“What's that word, 'surrender?' I'm surprised this fastness doesn't shake itself apart to hear it uttered.” A fairy sauntered through the portal behind his associates. His onyx-black eyes flashed, and not in the figurative sense favored by serial writers to whom the opportunity to repeat a phrase always appealed. His black hair looked disheveled as it only can when the person beneath it applies care to achieving that effect. As for feathers, of course he had decorated himself with them.

  Either the newcomer was Ksori or else he had dropped by on his way to model for a painter working on a piece called “The Audacious Highwayman,” the purpose of his visit being to thank his neighbors for their excellent advice on how to carry himself like a man who puts thrills and money above morals and, a study of bandit income would probably show, quite a bit more money. Either way, the brigands gained heart at his advent. Some of the fairies ceased dancing long enough to invite Ksori to join them, an unprecedented feat which boggled Dirant. He had the luxury for that sort of behavior, seeing as he had done his single job, though from an excess of professional fervor he began a backup ritual despite the low likelihood he would be given time to complete it.

  Ksori leapt onto the table, and if he did not achieve the height Jiojjil did, none of the brigands had been present for that and therefore rated the current performance as singularly impressive. That spurred them to advance after all, and several fairies resumed their former belligerence in Ksori's wake, excited more by the upcoming battle than by antique dances.

  On that day, a question was answered. The fairies had proclaimed five among them to be the strongest, but what were the details? Were Jiojjil, Ydridd, Ishtu, Ava, and Zatdil superior to other fairies by rank alone or by their inherent strength? Did a set number of positions for exceptional fairies exist such that, with the defeat or resignation of three of them, Lommad and Ksori became more powerful to bring the numbers back up? The truth was in the punch Onsalkant Tlol delivered with his left hand to Ksori's stomach which caused the fairy bandit king to crumple up like mabonnpaper in a tornado.

  “Setback” and “defeat” are not synonyms though, and Ksori righted himself quickly. Another fairy mystery concerned HP. Their status showed none, and yet they evidently had it. Wherever he kept his, Ksori had plenty of vitality left after a single blow, meaty as it was. Meanwhile the free fairies came against the mercenaries, not at all discouraged by their leader's ineffectiveness, if indeed they considered him their leader and not an entertainer who offered them a few weeks' diversion.

  Perhaps they instead ought to have studied the disposition of forces and begun an exchange of letters in a publication relevant to the subject such as The Martially Minded Fairy's Primer. As it was, the first wave suffered a total repulse, though none of the fairies required resurrection. They turned to look at the brigands, heavy with expectation, while the brigands in turn examined the steadfast mercenaries and their own statuses with the utmost care. The exercise assured them victory had not yet decided for one side or the other so long as fairies and humans acted in concert, a glorious microcosm of the fraternity of robbers which transcended tribe, country, and even species up until a dispute arose about the spoils, the relative performance of the band's members, or who had the right to look at whom in what manner. “We're with you!” one declared, his bow drawn and his feet utterly still.

  The display failed to move the Silken Gull Squad, a unit formed out of veterans unaccustomed to entertain the enemy's vain shouts as a guide to their own behavior and also a commercial Ritualist. The mercenaries prepared to meet a second charge, nor did the defenders disappoint them. Such deeds of bravery followed that Wiuyo would have been forced to cut half of them from her song for time reasons had she seen any of it.

  During the clash, the bandit king whooped and somersaulted back off the table. “I don't blame you for wanting to win battles in place of losing them, but as for me, a fair battle is a loss by definition. Some trickery is what I want, I planned it, and you're going to get it now! Aha!” The entire assemblage of brigands shouted “Aha!” with Ksori as he reached behind a statue and fiddled with something.

  Skadlif did not call for a retreat, reasoning anything to be faced was best faced together. It was too late for any but the swiftest to escape, after all. An iron cage, its bars as thick as Jiojjil's spear, descended and trapped the invaders while Ksori laughed.

  The mercenaries joined him in that. The brigands did not. The cage encompassed the entire hall. “You cut off our own escape!” a brigand wailed. “There are traps all over we cannot use!” Ksori could do nothing but shrug during his band's subsequent defeat and capture.

  He was a good sport about the whole thing. A pettier fairy might have refused to explain how to retract the iron cage, though even furnished with that information the mercenaries had trouble carrying his instructions out. Reaching through the bars at the proper angle to reach the mechanism was a feat not all could accomplish, and Skadlif had turned away all the Acrobats who applied for a place.

  Ksori further directed the rescuers toward the cells where he stashed his victims, which sped up the operation far beyond what might have been expected. “Did anyone else presume they were kept underground?” Takki asked. She was relieved to learn her misapprehension derived not from a personal fault or an inefficiency in her homeland's imprisonment techniques. Everyone regardless of tribe had thought the same thing, but Ksori flouted tradition as readily as he would have the laws if any existed in the fairy world.

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  He had reasons beyond mere perverseness, the victors learned when he offered persuasive arguments for his decision to place the holding cells on the second and third floors. “The ground and basement stories are riddled with escape routes, and escape is a privilege we reserve for ourselves. Really, I never had a notion of laying out our place of business otherwise and am surprised that you're surprised.”

  “We are surprised because robbers rarely have the means,” Skadlif explained, and his colleagues agreed that governments alone stored their undesirables in towers despite the practical benefits of the arrangement.

  Aside from bare existence of higher floors, surprising as that was, their relative opulence astounded the outsiders; relative, that is to say, not to the rest of the compound but rather to the typical prison, barracks, or company housing. Ksori deprived his unwilling guests of privacy but not space. Each room extended far enough from its mandatory iron bars that the resident was able to pace across it without bumping into himself coming the other way, a hazard reported by some who endured especially long confinements in government towers.

  Despite the luxuriousness of their accommodations, superior in fact to many hotels, the kidnapped all expressed relief and gratitude, the proportion of the two differing by individual. The mercenaries returned those exact feelings, in their case gratitude to the victims for having made themselves worth something to others and relief as to their prospects for discharging various financial obligations.

  Only in one case was a prisoner's release accompanied by the powerful sentiment known as friendship. “Good afternoon, Mr. Doltandon. It appears that Ksori and his associates rejected your offer.”

  “They very foolishly did, Dirant! You may still address me as Yurvitas, by the way.”

  “And yet I do not.”

  Doltandon Yurvitas, though allotted the same space as every other prisoner and presumably treated no worse in other respects, was in an exceptionally agitated state. He may have already reached the phase of pacing across the walls and ceiling which the sufferers of the longest confinements reported reaching for all that the jailers remembered it differently. Upon the fact of his changed circumstances having reached his understanding, he gathered his urbanity and Panache from the corners of his cell where he had dropped them. “Each of us has his own opinions. For now, my feelings overcome me, meek as I am, and leave me unable to do anything but shudder, batted back and forth between thankfulness and elation like a tennis ball. What more is there to say but await the perfection of your benevolence in my release?”

  “What is your name, sir?” asked Skadlif in a tone as if courtesy itself had manifested as a Mabonn.

  “Doltandon Yurvitas, sir.”

  “The list does not include that name, sir,” said Skadlif in a manner not unlike apathy itself, fallen to earth through sheer negligence.

  “Yes, that is unsurprising.” Doltandon had picked up his Discernment along with his other qualities and therefore had indeed expected that outcome. “Still, you will not be deceived into thinking there will be no reward commensurate with the very minor task of opening my cell at the same time as all these others, Mr., oh, of course in Greater Enloffenkir introductions are necessary even when we all know who you are.”

  Spite was one thing and malice another, and what noble feelings they both are. Nevertheless, they must shrink before etiquette, the very stuff of which society is formed. Dirant performed the introduction. “This opportunity is a blessing for me. Doltandon Yurvitas. Skadlif Derogillen.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Dirant. Mr. Skadlif, there is to be sure no reward for my return. That I grant. Why shouldn't we look for more profit than that? Once out of here, I will alienate a portion of Queen Ydridd's army from her service, this is an audacious statement in the ears of the uninformed but pure truth nevertheless, and conclude an agreement with Mr. Atkosol Tellanstal. A portion of the earnings will go to you. Will my army be good? Not at all, but it will be enough. Trust me in this and all will acclaim you a gentleman more than they do already, which is a very loud cry to be sure.”

  “It is so,” Dirant confirmed, causing Doltandon to frown. Flattery was a tricky matter; an excess of it seemed condescending, the right amount depended on the recipient, and too little was worse than none. Evidently he had miscalculated in believing the mercenary before him to be “the mercenary” rather than someone of importance.

  “I must trust in results, which are soon seen.” Skadlif's response disturbed Doltandon still further until Dirant explained.

  “A part of that very army stands before this base and distracts the remainder of the brigands.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Miss Gelfid mustered it.”

  “That is very possible. I could speak for hours of the opportunities you missed by leaving us so early, Mr. Dirant, and of the plenty I intended for you, Mr. Taomenk, and Mr. Aptezor to share with me. I will do so later. For now you must be content with hearing the most precious was the opportunity to learn more about one another. Why do we pass others in the street so quickly? What do we miss in our unnecessary haste?”

  Though unsure of the “we,” Dirant accepted the gist. “That Miss Gelfid is capable of extraordinary loyalty, or?”

  “Yes! She has other qualities too. Well then, release me, Mr. Skadlif, and I will inflame the army by telling the troops of my mistreatment and how Queen Ydridd is unquestionably the cruelest creature in the world to permit it.”

  “Hm.”

  “Likely he is capable of it,” Dirant attested.

  Skadlif shrugged and requested that Ksori open that one too. Effecting an unprofitable release cost less time than arguing about it. If both cost more than ignoring Doltandon Yurvitas from the beginning, even the condottieri who reached the apex of financial success in their field belted their humane feeling on their belts next to their ruthless swords, or if they did not, retirement was their chance to take it back up, much as many went into painting, coin collecting, or interest in narrow historical fields.