Everyone was demanding reinforcements, in fact. The commander of every post within sight of saltwater, from Enzport to Essyle, was convinced that his little garrison was going to be the next target of the Borelgai fleet, and they all wanted more guns and more men. The generals and colonels had taken to writing editorials for the broadsheets, in an effort to stir the public about their particular menace and demand action through the Deputies-General. The Deputies, in turn, issued complicated and often contradictory instructions to Durenne at the Ministry of War, and were contradicted in turn by the decisions of the Directory for the National Defense. The fact that there were virtually no guns left to be had, and not many men, didn’t seem to bother the commanders fighting over scraps.

The only good news came from the east, where news of Janus’ victory at Diarach was now becoming generally known. It was widely acknowledged to have been unsatisfactory, however. Di Pfalen had been permitted to escape, withdrawing with most of his army toward Antova, the central nail on which the League hung its defense of the valley of the Velt. As long as the fortress remained untaken, no real progress could be made, but Janus had not even moved in that direction, instead pursuing a secondary enemy east toward Desland. Moreover, the Hamveltai had organized a second army, under their aged but famous Marshal Jindenau, which was expected to proceed to Antova for winter quarters and launch a direct invasion of Vordan in the spring once the passes were clear.

Radical papers were shouting that the Directory was to blame, dominated as it was by Maurisk and the Conservatives, and that change was needed if victory was to be achieved. The Conservative press, for their part, had taken the defection of de Brogle very badly, and now saw treason and betrayal in every setback. Maurisk had ordered General Hallvez to report to the capital, along with a number of colonels suspected of less than enthusiastic prosecution of their duties, and dispatched representatives of the Patriot Guard to ensure that they complied. And every day, like the clockwork beast it was, the Spike did its bloody work, cutting the hearts out of the men and women the Guard dragged off the street. Yesterday an old woman had been spiked for wearing a fur coat of a vaguely Borelgai cut in public, thus expressing sympathy with the enemy; her protests that she had five grandsons serving with the armies had been in vain.

Condensing all this down to the few sentences the flik-flik line was capable of transmitting was not an easy task. Marcus sent boxes of paper reports by courier, but by the time they arrived they would be doubly out of date. The most important thing, Janus had emphasized, was the conditions in and around the capital itself, and Marcus was doing his best to express the panic he saw rising in the screaming headlines.