The law in Haven-Hold was not given from gold-trimmed thrones or marble courthouses.
It was enforced on the exact spot where the rule-break occurred, measured by standard town regulations and recorded on three-part carbon-copy yellow slips.
In the damp, vaulted drainage under-road drain of Work Sector Seven, Giles Croft set up a folding wooden drafting stool, placed his ledger across his knees. Then he uncapped his brass metal pen.
The six captured Trade ring tunnel diggers sat lined up against the curved concrete wall, guarded by Captain Kenneth Drake and Rathmor the Rusty.
The sapper commander, now conscious with a throbbing purple bruise beneath his hairline, stared at Giles with trembling, bloodshot eyes.
In Maras, captured saboteurs were stripped, flayed alive. Then he hung in iron gibbets over the smelting pits to die of thirst.
The six hired blades sat rigid, waiting for the butcher’s knives.
Instead, Giles tore off the first yellow carbon slip from his pad and began reading with flat, office rhythm.
