“By now you’ve no doubt absorbed the fact there are no guards,” he addresses them all in his bombastic way. “The few Skrain you’ll see about are mostly here as punishment for some dereliction of their duties. They don’t want to be here and they certainly don’t like you. I’d keep that in mind before running afoul of any of them. No, this isn’t a prison and you’re not prisoners. If we had to waste walls and towers and guards on you it’d defeat the purpose. If you’re of a mind late tonight after everyone’s fucked off to sleep to run, you’ll have an easy time of it. I promise you. In fact, there’s no need to run. I’d walk. Hell, I’d stroll. No one will stop you.”

Laython gives a nod to his tasker underlings. The pair of them stride forth and seize the first new Savage within reach, the same portly, bearded man who was the only one besides Evie to protest their conscription.

“What now?” he half whines, half demands. “I’m just a pickpocket! I don’t deserve this!”

His struggling goes barely noticed by the taskers as they ferry him under the lean-to and tip him back into the chair, one of them hoisting his legs up onto the wooden rest. They each firmly secure one of his arms, waiting.

Laython steps over to the forge and picks up one of the newly minted and treated coins. He holds it up against the rays of the midday sun.

In the light it looks more copper than tin to Evie. She can also make out a design pounded into the coin, not the Crachian ant or any other national symbol. It appears to be a crude face, bearded and with wild hair. The eyes and mouth are just hollows.

The face of a Savage, she realizes.

“This is a blood coin,” he informs them all. “This is Crachian ingenuity at its finest and most elegant. And this is why none of you are going anywhere except where I tell you to go.”

Laython turns and strides to the reclining chair, leaning over its burly, terrified occupant. With his free hand, Laython reaches past the man’s bushy beard and painfully grips his lower lip, yanking it until the man has no choice but to open his mouth. As soon as he does, Laython jams the coin inside it. One of his massive hands clamps down over the man’s lips while the other pinches his bulbous nose closed.

The poor thief has no choice but to swallow, deeply, ingesting the coin.

Laython releases him and steps away, the smithy tossing him a soiled cloth with which he proceeds to wipe his hand.

The portly man in the chair gasps for breath, but the coin doesn’t come up.