A scout leaned toward his squad leader and said three words too many, and the officer beside him seized his collar and yanked him forward with a hiss that carried farther than the original comment.
Up and down the Consortium line, veterans who had spent years learning which names to fear clamped down on their own because, by now, every sensible veteran on the Consortium roster knew that the Primordial Villain's reputation was not built on rumors.
Maelstrom stood at the head of his detachment with his arms crossed and his expression set in the particular displeasure of coerced cooperation, heavy and unconcealed.
The Mediator had been clear. Cooperate. Lead our best. Do not provoke Devil. The army general's gaze tracked Quinlan across the open ground, and what it carried was not fear but suspicion, decades of field command sizing up a man a truly insulting fraction of his age.
Alastair Greenvale stood opposite him, and the Duke's composure held because it had to.
