The News in Cothon

 The dual-city of Cothon-Gadeed breathes a collective sigh of relief this day, as word has finally come in from the Chora hinterlands--the Great Moot of the Kzinti is breaking up again. The Braves have been blooded as Heroes in their various hunts and violent games, and now the Chieftains and Patriarchs are leading their bands back out into the southern desert and plains, leading coffles of new slaves, new-traded Kzinretti, and their herds of kine.

The Soufets, the Hanse, and various of the merchant-princes of the Mother City are pleased that there was no repeat of the cycle of feuds and bloodshed from the last Moot, though no doubt there are many among the military classes who would have preferred a bit of rioting, to test their spears against the claws of the Kzinti.

Meanwhile, the Kantor Kalbjauhof of the Hanse has increasingly been filled with a flurry of activity--the putting away of great stores, the coming of throngs for the cherished pay of working as an oarsman, and the clamor of armorers. For two great works are being there undertaken:

First is the continued preparation by Captain-General Zaytar the Northerner for his upcoming campaign against the Luwian Pirates that seem sometimes to rule the whole of Dirac's Sea. Citizens of Cothon-Gadeed are of course disbarred from joining in or directly contributing to this service to a foreign state; but many more than citizens dwell in the Mother of Cities, and many of the metics, foreign-residents, freedmen, and slaves--bound by no law against contributing--are flocking to the Kantor seeking employment in Zaytar's great project.

Secondly, more immediately, a smaller expedition is being prepared by Telman of Tsipa, also a Captain of the Hanse. He has been tasked by the Mormaers to put an end to the threat to shipping posed by the Denyen Akho, that dread terror of the deeps, the "embracer of ships". Telman, a young "brightening star" of the Hanse's fleet, has also been granted a special charter by the Soufets of Cothon-Gadeed such that he is allowed even to hire the help of citizens, so terrible has the been the wrack to trade done by the Akho.

Parties interested in either project are invited to inquire at the guest-house of the Kantor Kabljauhof.

Coinciding with the breakup of the Kzinti's Great Moot, and with it, the opening again of the Necropolis of the Tel to the Mourning Societies and various other sects, preparations have begun in the city for the Long Wake and accompanying Peganan Games, both to begin in one week's time. Offering-cakes of bran and sekeker sweet-wax are baking in the public ovens, while great quantities of butter are cooked down to ghee by the Mourners to be poured out as libations for the dead.

And in the Arena-district, the Coreguyi Arena is alive with its own preparations--the gladiators all treated to massages in oil, baths of wine, and all the sweet things of life before the violence of the Games, while the clang and clatter of their armorers preparing their weapons foreshadow the clangor of arms that will rise from the arena in due time.