The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin series) by Daniel Abraham Page A

think I like doing this? Do you think it’s something I take pleasure in? It’s not!” All around, the conversations went quiet. The eyes of the court turned toward them. Toward him. Geder lifted his chin, his rage giving him confidence. “This isn’t a choice we made. They knew what would happen. They made the decision. They
made
us do this. If the roaches can’t be bothered to love their children, I don’t see why we should.”

Entr’acte: Borja
     
    T he Low Palace at Tauendak looked down over the river port. The High Palace faced the sea. On the dragon’s road that wound into the city from the east, there were no palaces, no compounds of the rich or powerful, only the defense walls. The first was in stone and as tall as two men, the second twice the height and girded by plates of iron. The wars of the Keshet might sweep north into Borja, but those waves broke against the walls of Tauendak. There were even songs about it.
    Ships might come to the seaport from as near as the cities and towns of Hallskar or as far as Cabral and Lyoneia. The river trade was all from Inentai, or had been before the Anteans ate the city. Since then, there hadn’t been many barges at the river port.
    Within, the city was broad and flat. Seen from above, Tauendak looked like an exercise in cross-hatching done by some great and godlike artist. Roads ran north to south at the bases of the flat-roofed buildings, caught most of the day in some level of shadow and darkness. Bridges spanned east to west above them, their railings painted yellow. And every few blocks the wide circle of a ramp let oxcarts rise up or sink down. Temples rose above all, red brass and blue tile.
    The people of the city were of the Eastern Triad: Jasuru, Yemmu, Tralgu. Timzinae were welcomed, especially thoserelated by marriage to the traditional families that ruled Borja and Sarakal. Dartinae, Haaverkin, and Firstblood were permitted in the city, but barred from certain kinds of trade. Southlings were called Eyeholes, and walked the streets with guards, if at all. Mostly they stayed away. And the Drowned… Well, what could anyone do about the Drowned? They washed through the bay and out again. No one fished for them or sold their flesh at market, because it was ritually unclean, though whether that was because they were another race of humanity or because they were filthier than fish was a matter of some debate.
    Damond Gias had been born at the cunning man’s house three streets south of the Red Temple twenty-six years before. As a Jasuru, he had lived in his uncle’s compound, carrying weights of grain and beans and ore from the caravanserai in the east of the city to the ports, carrying weights of fish and rope back to the caravanserai. His cousins and brothers and sisters lived with him until they married. He himself had no interest in women, and the lovers he took among the men of the city had no interest in raising children, so the question of marriage never came up for him. And so it was natural enough that, when the representative of the Regos came and called upon his uncle to give one of the family over in service to the city for ten years, Damond had been picked.
    He hadn’t minded. The life of a guardsman wasn’t harder than that of a carter, and the uniform brought a certain level of respect with it. Most violence could be handled with threat, and when that failed, he had a group of well-armed men from across the city who felt that any attack on him was an attack on all of them. Even the odious duties of collecting taxes and closing businesses that hadn’t given up their share to the council weren’t too awful. It had takenyears, in fact, to find a duty among the many duties of the city guard that was so soul-crushingly dull, so arbitrary and absurd, that Damond genuinely dreaded it.
    Blood duty was a new thing, a ritual from the west that stank of panic and war-fear. But war-fear had its hand on Tauendak too, and so it went. He didn’t have to