"I can't just trust the deployment of our forces to this information blindly, Tiberius."

Balthazar stood at the opposite side of the long table in the war room. It was just us two. It was midnight. In a few moments I would regain access to Door, but would need to wait until the following midnight to be able to use it twice in quick succession.

"You have to. You hear these numbers, don't you? We bit off more than we can chew! They can outmaneuver us. They can overwhelm us. They're too hungry to agree to ceasefire or truce. This is it, to the end now. It's us or it's Danefer. We have to roll the dice, you have to roll the dice, I know my intel is good."

Balthazar narrowed his eyes. "I don't roll dice."

"You'll have to this time. There's no other way."

He turned his impassive face to the map. It was not familiar to him, being surprised, having someone else know what he did not. He looked at where I had marked the positions of their forces and he shook his head as I watched him count the locations of the eight Griidlords.

"If this is true… how did he get so many…"

"He's been recruiting Griidlords, grooming them, probably since he disappeared. Maybe before that even. I know of another who he approached in her early years…" I would not name my connection to Racquel, bit my tongue at even indicating it was a lady I spoke of. "He came to me… Griidlords come from high places and low places. It's easy, I bet, to play on the resentment of the lowborn, people who watch family die of diseases that the Order can cure while rich men and nobles use that same Order for entertainment and comfort… I think nobles' sons and daughters can be swayed too… what's really sad about this is that these other three, and the two I killed, they probably didn't come with him to run with rapists and murderers, they joined him for the idea of the Green Men… they joined him to fix things. To bring down the structures that keep so many hungry and poor and so few rich and comfortable."

Balthazar cast a sidelong glance at me. It seemed to ask how much I sympathized with the idea. I could not deny, in my mind, how ironic it was.

"I need your sources. I can't act without them."

I straightened myself and faced him. "Balthazar, the fact is, I don't need you to act."

If his gaze had been just a little sharper it might have drawn actual blood from me. "Don't—"

I cut him off. "You haven't changed all the rules yet. Support as you might have, nobody would have been willing to put total control in your hands. The supreme command of the military still remains with the Sword.

"I can call a session, they won't let you—"

"Call a session all you want, you won't get it done before I set deployment in motion. I just need a day or two. In a day or two I'll prove myself right. We'll ambush and reinforce at just the right points. When every last scrap of this intel is proven true then you'll have the evidence you need to trust this."

His pupils darted, thinking. "I don't know why you can't just reveal your source. My confidence is safe. I've never gone against you, Tiberius."

It was true. And it was tempting. I might have grown jaded at his tactics, and my suspicions of his motives, but he had always been dependable. Still, I shook my head. "It can't be done. The intel is the intel and it's safe. Better than safe, it's a miracle. Consider, if this is true, these numbers, all these extra suits, what chance does Boston have?"

Balthazar nodded slowly. He would not say it, but the gesture communicated the answer. None.

"But if, by magic, we know everything they do before they do it…"

He stared at the map again. "You're asking me to put my faith in mystery."

"No. I'm asking you to put your faith in me."

Stolen novel; please report.

Something about that made him look at me differently.

"There's going to come a time soon when we need to talk, about a lot of things. It's going to require us to really trust each other. I don't mean the way we've worked so far, you helping me, me helping back. I mean a real partnership. I know you now. You want tools, not allies. I understand it even. But I won't be a tool. What I will be is a partner. And if there's going to be anything left for us to partner over, this is where we have to start."

He ran a hand through his hair. It was an utterly even, calm motion, and yet the very existence of the movement was a crack in his armor.

"My status with the people and our association has been the difference to you. It's given you the support and the sway that you've needed. If you go against me, you lose that. If you go against me and I turn out to be right…"

He exhaled. Again, for anyone else it would have been just a breath. For him, it was a chink.

"Very well. Two days. If your information doesn't bear out, you will follow my instructions to the letter for the duration of this war. But, if you can prove your miracles true, then I will be willing to be convinced."

He held out a hand.

I took it.

They came just before the dawn. Twenty thousand Green Men and five thousand professional fighters. Two Griidlords.

Their target was a storage depot on the lands of the Darkwaters. Darkwater liked to stockpile grain on his own lands, play the market, releasing it to the city when the prices were right. It was his right to do so, to maximize. It seemed dirty, preying like that, but I had been raised by Sempronius and was probably the inheritor of wealth gained through means at least as predatory.

The silos were deep in Boston territory. They had pushed for Albany again and struck across the river at two castles. This ordinarily might have been an impossible move, but there could be no chance of a counter given all of that. And the strike here would feed the Green Men, invigorate them. It would strike fear into the hearts of the people and nobles of Boston. If they could come here, kill and take what they wanted, then none would be safe.

The silos were attached to a fairly large village, nearly a town really. There was enough employment with the warehousing to keep enough people engaged, and the facility had been constructed at the heart of the Darkwater farmland where even more were employed in working the land. Here were the sheds where the Darkwaters stored their tractors and machines. Here was a fortune to be taken and a terrible wound to be inflicted.

The defenders fled — a skeleton crew of guards in the first place. The civilians fled as well. Maybe they should have been alarmed by the speed with which the place evacuated before them. People would flee, what else could they do as the army appeared before them, but for everyone to get out? That seemed impossible.

They divided their forces to make quick work. Snowfang and a deserting suit from the empire, Crassus Taysar, another Sword, moved with each half of the forces. The Green Men especially would be dissatisfied if they left the streets untouched. They had come excited for plunder and flesh, and would leave unsatisfied if they could not be certain they had left neither untouched. So the bulk of the Green Men flowed into the streets with Snowfang watching over them, while Crassus deployed the carts and wagons they had brought, directing more of the professional soldiers to commandeer others. He sent units to secure the warehouses and silos.

Crassus was probably there to ensure things went smoothly. He had probably joined with Danefer and the Green Men to see the people bettered, to do something about the system that had confounded humanity since the first Tower rose in Chicago. The people in Buffalo were starving. The army at his feet was starving. He was not inherently a bad man, not necessarily.

He himself stood before the doors of the first warehouse they broke into. Maybe he wanted to see for himself that he could feed those hungry. Maybe he wanted to let the men see he was watching and counting everything they took.

There was more screaming and noise suddenly from the streets yonder than expected. The explanation might be that there were more civilians remaining than expected. Maybe resilient men protecting their women and children. It was a lot of noise. The likeliest explanation was that they had holed up in a gathering hall, barricaded, and were putting up some kind of fight.

The door of the warehouse creaked open. The pale grey dawn light speared into the recesses, sweeping across. The first it touched was the base of a mountain of grain.

Then the horns blew from the streets. The wrong signal. One of alarm. It was an emergency signal, a plea for reinforcement. But that could not be right…

Still, he needed to see beyond the great doors of the warehouse. It would only be seconds, he could see with his own eyes that the grain was here, and then he could move with his own power and the spears of his men to deal with whatever occurred below. How bad could it possibly be, after all?

The light spread across the floor of the warehouse. More grain, mountains, rising higher and higher. And then boots. Armored boots. Griidlord boots.

I watched the light spreading, felt it creeping up my form as I stood before the grain. I heard screams starting around the sheds and silos. Cries of alarm, dismay. The screaming in the streets was growing too, the vibration of battle, of hundreds of swords meeting hundreds of swords.

Crassus stepped back.

I smiled at him. I let him see my face, let him see the cold satisfaction of my expression.

"Surprise."

Then my helm slithered forward, protecting me. The knights buried in the grain heap and hiding behind it surged forward and the fight was on.

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