The third to be published, this is actually the fifth entry in the timeline of the VLAD TALTOS books, and it represents a darker, more serious turn in the series. Vladimir Taltos is a short-lived, short-statured Easterner (what we would call a human) in a world mostly populated by the long-lived, extremely tall Dragaerans. He is also an assassin and petty crimelord. His lifestyle and career require some difficult moral choices. When his wife Cawti joins an uprising of Easterners and peasant Dragaerans (the Teckla of the title), it causes a severe strain in their marriage, and Vlad begins to question those choices. THE TECKLA WERE REVOLTING I'd always known they were. Teckla were lazy, stupid, cowardly peasants. Revolting. Old joke. But now they were revolting against the Empire. New joke. And a Jhereg crimelord, feeling the pinch, was popping the rebels. No joke. But the real joke? I was protecting them, from Me. Lord Vlad Taltos-loyal grandson, loving husband. Jhereg. Sorcerer. Assassin. Everything the rabble hated. Not that I craved wet-nursing a mob of slogan slobbering, doomed radical loonies, all of whom wanted me dead. Particularly since my royal peers, all of House Jhereg, also wanted me dead...