As it stood, they had to pretend to follow the Empress's orders: rout the rebel leaders and bring them back for execution and reclaim the town for Athering. While not really following these commands, they had to get the town to play along as well. Jules couldn't help but feel it promised to be a disaster.
As if to lend veracity to his ill thoughts, two people exited the hacienda then to meet the regimental force: a tall man with a chest like the trunk of a tree and arms like the masts of ships, and a young, slight woman who held a strange-looking weapon that put into Jules' mind drawings from history books of the Second Age.
Second Age weaponry? Oh, yes -- they were deep in the blood water now.
The young woman hailed them, then, and Jules rode closer to the front so he could hear the ex
