Taru is only able to peer up from the corner of one eye. The retainer sees Kamen Lim breathing laboriously and with obvious pain. There’s blood streaming over his lips and down his bruised chin and neck. His dagger is still secured in the scabbard tooled to his baldric. He stares down at the constrained retainer with what appears to Taru to be frustration rather than the anger or rage one might expect.

Lim crouches down in front of the mass of bodies and digs inside Taru’s breastplate. The retainer makes a vain attempt at struggling further, but the dozen hands and arms and bodies crushing Taru to the street only constrict like an angry python. One of the Aegins kicks Taru with numbing force in the kidney.

“There’s no call for that!” Kamen Lim barks in a compressed voice at the unseen Aegin who delivered the blow. “It’s over!”

If nothing else, Taru is satisfied with the decision not to kill the man.

Lim fishes the thick hide binder from within Taru’s armor and removes it. He stands, groaning and spitting blood onto the street. Lim untwines the binder’s cord and peels back the flap, peering inside.

This time his sigh is heavy and accompanied by the faint sound of gargling.

Kamen Lim upends the binder and pulls its edges apart, shaking it above Taru. Sheafs of parchment begin flitting out between the leather folds.

Taru begins thrashing anew, seemingly still intent on stopping him despite the retainer’s untenable predicament. The pile of Aegins only press the combined weight of half a dozen bodies down harder on Taru.

Kamen Lim begins laughing. It’s not a mocking or contemptuous sound. His laugh is rueful, almost admiring.

“I swear, I wish you were on our side,” he reluctantly admits, shaking his head.

“Undeclared aren’t allowed to become Aegins,” Taru reminds him.

“Yes, well.” Kamen Lim closes the binder and tucks it under one arm. “The world is an imperfect place full of imperfect people.”

“I am inclined to agree.”

“Help our stubborn friend to their feet and secure manacles around their wrists,” Lim orders the other Aegins.

The swarm of hands roughly pulls Taru from the grit of the street. This time the retainer doesn’t fight them.

“You seem like a fair man,” Taru says to Lim as the Aegins shackle the retainer’s wrists together. “I’m afraid you take orders from corrupt people.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but neither am I a complicated man. I’m good at what I do and my family also eats and is sheltered in winter. That’s where it begins and ends for me.”

With that, Kamen Lim drives an elbow into Taru’s nose. The force isn’t enough to break bones, but it does rim the retainer’s nostrils with blood and draw tears from their eyes.

“That makes us even,” he says.