He walks up and down the first row of them, and by now Evie’s stomach has settled into the same perpetual numb state as her head.

“You will not desert your regiment. You will not quarrel with, nor kill your fellow Savage. These commands are sacred, and the violation of any of them will result in your immediate execution.”

“You expect us to fight?” another prisoner, older and portlier, asks.

“I expect you to cause the same chaos and mayhem on the field of battle that you so dearly love to cause in city taverns. You’re not soldiers,” he reiterates. “You, each of you, are weapons. You’ll be hurled at the front lines of Crache’s enemies in waves thick enough to smash them. And in that chaos our Skrain will wipe away what remains. That is how we win. That is how Crache prevails, by the blood of Savages. Your blood.”

“Why don’t you just kill us now?” the same portly old man asks, more meekly than defiantly.

“Because that would waste good, solid material. And Crache does not waste any of its resources.”

“We’re not the condemned,” Evie insists. “This isn’t right.”

“It’s service,” he says with finality. “It’s a service to which you’ve all been called. That call cannot be refused. If you choose death then you’ll choose it meeting our nation’s enemies.

“Welcome to the Savage Legion.”

THE KNIGHT BEFORE

“YOU’VE HAD HALF A GALLON of wine,” the bartender warned her as gently as a man missing half his face from an apparent mauling warns anyone. “I wouldn’t go mixing that with Voxic’s sting. This last batch I got’ll take the paint off a wagon.”

Evie saluted him with her cup and a half smile while completely forgetting what he had just said. She retreated to a lone table in the middle of the dingy little establishment tucked into a secluded corner of the Bottoms. She was indeed drinking even more than usual, but that was entirely intentional.

She’d just finished burning most of her throat away with half the cup’s contents when the apotheosis of all drunken, horrid bit players in sad tavern scenes straddled a chair beside her.

“Have we fucked before?” he asked her, quite sincerely.

Evie squinted, attempting to bring him into focus and immediately regretting the decision.

“I can honestly say I’ve never felt worse about myself over anything in my life as I feel about the fact I can’t definitively answer ‘no’ to that question.”

That was apparently far too many words for her potential suitor. “Eh?”

“Just go away,” Evie said wearily.

“Look here,” he began anew, “I didn’t mean to give offense. I just thought if we hadn’t had the pleasure of knowing each other—”