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already.’
    ‘Have they?’
    ‘Unrest in Szar,’ Praeter said. ‘Their queen dead. They know it all.’
    ‘And you’re not worried?’
    ‘No.’ Without ceremony, Praeter drew off his cloak. The armour beneath was not the banded mail of the Empire but a simple breastplate, half black and half gold. ‘That’s
why they’ve sent us out here, to keep us away from Szar, though there’s no need.’
    ‘Is there not?’ Malkan asked.
    ‘With respect, no. My men are loyal.’
    ‘They’re Auxillians nevertheless, General. You surely can’t say that they’re as loyal as the Imperial Army.’
    ‘They are more loyal,’ Praeter said simply. ‘Nobody understands the Bee-kinden – not even after we conquered their city. The inhabitants of Szar were loyal to
their queen. It was a commitment that they never even thought to break. When we had the queen, we had them too. Now the queen is dead, they have no reason to obey us. That is the root of
Szar.’
    ‘But your men are different?’ Something’s wrong here , Malkan was thinking. Praeter was like a man with a sheathed sword, just waiting for the moment to present
it. All this talk of Auxillians was just a prologue.
    ‘They have sworn an oath to me,’ Praeter said, ‘and they will not break it. An oath from Masaki, which binds them and their families, their fighting sons, to me.’
    ‘And if you die, General?’
    ‘You had better keep me alive, General Malkan.’
    Malkan nodded. Here we go. ‘I must admit, General, that I had expected a frostier man to stand before me. After all, it’s a rare senior officer content to serve beneath
someone twenty years his junior.’ That ‘twenty years’ was a deliberate exaggeration, but not a flicker of annoyance crossed Praeter’s face.
    ‘Why, General Malkan, you mistake me,’ he said blandly. ‘I have no intention of doing so.’
    Malkan carefully raised a single eyebrow.
    Praeter smiled shallowly. ‘Perhaps this will explain.’ He reached for a belt-pouch and retrieved a folded and sealed document, which Malkan took cautiously.
    Men have encountered their death warrants like this , he was aware, but he opened it without hesitation, seeing on the wax the sigil of the palace.
    In a scribe’s neat hand, there were a few brief lines written there: This commission hereby grants to General Praeter of the Imperial Sixth, known as the Hive, on account of his
seniority and notable war record, joint command over the Sixth and Seventh armies, for the duration of the campaign against the Sarnesh.
    Malkan peered at the signature. ‘General Reiner,’ he said slowly.
    ‘Of the Rekef Inlander. He is most kind,’ Praeter said flatly. Malkan felt the situation now balanced on a fulcrum. The Sixth were settling themselves in, the Seventh were already
established. A single word from him and things could get bloody. Bloody and potentially treasonous. The mention of the Rekef, the Empire’s secret service, had charged the air in the
tent as though a storm was about to break.
    ‘You are aware that I was installed in this position by the grace of General Maxin,’ Malkan said. ‘ Also of the Rekef Inlander.’
    ‘Do you have his sealed orders to confirm that?’ Praeter asked him expressionlessly.
    Well, no, of course not, because since when did Rekef generals actually put their own cursed names on such things? Since when was that the drill? But the answer to that was since now , he supposed, because here was Reiner’s own name, clear as day. Malkan had been distantly aware of the Rekef’s internal squabbling, but he had never thought it would
come to bludgeon him out here on the front. Don’t they know there’s a war on?
    ‘Well, General,’ he said, with brittle brightness. ‘Do you have any orders for me, or shall I have my intelligence staff brief you on our present situation?’

 
Three
    Balkus shuffled, shrugging his shoulders about and looking uncomfortable. ‘Remind me again why I’m doing