. . Niklas Blut, Emperor of the Hyddenworld, drummed his fingers impatiently on the metal top of the desk in his new, but he hoped temporary, office. He had no intention of staying there for a second longer than he needed to, meanwhile . . . Tappity-tap, tappity-tap . . . Such signs of stress were unusual in Niklas Blut and had taken him by surprise. He liked being in control, not for the power of it so much as the pleasant feeling of orderliness it instilled in him. But since he had arrived in Englalond with General Quatremayne’s forces, he had lost that feeling entirely. He was now sitting in his quarters in the City, trying to work out a way or ways to get it back. His discomfort had begun the moment he discovered the extent of the Fyrd’s ‘pre-invasion’ activities in Englalond, at which point he knew he had been cleverly outmanoeuvred by the General. The invasion, he now understood, was already well under way.
