuwashi asked.

“We passed a town called Reigukhas on our way up the river,” Solon said. “It was dead. From the magic still in the air, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of meisters worked for at least twelve hours raising krul. Those krul then devoured the city’s inhabitants. Tomorrow we will face actual, real creatures of darkness, Overlord. I’d estimate their numbers to be in excess of twenty thousand.”

“Shit, there goes our twenty thousand sa’ceurai advantage,” Vi said.

“One sa’ceurai is not offset by one krul,” Hideo Mitsurugi said, offended.

“Do you even know what a krul is?” Vi asked.

“The point is,” Sister Ariel broke in, “when they have a chance to fight the spawn of darkness, the world will see that the Lae’knaught are hypocrites who prefer to turn tail.”

Julus Rotans was actually shaking with rage. “Go to hell, wytch. Go to hell, all of you. Tomorrow you will see how the Laetunariverissiknaught fight. We will take the center of any charge. I will lead it myself.”