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leader and best friend. All the guilds had suffered similar fates, each leader captured or killed, ranks decimated.
    “I don’t care how they take it,” Thar said, voice flat, “as long as they obey. And you’d better control your men. Not only will I cripple any Consortium member who disobeys my order, but I will leave them for the king’s soldiers.” Thar let his words sink in as Tomas’ gaze inadvertently drifted to the gibbets lining Deadman’s Gap near the militia. Inside each steel cage were King Ainslen’s enemies, guild members and nobles alike. A few were dead, rotting bodies left as a reminder of the fate that awaited those still alive. If the harsh winter didn’t kill them, starvation would.
    “Why the change of heart, Keshka? The people that remain here aren’t ours.” Tomas turned to regard him, wearing a scowl. “All these years spent trying to topple the nobility, to remove the hands choking the life from us, the murderers who would make it seem as if we wantonly killed and raped our own, now the chance is before us and you balk? Why now?”
    Thar understood Tomas’ argument. The man was a product of the Smear. As it was for so many others who joined the Consortium, he had been a child destined to become a Blade whether he wanted the calling or not. His parents chose a different life for him in hopes of liberating their people. He was a grizzled veteran, there from the Consortium’s inception, when Thar had banded together Kasandar’s largest guilds, the Shaded Snakes, the Coinmen, the Red Beggars, and the Shipmen, and formed them into something more than a vilified bunch of cutthroats, thieves, and smugglers gifted with the ability to meld. Thar had given them a purpose.
    “My heart hasn’t changed, and neither has my goals. Ainslen will fall. We will bring change to the Empire for the betterment of all its people, but not at the expense of innocents.” Thar took in the Smear once more. “The very fact that the people who remained here are not those descended from our blood, and lack the means to protect themselves from the nobility, is more than enough reason for us to reconsider our approach.”
    He had more reasons than that for calling off the attacks, reasons he couldn’t reveal to Tomas. His brother was one in particular. Once a month the king had brought Delisar out to be flogged in front the gibbets. Those beatings had stopped with the onset of the recent skirmishes. If he wished to save Delisar, the best chance would be right there, at Deadman’s Gap. Ainslen needed to believe it was safe again.
    Thar pointed to the Smear’s downtrodden remnants. “They’re here more by necessity than choice. The king doesn’t care how many commoners he kills in his efforts to put us down. In his eyes, they … we … are all dregs, undeserving of life. We’re no better than him if we continue fighting in the city and cause the destruction of the little they have left.”
    “All we know is the fight in one form or another,” Tomas said. “It’s all we’ve ever had. What do we do now if not fight?”
    Tomas was right. Either you fought or you died in the Smear. Such was the cost of survival. The abhorrent conditions made criminals of the best men, whores of its women, and thieves of its children. Of course, the nudge from the nobility and the Order ensured things remained that way.
    “There will be fighting aplenty, just not in the city,” Thar said, studying the wisemen once more. “Our recent struggle relied on Ainslen’s cruelty, on his heinous acts, on trying to expose the role the Order plays in all of this. Against their apparent compassion, we are at a disadvantage.”
    “We feed the commoners also,” Tomas argued. “We give them a home in the Undertow during the winter and much more besides. On the dreariest days we’ve given them hope.”
    “Agreed, but that hope and support is limited. For the moment, Ainslen and the Order provide much more than we can. Not just