He did not return my smile. “To have their oaths. I won’t have a soldier at my back who isn’t mine by oath. Would you?”

He did not press me to answer.

“They could take it in batches, I suppose,” he half mumbled, his mind still slowed by math.

“Do you have a specific oath in mind?” Outis asked first. “I’ve been drafting—”

“Nothing complex,” Achilles answered. “Just ‘I swear by all I hold inviolable that I renounce all other ties, and from this day shall live, and fight, and kill, and die only for Achilles.’ Will you swear that?”

They would and did, our convict captains, each hesitating just long enough to prove that they thought hard about the words before they spoke them. They had expected him to make some such demand. I had told them how, in ancient days, a soldier’s loyalty was sworn, not to his state or homeland, but to his general. The great conquests—and tyrannies—of early history were enabled by that personal bond of command, which made armies flexible, able to switch sides, even switch wars, when their commanders willed. With this war’s chasm opening before us, many-sided, we needed that again. The fourteen Servicers I brought today were not mere friends or chance companions, but the leaders of we who are allowed no leaders, elected by charisma and notoriety to represent the others in this first meeting with our chosen commander.

“Not you, Mycroft.”

He would not let me take the oath. Nor could I have, reader. Too many ties.

In lulls between the oaths we learned that Fate had spared the Humanists, that day at least. Fifty-one Senators voted to dissolve the Hive then and there, but one hundred and forty-nine voted to give the Humanists a second chance. Only fools were shocked. Cornel MASON commands sixty-one votes and, despite paternal rage, Cornel MASON still dreamed of peace. “The motion fails.”

Menestius: “What’s next, sir?”

Achilles: “Next we build a training camp. You’re not an army yet.”

Eudorus: “We’ve been training.”

Achilles: “I’m about to punch you in the face.”

Eudorus: “What?”

Achilles: “You say you’ve been training. I’m about to punch you in the face. Block.”

Eudorus: “Okay. Readyyykkhgghhhh!”

Even my eyes did not see the blow, just blood’s brightness as the proud young Servicer crumpled from fighting posture to a fetal curl.

Achilles flexed his fist. “We build a training camp, deep in the woods, somewhere untraceable. Mycroft, find a place.”

“Already found.”

I got a fast, questioning glare, but Achilles did not ask whether I had anticipated his need, or whether I kept a ready inventory of abandoned places for my own purposes. “Assemble your best hundred there, then. Three weeks with them, then they split into groups and each group trains another hundred. If the world survives that long.”

The others mustered brave smiles. “We look forward to working with you, sir.”

“It won’t be me who trains you. I’ll come by when I can, but I have Hive leaders to deal with, and battle plans to make.”