The Bank had set up a war room to handle the underwriting for the various joint stock corporations that were being set up. People did point out that calling it a “war room,” under the circumstances, was in somewhat bad taste. Other people pointed out that they could either do their jobs or argue over a good-taste term for the room. Also President Xiatoktok was a notorious traditionalist and weren’t there still an awful lot of empty desks still around? You’d hardly notice one more, would you?

So they set up a war room. And, like war, underwriting was hell. Each offering had its own dedicated team. Even the Grand Ramparts wasn’t big enough for each team to focus on one initial offering. They had to double and triple up. What did they have to triple up? Well.

“Alright, Cold Garden Steel Corp. What do you have for me?” ’Mia looked harshly over at the associate, who had the wisdom and spine not to cringe.

“Municipal funded corp, so we are buying one hundred percent of the initial public offering and selling one hundred thousand shares at not less than ten rad per share. Presentation packet is ready for the road show, and we expect to run the auction in two weeks.”

“They think they can build an iron bacteria bog on a scale big enough to support mass production and a steel foundry big enough to support military and industrial production, for a million rads? It’s YOUR JOB to tell them when they are screwing up. Do you not see this as a screw up, Associate?” ’Mia didn’t just look skeptical, she looked pissed.

“No, Vice President, I do not. The IPO isn’t meant to secure all the necessary capital to bring the company to industrial scale. It is meant to provide enough capital to get pilot programs going, do prototyping, proof of concept stuff. Once they know what, exactly, they want to build and can build, they will raise the rest of the capital. Either by selling more stock or by buying loans. All of which is in the prospectus.” His voice was steady, and he wasn’t afraid to look her in the eye. Promising lad. ’Mia smiled.

“Sounds good. Where do you think they will raise the necessary funds? Cold Garden won’t have much investable income at that point.”

“There are four more cities in the Alliance we can raise money from with limited effort. And since it is a municipal company, Cold Garden will always retain majority ownership and the right to override the interests of minority shareholders.”

“So no worries about selling to Red Mountain.” Xiatokmia concluded.

“Our only concern is milking them for every centi-rad.”

“Well done. See to it.” She dismissed him. He bowed and left without another word. He strode confidently out the door, confidently down the hall, confidently into the privy, and threw up everything he had ever eaten, shaking and hugging the bowl.

There was a soft knock on the stall door barely a minute later. “Associate?” The bathroom attendant asked gently. “You are needed back in the war room. Vice President Xiatokmia is ready to discuss the Winter’s Bounty Ice Company.”

The associate straightened his robes, made sure there was not a speck of vomit on him, and strode confidently to the sink. He rinsed with the anise flavored grain alcohol, spat, and confidently went back in. The attendant sighed, and swapped in a clean chamber pot. At this rate, they should be on the third bottle of mouthwash by lunch.

It said something about Cold Garden that even after such a horrific violation, the war machine did not roar into life. This was because there was no war machine. What war machine there had been was long ago disassembled. Therefore it was the process of building the war machine grumbled and sputtered into some semblance of motion. The new corporations would form the productive backbone and restart the economy.

The military, however, wasn’t even a bad joke. The militia had managed, with casualties, to bunch together with their pikes on narrow streets and walk in a straight line. Nobody, not even their officers, suggested they be put in the field. Which is why they were being put in the field.

“MAKE READY!” A leather lunged lieutenant bellowed. “BY THE RIGHT. MARCH!” They marched, pikes at arms, directly forward. The perfectly flat field seemed to be manageable. The lieutenant tried not to look at the captain. They both knew what was coming next. “COLUMN LEFT. MARCH!”

On the order, the column attempted to turn left, as a unit, keeping the same people in the same order and position in the formation, while maintaining the formation. On the one hand, it was a fairly basic drill maneuver. On the other hand, it actually required the soldiers to individually execute an exact series of turns to maintain the formation.

It was a wreck. Soldiers misremembered their turns, lost the timing, and walked into each other. They lost control of their pikes, which fell or slapped around out of control. This had the “happy” effect of demonstrating the power of leverage, as the pikes would take a passing shin as a fulcrum, another as the driving force, and whip twenty feet of hard ash wood at the legs of everyone nearby. This was not an isolated incident.

No, the Lieutenant decided, it was not a wreck. It was a slaughter. He had exterminated his command by asking them to turn left. “PLATOON. HALT! ORDER. ARMS!” Groaning and swearing, those still capable of standing did so, bringing their pikes to rest at their sides. The order was supposed to be executed silently, but under the circumstances, the Lieutenant wasn’t going to say anything.

“I can’t accept your resignation, Simmnel,” The Captain said with deceptive casualness. “Even though I know you want to offer it.”

“Permission to commit suicide out of sheer shame, Sir?”

“Denied. And in extraordinarily bad taste.”

The Lieutenant went white. He had worked hard to forget.

“I apologize Sir.”

They were silent as they watched the battered militia try to come to some sort of order. The lieutenant had the single most successful platoon of pikes during the Night of Burning Tears. They had even been praised for how well drilled they were. For a glorious few days, they felt some real pride, bristling at the sniggering mercenaries. Back to being trash and knowing it, apparently.

“The thing is, Lieutenant, they can’t stay this way.”

“No Sir.”

“I mean comprehensively. We will likely be phasing out pikes in the next year or so, but basic route marching should be something every soldier can manage. Right now, they can’t even march to where the battle will be fought, let alone maneuver on the battlefield. They know it too. So they feel ashamed and awkward, because they have all this anger and nowhere to show their fire. As a result, they have all the morale of damp toast, and considerably less vigor.”

“I’m afraid you’re right, Sir. They’re good soldiers, but…”

“But nothing. They are good people. We, Lieutenant, are going to make them good soldiers.” The captain grinned. “Nice cold day. Just the thing to keep you fresh on a march. Let’s have ‘em stow the pikes and form up. We are going to spend the rest of the winter building them up from scratch. By the end of it, we WILL have a force to be feared.”

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“Yes Sir!”

Of course, no matter how strong Cold Garden grew militarily, it would never be more than a small force compared to the great powers struggling around them. Therefore, the most important matter for the military was, in fact, diplomacy. A delegation of City Councilors braved the cold and snow to visit the Langpopo encampment near Raven’s Nest Pass. The tribe had taken over Becklund entirely, but then, there wasn’t much to take over. More like they moved in, and the locals moved out or joined the camp.

The City Councilors reported that the Langpopo had dug in through the expedient of not digging- they built sandbag fortifications. They had sensibly concluded that nothing they could build would stand up to coordinated artillery fire. Instead, they focused on keeping their people protected from small arms fire and denying the Collective the ability to move artillery in range of the Langpopos artillery. This was achieved by aggressive scouting in and around the mountains, using the Langpopo’s justifiably legendary mobility to cover the whole range. The Collective were comfortable in the mountains too, and were also aggressively pushing scouts forward.

The Tribe played it cool, but it looked like silent battles were already underway. An invisible struggle between scouts, where winning meant survival and failure, a slit throat and a shallow grave. The war leader was quite happy to create any sort of alliance that Cold Garden desired, however, his “alliance” was of… limited use.

The Langpopo were colloquially referred to as a tribe, but in actuality they were a tribal confederation. There were dozens of tribes, ranging from a few hundred members all the way up to tribes numbering in the tens of thousands. The tribes operated as scattered bands, coming together in larger and larger groups as the size of the external problems got larger and larger. Really big problems, like the Grand Renaissance that made the Disputed Territory habitable or the outbreak of war with the Collective, had them come together for a grand Tribal Assembly. They were meeting more regularly now, but even something like managing a strategic pass was delegated to a large subsidiary tribe. There was very little central command.

“Although that’s changing.” The war leader grinned. “Some of us see which way the wind is blowing, the need for strong leadership. A few tribes, for now, willing to make the necessary sacrifices to secure our children’s future.”

“We have been wondering where you were getting the artillery, coil guns and solar charging panels.” One of the councilors said.

“Heh. Secret. For now.”

The Councilors left with pockets full of verbal promises and some new worries.

Back in Cold Garden, small group of Councilors and Chanticleers met in Councilor Suhana’s home. A notorious, as those things went, anti-Xia hardliner, she attracted like minded souls. Her little weekly “working group” meetings were a nice, safe little bubble for ideas not suitable for a suddenly hostile environment.

“I think it’s mind control. These Xia vampires have to be using some sort of mass hypnosis. How else, how fucking else-” One Councilor was, perhaps, a little too comfortable.

“Language!” Suhana scolded mildly. “And money. To me, that's the really insidious thing. It looks like they are spending money on philanthropy, but they are actually buying control.”

A chanticleer tapped his nose. “Exactly. And they want to co-opt us into it. Make us part of their system. “Buy in. Take ownership.” All their language is based on commerce. On the owning of things and people. Nothing of faith or community or love. Pure, cold, acquisition.”

“Now, I think we are all agreed that the Xia end goal is always owning the City and the Throng. I mean, they all but call us cattle already.” The first Councilor cut in. The group nodded. “But they do have a lot of resources and connections we don’t. Now, OUR goal is always going to be cleaning them out and then… cleaning them out.” More nods. “But my question to the group tonight is, do we have a timing issue, or a timing opportunity here? Lots of things changing, and the Xia are at the heart of almost all of them.”

“Might make some fence sitters find the fence a little more pokey.” Suhana smiled slightly.

“Exactly. The only reason they came out with all this education nonsense, not to mention all the… recovery assistance…” A chanticleer cut in. “Was because we were pushing them hard. City was turning our way and everyone knew it. Now, some little whore sells her body and soul to the Grand Leech himself and everyone acts like we’re all friends!”

That met with an uncomfortable silence. “Evren, something you need to tell us?”

“What’s to F-” He took a deep breath and calmed down. “What’s to tell? I lost two hundred people in the Black Revel. Two hundred. I know most of us chanticleers lost people that day.” He saw the lost look on some faces.

“Maybe you don’t get it. Chanticleers are in our neighborhoods all day, every day. We know each and every one of our neighbors. Really know them. We grew up with ‘em, married ‘em, buried them. Those weren’t numbers to me, ’Ri, they were people I knew all my life. And they marched into that damned square and committed suicide in despair. And left their bodies to the Dusties. THE DUSTIES! And left their last words for a thrice damned, pox ridden slut!”

The room was quiet. The raw emotion smothered their words. His fellow chanticleers came over and gave him a hug. It helped. After a minute, Suhana got things moving again.

“A crisis of the faith, though few see it as that. It is a subtle, insidious thing, especially since Gentian keeps putting her faith and identity front and center. Actually, can we use that? Reach her through her Chanticleer?”

A councilor shook his head. “Already checked that. The Neighborhood around her house,” That got some chuckles. “Sorry, her Master's house, is lead by Gabredine Chennchelik. She’s got two cousins that married into the Xia, three quarters of her neighborhood work for the Xia, and most of the last quarter are the Xia. To say she isn’t persuadable is an understatement.”

Evren looked like he was about to spit, but stopped at a glare from Suhana.

“We are straying. We have an opportunity to milk the Xia here. How do we make sure we get the benefit, and they don’t get the credit?” Suhana asked.

“Push the idea that this is their duty. Why were they hoarding all this to begin with? How many people starved, died, were miserable because the Xia hoard knowledge and wealth?” Someone suggested, to general approval.

“Good start. What about military service? I’m seeing a lot of Xia mercenaries wandering around, but comparatively few Xia in the militia. Do they think they are too good to join? In fact, shouldn’t they be drilling with the rest of their neighborhoods?” Another suggested.

“Right. Just asking the questions here. No reason for them to get so defensive. Unless there is a reason they don’t want people asking questions.” A Councilor grinned. “Speaking of questions, I think that the war effort demands a complete understanding of the resources available in the city. A total and complete statement of accounts, subject to very active auditing, of all Xia holdings seems like a common sense first step. After all, they pride themselves on their record keeping. They can set a good example. Or become one.”

That met with quite a lot of approval, and some laughs. The meeting went on for another half hour, and at the end of it they had agreed on next steps. For the good of the City and the Throng, of course. Suhana waved them out the door. She then returned to her study and wrote up minutes for the meeting. As best she could recall, she connected people to statements, ideas, plans. What the next steps were. She neatly blotted the ink, and lay the papers at the corner of her desk, facing the study door.

Suhanna rang the little bell for service. A maid appeared, bowing politely. She walked to the desk and read the papers carefully. She then nodded, folded them, and hid them in her dress. From a little concealed pocket, she took out a vial of powder. Suhanna started shaking.

“Please. I don’t want it. Not today. Please.”

“Now now, you know what happens if you don’t get it. Remember when you tried to break your promise? You don’t want that to happen again.” Suhana started shaking harder. “Although this seems like a good time for you to show some gratitude. Aren't you thankful that I didn’t report that? Can you imagine your family suffering the way you did?”

“I. I already…”

“Thank me for keeping them out of it.” The maid calmly demanded. She looked utterly bored by Suhana’s tiny spark of defiance. In the end, Suhana couldn’t even meet her eyes.

“Thank you.” Suhana collapsed further in on herself.

“That’s better. Get your special spoon out, Suhana. And your special little candle. You will have to buy a new one soon, and they are very expensive, aren’t they. Good, good. Now. I will help you since you were so good today…